In the fog of negativity that already has lowered upon the Braves like a play’s final curtain, there is a pinpoint of positive light.
Yeah, the losing has reached an epidemic level. The manager is day to day. In its last season, Turner Field is taking on the joyless ambiance of a bankrupt amusement park. And how sad that at a park with a Hank Aaron Drive address the home run has become endangered.
But there’s always that young pitching, the most highly speculative and deeply fascinating of commodities.
Even when winning eludes, the promise of the callow, developing pitching staff keeps a flicker of interest alive. Forget the linescore. Just tell me how far the starter went and how many earned runs did he surrender.
Hunger for something upbeat in these trying times? Just ask a young starter about what he and his mates are up to currently. And what that all portends for the future.
“It’s baby steps right now. We’re fine tuning the radio a little bit,” smiled Mike Foltynewicz. “Once we get on that right station we’ll be fine. Tuning some things in, getting things cleaned up. It’s coming.”
Even in the worst of times, the veteran catcher still makes like Tony Robbins in body armor when it comes to his pitchers.
This is Tyler Flowers’ way of boosting a young staff: “You build them up to a point that even if they’re having a hard time, they can be confident in themselves. You make them think they’re the best thing since Smoltzy (Hall of Famer John Smoltz).”
Where daily the manager confronts more cracks than he can possibly spackle, at least he knows on a given night he can trot out a starter who brims with possibilities. “And another one the next day and the next day,” Fredi Gonzalez said. “That’s been a bright spot.”
And there’s the veteran pitching coach, who finds himself working with so many young pitchers that he can’t help but tap certain parental instincts. “They’re your kids,” Roger McDowell said. “You have to have patience with them. And you know they are going to make mistakes.”
When they cap those youthful transgressions, the master plan for the great rebuild of the Braves looks to have some merit.
OK, the Braves didn’t win either game, but how about those back-to-back quality starts (six or more innings, three or fewer runs) by the 24-year-old Foltynewicz on Sunday and 23-year-old Matt Wisler on Tuesday?
Then Wednesday, the Braves actually put eight strong innings by emergency call-up Williams Perez, 24, to use in a victory.
What to expect from their next outings, well, who knows? That’s part of the intrigue.
With 25 major league starts to his credit, Wisler is practically the grizzled vet of the bunch. He feels that, too. Asked after his Tuesday outing if he is feeling less the prospect and more the established starter, he sounded all wise and wizened.
“I feel like the team can rely on me to give a good effort out there every time,” said Wisler, who in 11 starts since being briefly relegated to the bullpen last year has posted a 2.84 ERA.
McDowell has his own number in mind for when a pitcher might consider himself established. Fifty starts, that’s a good round number, give or take a few. Fifty starts, said McDowell, after which a pitcher has learned to process all the information fed him in bullpen sessions and film work. He has learned to pick his way smartly through an opponent’s lineup, has worked his way through enough brier patches that he can control the bleeding, and has learned how to reduce a game to bite-sized pieces.
Using that math, there remains a long way to go before the core of Wisler, Foltynewicz, 23-year-old Aaron Blair — as well as all the other young arms certain to well up from the minor league depths — will exit their pitching puberty.
It was 1985 when a 24-year-old McDowell was called up by the Mets, beginning 12 years in a major league bullpen. He remembers his own greatest hurdle was, “not putting the guys that I watched on TV on a pedestal, understanding that I was able to compete at the major league level.”
“For me I always had the fear of having a bad outing and getting sent down. I’m not so sure that has gone away for the young player today,” he said.
As for the care and feeding of the tender young pitcher today, McDowell said much of it comes down to quelling those same fears. “Young pitchers are very unsure of competing at the major league level,” he said. “You try to be positive, supportive of their ability to pitch at this level, what adjustments we need to make, pitches we may need to add and/or subtract.” A lot of the foundation-building work that he didn’t have to do with, say, a Tim Hudson.
Foltynewicz speaks of trying to learn to slow down on the mound, to control his emotions and his tempo.
Wisler speaks of the importance of trying to separate what he does from a scoreboard that is always working against the Braves this season.
Watching them trying to solve these and other mysteries has been one of the more pleasurable experiences of an otherwise bleak campaign. Even for those playing behind them.
“It’s great,” outfielder Jeff Francoeur said. “Each start, you go out there and you feel they are making fewer and fewer mistakes. That’s key. Anytime they learn from their last start and can take it five days later that’s a plus. To watch those guys do what they’re doing, it’s a big deal.”
Hope is draped all over these arms, like Spanish moss from the limbs of a Savannah oak. What else do the Braves have at the moment?
“(The young pitchers) are going to be huge for us in the future,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “They’re getting some much-needed work in the big leagues, they’re going to get their feet wet, get comfortable and hopefully good things are going to happen for us.”
At the same time, in fairness to the now, we close with this word from the present: “We always look at the pitching and see what’s here and know they’re going to make us a lot better for the future,” Freeman said. “But you can never put away the losing. … I’m glad they’re getting their feet wet and getting comfortable. But we need to start winning some games.”
