DEL.ICIO.USMajor League Baseball
Braves waste another Vazquez gem
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, June 27, 2009
It seems hard to believe that the listless Braves, who were shut out again Saturday by the Boston Red Sox, are still only five games out of first place with a week to go before the season’s halfway point.
But most Braves seem fully aware that it has had little to do with how they’ve played and is more about how badly the season has gone for 2008 National League East champion Philadelphia and the injury-plagued New York Mets.
Johnny Crawford/jcrawford@ajc.com
Poor Javier Vazquez pitched another tremendous game, but lost, 1-0 to the Red Sox.
“I hate to say it, but we’re only five games back,” said catcher Brian McCann, who seemed embarrassed to say that after the Braves lost 1-0 to the Red Sox in front of a crowd of 48,151, wasting another strong start by Javier Vazquez (5-7).
McCann added this to make sure his point was clear: “We’re lucky.”
Yes. The Braves, losers of four in a row and 12 of their past 17 games, are fortunate to be only five games out of first place. They’ve been shut out a major league-high nine times.
In this series, the Braves have been outscored 5-1 in two games.
“He pitched awesome,” Chipper Jones said of Vazquez, who allowed six hits and one run in 7-2/3 innings against the American League’s winningest team, and lost for the fourth time in five decisions.
“That’s probably the most disappointing thing to me,” Jones said, referring to continued failure to score runs when the Braves get superb pitching.
He said it wasn’t for lack of effort.
“We’re not out there trying to get shut out,” Jones said. “We’re not out there trying to stay four or five games back. We’re busting our humps. We seem a little offensively challenged this season. … There’s nobody exempt from that.”
Not Jones, the 2008 batting champion. He’s 10-for-60 (.167) with one RBI in his past 17 games, one of the worst stretches of his career.
The Braves (34-40) are lucky to still be only five out, and Vazquez and Jair Jurrjens (5-6) are unlucky to be pitching for this team at this time, when their stellar individual performances are going unrewarded night after night.
“Like I told J.J., we’ve got to keep our heads up and keep battling,” said Vazquez, who is 1-4 in his past seven starts despite a 2.61 ERA. The Braves scored one or no runs while he was in four of his past five starts.
“The guys are going to come out of this,” Vazquez said. “T.P. [hitting coach Terry Pendleton] is working hard with them. We’re going to get out of this soon.”
Jurrjens has a losing record despite a 2.93 ERA that’s among NL leaders. The Braves have scored one or no runs while he has been in half his starts.
Vazquez has a losing record despite a 3.04 ERA and league-high 125 strikeouts in 106-2/3 innings, including eight strikeouts and three walks Saturday.
The right-hander was splendid again Saturday, but it wasn’t enough. Again.
Boston knuckleballer Tim Wakefield allowed three hits and one walk in six innings, and three relievers shut the Braves down the rest of the way, with Garret Anderson’s two-out double in the ninth their only other hit.
The hit made Anderson the 49th player to reach 500 doubles and the fourth active player, joining Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and Ken Griffey Jr., but no one was in any mood to celebrate that or anything else Saturday.
