Lowe welcomes high expectations

The first impression: Derek Lowe seems like a laid-back fella you’d want to watch a ball game with, not a pitcher you expect to see put a team on his back.

But the Braves’ new $60 million man said he knows when to get serious. Lowe doesn’t merely tolerate the high expectations everyone will have for the new guy at the top of the starting rotation. He encourages them.

“Absolutely, I hope everybody expects a lot out of me,” said the right-hander, introduced at a Friday news conference at Turner Field, three days after agreeing to a four-year, $60 million contract.

“I love that challenge. I want people to expect me to beat teams in our division, and when I don’t I’m going to be upset,” said the 6-foot-6 sinkerballer, who’s averaged 15 wins and 208 innings for seven seasons.

“I want to have them look at you when you face [Mets ace Johan] Santana or [Phillies ace Cole] Hamels and, if you don’t have success, to be upset.”

He’s come a long way since his early years in the majors, maturing into a pitcher who said he relishes working with and helping young players.

Lowe believes he can play a big role in leading Atlanta back to perennial playoff contender, after three years without a postseason and a 90-loss, fourth-place division finish in 2008.

After initially targeting Atlanta’s National League East rivals Philadelphia and the New York Mets — and Boston and the N.Y. Yankees — as possible destinations, a long visit with Braves officials on Jan. 8 changed his mind.

“This is a great day,” said Lowe, who was 14-11 with a 3.24 ERA in 211 innings last season for the Los Angeles Dodgers, including 6-1 with a 1.27 ERA in his last 10 starts. “When you think about the Atlanta Braves, you think about starting pitching. That’s what the organization has always been about.

“I left here [after the Jan. 8 visit in Atlanta] feeling very comfortable that this is a place I’d love to play. The division is very competitive. [But] we feel like we have every right to win this division. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

After falling short in the pursuit of aces Jake Peavy and A.J. Burnett, the Braves outbid the Mets for Lowe.

They paid more than planned, in a deal a year longer than they would’ve preferred to guarantee a 35-year-old. But the Braves wanted him badly, and felt comfortable enough to make an offer to assure they got him.

They got him three days after signing Japanese pitcher Kenshin Kawakami to a three-year, $23 million contract, and trading for Javier Vazquez in December.

“Our primary focus this offseason was to rebuild our pitching staff,” general manager Frank Wren said. “I think this was one of the final steps in doing that. [Lowe] gives us the top-of-the-rotation pitcher we were looking for.”

Lowe and John Smoltz, the Braves icon who left for the Boston Red Sox, are two of three pitchers in history with both a 40-save and a 20-win season. Since moving to Boston’s rotation in 2002, Lowe is 106-75 with a 3.79 ERA.

He’s tied with Santana and Mike Mussina for third-most wins in that span, behind Houston’s Roy Oswalt (115) and Toronto’s Roy Halladay (113). Lowe and Livan Hernandez are the only active pitchers with at least 12 years of service who’ve never been on the disabled list.

“Two hundred innings is the magic number for starters, [and] he’s going to give you that,” Braves third baseman Chipper Jones said last week, after he made a recruiting call to Lowe.

“He’s going to keep you in ball games. … He’s not a power strikeout guy, so we’re going to have to play good defense behind him. I don’t foresee that being a problem. Our infield is solid.

“However our outfield shapes up looks to be solid, so at least defensively, we’re going to have his back. That’s what you want — top of your rotation, a guy that you know will go out there every fifth day, give you six, seven, eight innings, work fast, keep the ball on the ground, keep you in the game and give you a chance to win.”

Lowe only began considering the Braves three weeks ago, after agent Scott Boras told him of the strength of Atlanta’s infield defense, its core of young players, and several elite prospects, including pitching phenom Tommy Hanson.

It helped plenty that he has such huge respect for manager Bobby Cox, whom Lowe has known since they were part of an all-star team that toured Japan in 2000, and for pitching coach Roger McDowell, another former sinkerballer who coached in the Dodgers organization in Lowe’s first season there in 2005.