There’s something "off" about the 0-5 Braves. It’s one thing to be not good enough. It’s something else to be bad. The Braves are bad.
To not be good enough means to lack baseball talent. It means not having enough pitchers who can get outs or hitters who can get hits. We saw some of that with the Braves during the 0-5 home stand but, really, that wasn’t the big problem.
The big problem, as I saw it, is that the chemistry isn’t right. By “chemistry” I don’t mean how players and coaches get along which, in my experience, usually is vastly overrated in pro sports. I’m talking about a lack of cohesiveness on the field, which has shown up most obviously with the Braves' defensive blunders.
Related headlines
- Braves 0-5 after loss to Cardinals
- Defensive mistakes costing Braves
- FanGraphs: Braves pitching worst in majors
- Manfred full of it on lack of Hispanic managers
- Seven Braves prospects among Baseball America's top 100
- Braves to improve from 67 wins to . . . 67 wins?
- Braves were right: Justin Upton too expensive
The Braves lost two game directly because of defensive miscues. In Game 1 catcher A.J. Pierzynski dropped Ender Inciarte's bouncing throw at the plate and there also was the unbelievably bad throw to first by Gordon Beckham. In Game 2 there was Pierzynski's whiffed catch at the plate (or, as the scorekeeper saw it, the errant throw by Freddie Freeman).
To that list Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez added what he saw as center fielder Drew Stubbs’ misplay of Matt Holliday’s flared single to shallow in the eighth inning Sunday. That hit started the Cardinals’ eight-inning rally from a run down.
Stubbs, playing deep to protect against extra-base hits, came charging in for the ball but hesitated and changed his angle at the last moment when he saw shortstop Erick Aybar running hard to the outfield. Stubs slid and the ball fell. Gonzalez blamed Stubbs.
“Everybody did their job,” Gonzalez said. “It’s just a shame that one missed play cost us a chance to shake hands.”
I thought it was strange for Gonzalez to single out Stubbs who, like I said, had a long way to run and was trying to avoid Aybar. (Left unmentioned: Jim Johnson hitting the next batter, Matt Carpenter, with a 0-1 count to put Holliday in position to tie the scoring run.) There’s that lack of chemistry again, which apparently even extends to Gonzalez’s explanations.
Another example: Asked about that errant Freeman throw/whiffed catch by Pierzynski, Gonzalez thought reporters were talking about Aybar’s off-line throw to Freeman that started the sequence. That play actually was a very tough one for Aybar so it hadn't occurred to anyone to ask about it. Once it became clear the topic was the Freeman/Pierzynski misconnection, Gonzalez still was focused on Aybar.
What Gonzalez says to reporters may not mean much in the big picture and sometimes he has to show some discretion about what he says publicly. But, like I said, it’s just another indication of how things are "off" with the Braves.
Defense, the aspect of the game that most requires the Braves to work together, has been most problematic. Gonzalez noted that the Braves spent a lot of time on individual defensive instruction during spring training. That’s fine, but most of the defensive problems have involved a lack of unity among the individual parts (Aybar's shockingly bad footwork being the exception).
The Braves are out of whack.
About the Author
