The extended weekend of too much baseball — four games in three days, three of those Braves losses, home team outscored by a composite 18-6 qualifies — came to a merciful close Sunday for the Braves.
The time at SunTrust was not totally misspent. Significantly, the Braves did manage to redefine the bobblehead tribute, perhaps for all time, by staging a Friday night promotion for the most disappointing player on the roster. Does the underwater homeowner frame his foreclosure notice? Or the CEO gold-plate the report of a losing quarter? What fan, then, wants to be mocked by the wobbling presence of his team’s most questionable moves?
Yet, the spring-loaded likeness of Bartolo Colon — obviously cast using his birth weight as a guide — may inspire a whole new line of odes to heartbreak.
Coming soon, the limited throwback edition B.J. Upton-doing-the-backstroke-in-a-silo-of-cash bobblehead. And the Kenshin Kawakami-wrapped-in-an-enigma bobble. They all will look great in the back of your spare bedroom closet with your Colon model.
And the weekend ended Sunday afternoon with poor, poor Jaime Garcia pitching well again and having neither a win nor the prospect of his own souvenir likeness to show for his good work. Here is the veteran stopgap pitcher most deserving of the lofty honor that only a bobblehead can provide.
But make one up quickly. Despite adding only one more win to his record despite a 1.48 ERA over his last five starts, word surely is getting out that this soon to be 31-year-old has actual life left in his arm. His marketability is certainly on the rise, and he is taking on the look of a valuable trade token once the Braves have reached the inevitable sell-off portion of their schedule.
June was supposed to be a time of healing, with a large majority of games back inside the Braves new home. If there were going to be any surprises, this would be the logical time for them to begin taking shape.
The hometown kid, shortstop Dansby Swanson, repeated once again Sunday what these hometown games are meant to accomplish. “I think it will prove to be good for us,” he said. Yet, of the eight home games already this young month, all against divisional opponents, five have been losers.
The Braves road record to date: 14-18 (.437).
At home: 13-17 (.433).
Geography has provided no easy cure for what ails this team.
For those still scanning the standings — and why do you torture yourself like that? — the Mets used this last series to inch ahead of the Braves into second in the NL East. The New Yorkers flew home through a cloud of elation as the best darn sub-.500 club in their division.
What will stand as the true highlight for the weekend of too much baseball was the same kind of hopeful tease that has kept Braves fans on the hook for the past couple seasons: Help is coming. Really. Hang in there.
For the weekend’s best moments all belonged to those players whose baseball cards are still as blank as Tiger Woods’ mugshot stare.
It was Swanson, still technically a rook, scoring the winning run Friday in the bottom of the ninth, off the base hit of 23-year-old Rio Ruiz.
Then, in Saturday’s doubleheader matinee, Sean Newcomb made his Major League pitching debut and immediately earned the right to carp about his offense if he were only so inclined. He’s just too much of a team guy. He gave up an unearned run in 6 1/3 innings and still absorbed a loss.
We sense a theme here — one that floats over the Braves like a party balloon, only the party is set for 2019. Everything remains future focused. And here on the week of the baseball draft, that theme was only magnified.
The man in charge of that draft, Braves scouting director Brian Bridges, took note of Newcomb’s start. “There’s more on the come. We’re very fortunate to be in the situation we are,” he said, supplying the hope part of the formula.
Then came the necessary disclaimer, the plea for patience that might lose all meaning if not for moments like this weekend. “You have to be time-sensitive in this game to have success,” he said. “As much as the fans want to see the players (progressing in the minors), they need their time to develop as major leaguers, so you get the product on the field that we anticipate them being.”
The man who’s the subcontractor in this whole rebuild took small satisfaction in the weekend’s developments.
“But what we want to see as you start to see these first drops of talent coming through,” said GM John Coppolella, “is that it becomes wave after wave.”
Like the fans themselves, the bobblehead artisans of China await that moment and all the new orders for Braves who might actually make a difference.
