AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2008 > February > 04
Monday, February 4, 2008
Braves pitching looks solid
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
So: You’re the newly minted general manager of a club that has finished third two seasons running, and your biggest rival just traded for the best pitcher in baseball. Your reaction?
“My reaction is that I can only take care of the Atlanta Braves,” Frank Wren said Monday. “I can’t control what other teams do.”
It’s a boilerplate response, but it’s also the only one that makes sense. Of all franchises, this one should know that seeking to match a divisional opponent pitcher for starting pitcher is the road to ruin. (Remember Len Barker, imported in 1983 at the massive expense of Brett Butler and Brook Jacoby because the Dodgers had dealt for Rick Honeycutt?) And it is, after all, only February.
Pitchers are gathering daily at Turner Field for the early-throwing camp — Andruw Jones, who’s neither a pitcher or even a Brave, made an appearance Monday to hit in the cage — and the big news is that the Braves no longer feel pressed to rustle up more arms to fill out their rotation. Said Wren: “I like the health of our guys. We’ve got some depth coming in.”
And then this: “I think we’ll send at least three major-league starters to Richmond.”
That’s a change. Last summer the Braves couldn’t put three major-league starters in Atlanta; this time Wren feels he has eight or nine guys capable of filling the five spots. Which means the Class AAA R-Braves, in their final season before resettling in Gwinnett, could well have the rotation to win the International League again. (The Governors’ Cup makes a lovely parting gift.) It would also mean that the parent club should be able to keep pace with the Mets and the Phillies in the NL East.
Said Wren: “They’re both good clubs, but I think we match up really well with them.”
You know Tim Hudson and John Smoltz. That’s two. You remember Tom Glavine. That’s three. Assuming he’s healthy, Mike Hampton would make four, but that’s the same assumption that undid the Braves these past two seasons. The difference this time? Said Wren: “We’re covered very well.”
He mentioned Jair Jurrjens, who arrived in the Edgar Renteria trade with Detroit. Signing Glavine was the transaction that commanded all the ink, but getting Jurrjens, who’s 22 and who started seven games for the Tigers in 2007, was a smaller move that should have a much longer shelf life. Jurrjens has a big-league arm, which is more than could be said for Mark Redman.
A sign of changing times: Chuck James, by default the No. 3 starter last season, might not make the 25-man roster this March. He’s in a fight with Jurrjens and Jo-Jo Reyes and Buddy Carlyle and Jeff Bennett to stay off that last train to AAA.
“We were in the mix to try and acquire more pitching last winter and all season long, but there really wasn’t anything out there,” Wren said. “We just didn’t have the depth to weather any storms. I’m most comfortable we can weather those storms now.”
Wren looks and sounds excited, which you’d expect. He waited nearly eight years for John Schuerholz to vacate the chair. Waiting wasn’t always easy, especially when speculation arose that Dayton Moore, the farm director who has since become the Kansas City general manager, had become the heir apparent. But here Wren is, and for his patience he was handed a four-year contract and an act that can’t possibly be followed.
When last the Braves had a new GM, they went from sixth place in the NL West to the 10th inning of Game 7 of the World Series. From there they finished first over each of the next 13 completed seasons. “I’d take half that,” Wren said, laughing. “I’d take a quarter of that.”
Let’s start with one. By jaded local standards, it has been a long time — two years and counting — between division titles. It has been so long that we around here might actually appreciate the next one.
Permalink | Comments (52) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
A Super Bowl beyond compare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Let me first say this, that after all these years of Super Boredom, I have just watched the most memorable Super Bowl of them all. A jewel. A Super Bowl that lived up to and far exceeded all the others beyond all measures. An Everest among Rockies. Not a Brady, but another Manning masterpiece. Not Peyton this time, the kid brother Eli, who grew 10 feet tall in one evening in Arizona.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there. It would have been worth the trip and all the excesses. Even Arlen Specter, the senator-cum-commissioner, couldn’t make a dent in this spectacle. Nothing could let the air out of Tom Coughlin’s balloon. Here’s to the weathered old coach, run out of Jacksonville, having to make a case for himself with the Giants to hold his job one more year, then taking his show on the road and stealing the locals’ thunder. Tampa Bay, Dallas, Green Bay in a blizzard — Barnum and Bailey never had a better run. There was no wiggle room. Win or go home.
This one, No. 42, was different. Coughlin’s crowd didn’t have to win this one. They had already overshot every goal set for them. They were facing the most perfect team in the history of the NFL. Tom Brady was Mr. America, be-dimpled features, excessively handsome and charming as a knight. Bill Belichick, grumpy, usually dressed in the style of the non-extinct Maytag repairman, and a push for the image established by Vince Lombardi. Poor old Tom Coughlin, he had no chance in a Mr. Personality contest. By the time he got to Phoenix, the crystal trophy (named for Lombardi) had virtually been awarded to the Patriot from Boston.
What happened will be dissected, bisected and autopsied until football is played on Mars. Yeah, you have to hand it to Manning, the back-up brother. All the other Giants could do was hold the fort until Eli found his game. And I’ll say this, when Brady connected with Randy Moss for a 14-10 lead, I thought it was over. These were the great Patriots, who might win by three touchdowns. Ha!
Who could ever forget those last few minutes, when Eli squirted out of a threshing mess of Giants and Patriots, tore loose from some guy who had hold of his shirt, then threw a pass that David Tyree didn’t catch, but balanced on his headgear like a circus seal. Then the dagger, Eli’s pass that Plaxico Burress caught for the last touchdown. Brady had a few rockets left in his arsenal, but the Giants’ defense wasn’t losing this one.
In the final summation, with all due respect to Eli and his cast, this one belonged to the defense. To Michael Strahan, to Osi Umenyiora, to Justin Tuck, to Antonio Pierce, to James Butler and Kawika Mitchell and all the trench warriors. They didn’t get to Phoenix to play dead for New England. They smothered Laurence Maroney and the running game. (His net was 36 yards, wasn’t it?) True, they couldn’t keep Wes Welker under control, but his damage was only a sting, not a bite. Moss was constrained, just as he was throughout the postseason.
Only in the latter stages of the season did Coughlin have all his Giants in health. You had to check through the press guide to come up with some of the stars, Steve Smith, Ahmad Bradshaw, Kevin Boss, Brandon Jacobs and Tyree, not to mention that all this was done without Jeremy Shockey. (Some critics said Manning was better off without him.)
Eli didn’t come out blazing. Not until he got the Patriots off on an 83-yard drive to take the lead did he begin to show his authority. That was his launching point. He was in the game. He and his defense were now on the same page, and the rest of the evening would be theirs. I’ve seen 40 of these, a great deal of them a sorrowful conclusion to the draggy, party-laden Super Bowl Week. It will be a long time before you ever see another like this, if ever.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Furman Bisher
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
