Vazquez wants to remain with Braves

By Carroll Rogers

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Javier Vazquez can do the math. He sees the overflowing Braves rotation. He knows he could be a pitcher the Braves try to trade in the offseason, given his skyrocketing value after a dominant season.

But that’s not how he would like it to play out.

“Hopefully I’ll be here,” said Vazquez, recently named National League player of the week. “I really want to be here. Hopefully they want me here, too.”

If the Braves re-sign Tim Hudson, which seems more likely by the day as Hudson continues to progress in his return from elbow-reconstruction surgery, the Braves will need to trade either Vazquez or Kenshin Kawakami to free some salary and help bolster their lineup.

Vazquez is having a career year. He’s 13-9 with a 3.01 ERA, which would be the lowest ERA of his career. He had a 3.24 ERA in 2003 in Montreal.

He said he has always wanted to play for manager Bobby Cox, and he has gotten close to teammates such as Jair Jurrjens.

“It’s a great town to play in,” Vazquez said. “Every time I came here, I loved it over here. The guys are awesome. The coaching staff is great. I don’t have any negatives.”

Vazquez has a no-trade clause that allows him to veto any trades to teams in the NL West and American League West. He did that so he wouldn’t be so far away from his kids in Puerto Rico during the school year.

Kawakami performs

Kenshin Kawakami has brought more than an extra arm to eat up some innings in the bullpen. He has provided a little comic relief.

In the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s game against the Mets, with Tommy Hanson cruising on the mound, Kawakami put on a show for his fellow relievers by imitating Braves’ hitters. That’s one language that needs no translation.

He started with the easy target: Adam LaRoche. He had them laughing at his Brian McCann imitation, right down to signaling for a time-out to take off his helmet and cleans his glasses. Buddy Carlyle’s personal favorite was Kawakami’s Matt Diaz.

“In Japan I did a lot of impersonations,” Kawakami said through his interpreter.

It should be no surprise, then, that Peter Moylan thinks Kawakami’s best impersonation is Ichiro, which he saw in spring training. On Tuesday night, Moylan was partial to Kawakami’s McCann and to his imitation of Yunel Escobar jumping in the on-deck circle.

When asked whose swing is the toughest to impersonate among his teammates, Kawakami said Garret Anderson.

“He has such pretty form, it’s hard to imitate,” Kawakami said through his interpreter. “It’s so smooth.”

So who can do the best imitation of Kawakami?

“Martin [Prado],” Kawakami said.

As for McCann, he heard about the imitations and got a chuckle out of it.

“I got something for him,” McCann said with a grin.

Jones still out

Chipper Jones was out of the lineup for the third consecutive game Wednesday night with a strained left groin. Cox said Jones had shown some improvement Wednesday but still not enough to play. Jones projected Tuesday it would be a “couple of days” before he returned.