There are several questions that the manager of a division-winning baseball team generally faces in the days leading up to the first playoff game. But this isn’t usually one of them: Who’s you ace?
Even if it’s not mandatory for a team to have a clear pecking order in the starting rotation, it certainly helps after a 96-win season to, you know, have some understanding who’s your best pitcher going into October. What arm will give a team the best chance to lead series, save a series, win a series? Isn’t that kind of important?
“Everybody wants to name an ace,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said when asked about his rotation going into the postseason. “For me, you do that four or five years down the road. Let’s just let these kids pitch. We like to label people. We like to compare players in the first or second year of their career. I don’t think there’s a No. 1 ace and I’m OK with it. Maybe we have five No. 3s.”
Fortunately for the Braves, Mike Minor didn’t look like a No. 3 Friday night. He looked like this team’s ace.
With the Braves facing a relative must-win situation, Minor held Los Angeles to one run in six and one-third innings and the Braves went on to a 4-3 win over the Dodgers, evening their best-of-five divisional playoff series at 1-1.
This was the kind of performance aces have. Yes, Minor was helped out by three double plays. (The Braves seemed to have gone through an overnight exorcism after seemingly playing the field Thursday’s game in exploding clown shoes.)
Minor allowed a first-inning run on a walk followed by a double by Hanley Ramirez. But he held the Dodgers scoreless until coming out with one out and a runner on base in the seventh.
“Usually when he struggles like early, he’s [nonetheless] going to give us a good opportunity [to win],” Gonzalez said. “He’s getting better. He’s maturing as a pitcher. I thought he was terrific.”
He also was nervous, at least early.
“I felt like I was a lot more composed [in the game] than initially when I was thinking about it all day,” Minor said. “I had a lot of anxiety. I went out there, warming up, and felt about the same. We’ve had pretty big crowds on weekends and I told myself this was kind of the same thing. There’s a buzz. But it’s a lot easier for me to pitch with that kind of noise than smaller crowds actually.”
When asked what went through his mind after the first inning, Minor said: “I was pretty close to making some good pitches. I was just mad at myself for giving up a run with us going against a dominant pitcher.”
“Honestly, we could’ve gone either way,” Gonzalez said.
Minor reaffirmed he’s not the same guy who nearly was pulled from the rotation last season (the initial factor that prompted Medlen’s promotion from the bullpen). Minor had a 5.97 ERA in the first half of the season, in part because of occasional mental meltdowns after something didn’t go right.
Medlen, who counseled Minor, said: “He would implode. He would come in [the clubhouse] after throwing a really good pitch and giving up a hit and he’d be like, ‘Whoa! What the hell.’ I’d say, ‘Hey, you know, it’s OK. Guys here are good. Now he’s just throwing everything with conviction. Ever since he has separated himself from that, he’s been great. It’s all confidence. He doesn’t let stuff rattle him anymore. He seems mentally stronger.”
It showed against the Dodgers. He allowed a walk and an RBI double in the first inning. Then he settled down. His frame by frame pitch count through five innings tells the story: 22- 18-11-9-10.
Minor worked into a jam in the sixth but more importantly he then worked out of it, striking out Adrian Gonzalez on a 1-2 fastball with a runner on second and, later, with Dodgers on the corners and two outs, getting Uribe to chase a 3-2 curveball out of the strike zone.
When he left the game in the seventh, the Braves led only 2-1. A two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the inning allowed him to exhale a bit.
“We wanted to win the first game, but I don’t think anybody came in here thinking we were going to lose again,” Minor said.
They didn’t, partly because of him. At least for this series, there’s a pecking order now.
