So it’s the home opener for the Braves on Friday night, and wouldn’t you know who’s in town for the occasion? The Phillies.
And guess who’s pitching the first game of a three-game series? That would be Cliff Lee, the free-agent catch of the offseason who made the rich richer and crowded the frame of last week’s Sports Illustrated cover featuring the Phillies’ aces.
Why waste time wondering how the Braves are going to stack up against the four-time defending National League East champions and their new ace of aces? Just watch.
The Braves had to wait only seven games into the 2011 season to see for themselves. Veteran third baseman Chipper Jones doesn’t think they needed that long.
“I know how we’re going to stack up,” Jones said. “We’re going to be competitive. We’re going to beat them some games. Where the Phillies beat everybody, they’ve got dominance mentally over a bunch of teams in this division.”
The recent numbers bear him out. In the past two seasons, the Braves are 18-18 against the Phillies. The rest of the NL East has losing records against the Phillies (the Mets are 15-22, the Marlins are 14-22, and the Nationals are 9-27).
The Braves have proved they can stand up to the Phillies. At this point they might be a little bowed up, too. At the very least, the Braves are a little weary of questions about the Phillies. The first round started Dec. 14, the morning after Lee signed.
“I don’t really care about the Phillies,” Tim Hudson said to one questioner a little over a week ago. “I’m just concerned about our team. I think we have a good club. I think we’ve got a chance to beat anybody in baseball.”
Hudson faces Lee in the opener. The Braves will miss defending NL Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay, but still get Lee, then Roy Oswalt vs. Brandon Beachy on Saturday and Cole Hamels vs. Derek Lowe on Sunday.
Jones doesn’t think the Braves should be intimidated by matchups on paper.
“Everybody’s got good pitching,” Jones said. “These guys have just got a little more pedigree than everybody else. You get to looking at the back of the baseball card before you walk up there to the plate, you’re beat already. I don’t care what’s on the back of their baseball card.
"And until some of our guys get it through their head that they’ve still got to throw it over that plate, and when they do I’m going to be ready to whack it, nothing else matters.”
Jones said what the Phillies have over a lot of teams in the division is swagger, something he thinks the Braves had in their run of 14 consecutive division titles. He thinks attitude can overcome whatever rash of injuries the Phillies are facing.
All-Star second baseman Chase Utley is out for the foreseeable future with knee problems. Projected right fielder Domonic Brown (a Redan High graduate) is on the disabled list with a broken bone in his hand. Closer Brad Lidge is on the DL with shoulder problems.
Yet the Phillies are 5-1 and coming off an 11-0 victory against the New York Mets on Thursday afternoon.
“They’re like we were in the early 2000s,” Jones said. “They’ll pull a reliever out of thin air, a guy with a lifetime 6.00 [ERA], and he’ll have a sub-2 ERA that year. We were the same way, pull a kid up out of the minor leagues and have him step in and not miss a beat. They’ve got something magical going on over there right now.”
The Braves, road weary after a 3-4 trip to Washington and Milwaukee, are hoping last year's magic at Turner Field returns. They were a majors-best 56-25 at home last season, matching their franchise record set in 1998 and matched in 1999. This is the first of a nine-game homestand against the Phillies, Marlins and Mets.
Before the opener, the Braves will unveil their 2010 NL wild-card banner, the first in their history, next to the familiar line of division titles displayed along the left-field facade.
However awkward that might be, with the defending division-winning Phillies looking on, the Braves figure the timing of this series is still good.
“If anything, you want to face them whenever they’re not full strength,” Hudson said. “And right now they’re not full strength.”
The Braves took advantage of a depleted Phillies lineup early last season, going 7-5 against them before the All-Star break when they played stretches without Jimmy Rollins, Placido Polanco and Utley. The Braves were 1-5 against the Phillies after the break.
Still, Lowe thinks what happens in this series might not be as important as what happens when these two teams are left to their own devices.
“We’re so evenly matched that if one of us happens to win the division, it’s probably not going to be because of how we play against each other,” Lowe said. “[We] probably cancel each other out in our 18 games. But there will be probably a little bit more excitement for those games, just because of the hype of their rotation and the expectations of them to win the division and [us] come in second.”
The same reason the Phillies are expected to win the division is the same reason the Braves think they can compete with the Phillies -- their rotation.
“If we pitch, we’ll win,” Hudson said. “If we do what we’re supposed to on the mound. That’s what it’s going to take.”
Staff writer David O’Brien contributed to this article.
