April is not the month for scientific samplings and sweeping conclusions in a major league baseball season (even if what is now happening to the Braves has been forecast since maybe November).
So I’m not going to tell you all hope is lost (though getting swept by the New York Mets generally spells doom, and even worse kills a lot of Mets jokes), or that the Braves have no hope of a winning record (not happening), or playing in the postseason (not happening), or creating some semblance of joy during the annual sweltering hell of an Atlanta August (not happening — the joy that is).
But for now, let’s zero on one thing that’s going wrong, because it’s easily the most important thing: starting pitching.
In Thursday’s 6-3 loss to the Mets, which completed the humiliation trilogy, Julio Teheran threw 102 pitches. Throwing 102 pitches can be good. But Teheran squeezed them into only 4 1/3 innings. That’s bad.
The first five New York batters of the game: walk, fly out, walk, walk, double (three runs). Teheran issued two more walks in the third inning and finally was pulled with one runner on base and one out in the fifth, after which relievers Ian Thomas and Sugar Ray Marimon entered the game with explosives and blow torches.
Teheran’s struggles to locate the strike zone and his failure to provide the Braves with a solid outing continued a disturbing trend. Braves’ starters start on time, but they finish way too early. It’s like they’re clocking just before lunch.
In the Braves’ first 15 games, starters have completed six innings only six times. That means the bullpen has been overused nine times. The starters have combined for only 78 innings, an average of 5.2 per game, which scrapes the bottom in the majors and is more than a full inning less than last year’s average of 6.26. Their composite ERA has ballooned to 4.27.
“You can’t sustain that for a very long time,” said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose team is 2-6 since a 6-1 start. “You’d like for your starter to go a little bit deeper in games because if not, you’re going to get exposed (in the bullpen). Those middle relievers usually are not your top guys. Your top guys are at the end of the game, and if your starters are not getting to your top guys …”
Boom.
Teheran said he was bothered by the cold weather at Citi Field and had trouble gripping the ball. But walks to three of the first four batters suggests he was pitching in Nome, Alaska, not just unseasonably cool temperatures in Flushing (first pitch: 49 degrees, with most of the game played in the 50s).
“I don’t like to make excuses, but it was affecting me a little bit,” Teheran said. “I couldn’t find my grip.”
Catcher A.J. Pierzynski said Teheran “just wasn’t acting like himself.
“Even in warm-ups he was blowing on his hand more than you normally see. He just didn’t look comfortable. I don’t know if it was his grip or what was going on. He just seemed a little off today. To walk the bases loaded in the first inning was very strange for him to do.”
Strange, and concerning, and at the worst possible time. Because if this team’s starters can’t make it through six or seven innings with some consistency, things will unravel quickly.
Gonzalez expected issues with the offense and to some degree the bullpen, especially after closer Craig Kimbrel was traded, causing a ripple effect that weakened middle relief. But as he said when referencing Teheran’s early pitch count, “That’s what hurts you. You have to go to your ’pen and mix and match for the rest of the game because the starter didn’t go five innings.”
The Mets (13-3) have won a franchise-record 11 straight and own the best record in the majors. (No worries, a market-correction is inevitable in New York, too.) They were going to be slowed only by Teheran because it probably wasn’t going to be the bullpen.
The Braves can’t keep their relievers healthy or, apparently, free of banned substances. Two rookie relievers, Andrew McKirahan and Arodys Vizcaino, each have been suspended 80 games after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. Other injuries/absentees — relievers who were either on the roster or could have been on the roster — include Shae Simmons (Tommy John surgery), Josh Outman (shoulder), Brady Feigl (Tommy John surgery) and James Russell (signed as a free agent but couldn’t make the team in spring training).
And Kimbrel, who was dealt on the eve of the season.
Teheran’s outings have been shrinking since opening day: 8, 6, 5, 4 1/3. Alex Wood has lasted 6 2/3 innings twice, but the Braves have gotten only two six-inning plus starts out of eight from the Nos. 3, 4, 5 starters.
No bullpen can take that, let alone a weakened one.
