The sky has not yet fallen. The Atlanta Braves are in first place, bound for Phoenix and a series against last-place Arizona. They have the best starting pitching in baseball. But having the best starting pitching has availed the Braves rather less in May and now into June than it did in April.
On April 28, the Braves were 17-7. They’re 14-20 since. They’re leading the National League East; they wouldn’t be leading any other division. They’re a good team — by itself, starting pitching will make you good — but they still can’t score.
“I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating,” manager Fredi Gonzalez said Wednesday. “I know how hard they work and how prepared they are. … We’ve been shut out seven times, and we’re a team that shouldn’t be shut out because we’re so talented offensively.”
So you’d think. Then you watch a game like the one Gonzalez just viewed and you wonder: Where is this talent of which Fredi G. speaks?
On Wednesday, the Braves faced a batting order that actually paled alongside theirs. Seattle entered with a team average of .238, next-to-worst in the American League; the Braves were hitting a lusty-by-contrast .241. On this day, only pitcher Mike Minor was batting under .220 among Braves starters. Six starting Mariners — two-thirds of the lineup — were at .233 or worse.
Batting cleanup for the visiting nine was Stefen Romero, owner of a .204 average and nine RBI’s. Before the game, the deliciously blunt Mariner manager Lloyd McClendon told reporters: “Somebody has to hit there. I don’t have (Barry) Bonds.”
This Bonds-less array struck out 10 times in seven innings against Minor and three times more against Braves relievers. It also outscored the Braves 2-0. Good grief.
Credit where it’s due: Hisashi Iwakuma is the best unheralded pitcher in baseball. He finished third in the American League Cy Young voting last season and there are days when he’s as untouchable as his more renowned teammate Felix Hernandez, albeit in a different way. King Felix rules with superior stuff; Iwakuma’s fastball tops out at 91 mph. Against the big-swinging Braves, his array of sinkers and splitters yielded 11 groundouts against zero flyouts.
No Brave lifted a ball to the outfield until Freddie Freeman lined out to open in the ninth. (Iwakuma exited after seven innings, having fanned Freeman three times.) The Braves did make Iwakuma throw 56 pitches to record the first nine outs. Seeing no results, they grew impatient. They often do.
Iwakuma needed only 40 pitches to work the next four innings. In the seventh he induced a double-play grounder from Chris Johnson on the first pitch after Evan Gattis led off with a single. “I actually got a pretty good pitch to hit,” Johnson said. That pretty good pitch became two pretty big outs.
Minor also departed after seven innings, his team trailing 1-nil. Left-hander Luis Avilan entered, which made sense: Even against the left-handed Minor, the strapped-for-bats Mariners had started four lefty hitters. But Romero, one of the righties, made like Bonds and lined a triple to right-center. Kyle Seager’s single through a drawn-in infield made it 2-0. One run Wednesday would have been enough for Seattle. Two seemed like piling on.
The Braves’ margin for error has become infinitesimal. Without Jordan Walden and with Avilan and David Carpenter having issues, the watertight bullpen has sprung some leaks. That, sad to say, was inevitable. The Braves keep asking their pitchers to be nigh-perfect, but even the the stoutest staff can’t win a game 0-0.
We’ve known for a while that the Braves aren’t the same team if they can’t hit the ball over the wall. On this day they couldn’t manage a double. They struck out nine times against zero walks. They pushed a man into scoring position in the first and again in the second but nary a one thereafter. In a match of awful offenses, they finished second.
Afterward it was suggested that Gonzalez might move the just-promoted Tommy La Stella, who’s hitting .409 (all singles) up in the order. “How far up?” Gonzalez said.
Maybe into the No. 2 slot behind Jason Heyward, who has lifted his batting average from .206 to .254 in 26 days. “Then you’ve got three left-handers in a row,” Gonzalez said, and that’s not optimum, either.
But that’s the point, sort of: Unconventional measures might be needed to prod this moribund offense. That’s assuming it’s capable of being prodded. That’s assuming it’s an offense at all.
