PHILADELPHIA – If anything were to be gleaned by the Braves from their miserable September, a couple of them said they hoped teammates would remember how bad it felt so as to do everything to avoid ever repeating the experience.
“I hope people do (remember),” Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman said before Sunday’s season finale against the Phillies. “It’s just not fun playing non-meaningful games late in the season. We got eliminated with a week and a half to go. So it’s kind of terrible. It’s not a good feeling waking up, knowing that you’re coming to the yard not playing for anything.
“If you can take something out of it, something positive, it’s that you don’t want this to happen again.”
The Braves were a majors-worst 6-18 in September before Sunday, and lost 13 out of 15 games during one stretch that included being swept by the Rangers and the Mets. New York capped the latter sweep at Turner Field with a 10-2 rout on Sept. 21 that officially eliminated the Braves from wild-card contention with seven games to go.
The Nationals had clinched the National League East title five days earlier with a win at Turner Field.
“It’s the first year that we’ve been mathematically eliminated and (still) had to play some games,” Braves closer Craig Kimbrel said. “It sucks. Something that I definitely don’t want to get used to. As bad as this year was, or finished up, hopefully guys remember how this feels and make it a point to not get back to this point.”
The Braves won 17 of their first 24 games this season, then played .500 ball over the next 82 games before the wheels really began to come off with 35 losses in their next 54 games. Even their stalwart pitching showed some cracks in the latter part of the season, after holding up so well under the weight of the team’s poor offensive production.
“You’ve just got to learn from your mistakes, like anything,” said Kimbrel, who had another dominant season and led the National League in saves with 46 before Sunday. “If it’s going out there and not getting the job done in a critical situation, or struggling like we did this year and just learning from our mistakes and how it can make us better.
“I feel like if a lot of guys do that going into this offseason, and take it into spring training — sometimes it just takes a little bit more want and will to get stuff done.”
Freeman added, “I’ve been in playoffs pretty much my whole career except 2011, and this (playing out the string) is not fun. It’s really not. It’s pretty much, you gave your life for seven straight months for pretty much nothing this year. That’s what you play this game for, to get to the playoffs and ultimately win a World Series. For us to not even have a chance this year….
“In the second half we just really never put it together. If we hit good one day, pitching gave up runs. Usually, our pitching was pretty good all year. We just didn’t do anything offensively. It’s just one of those years, put it away as fast as you can. Start looking forward to 2015.”
