For those keeping score at home, the Braves are batting .500 on Uptons. No, that’s not 1.000, which is what they hoped when they added B.J. Upton and brother Justin in the same offseason, but it’s not .000, either. And Justin Upton, whose massive April pointed the way toward a division title in 2013, is proving again that, in months that begin with an “A,” he’s an absolute ace.
Yes, Upton dropped the fly ball that undid the Braves in Pittsburgh on Wednesday — he’s not much of an outfielder, alas — but flash back six days. The Braves had lost three of four to the Dodgers and 12 of 15 overall. They had fallen six games behind Washington in the National League East and to fourth in the wild-card chase. At 7:35 p.m. Friday, the 61-60 Braves were due to face the team with baseball’s best record. By midnight Sunday, this season could have been all but done.
Justin Upton led off the bottom of the second Friday by driving a Jason Hammel fastball over the wall in left. It wasn’t much of a pitch — down the middle at 91 mph — but these Braves had spent 4 1/2 months mostly missing fat pitches. Upton didn’t miss.
The Oakland A’s would lead for only half an inning the entire weekend. Another Upton homer put the Braves ahead to stay Sunday night. It came off an 0-2 cutter down and in, the kind intended to make a batter chase. Upton chased it and found it and drove it 423 feet, and he did it off Jon Lester, among the best in the business.
“I thought it was a good pitch when I threw it,” Lester told reporters. “I went back and looked at it, (and it was a) good pitch. Sometimes you’ve got to tip your hat.”
The point being: When J-Up is locked in, he can hit anything off anybody. He’s hot now. He began play Wednesday having gone 14-for-40 (.350) with five homers and 16 RBIs over the past 12 games. He hit a first-inning home run off Washington’s Stephen Strasburg — a 94-mph fastball on the outer half — to touch off the resuscitating 10-game homestand; he hoisted a tying homer two nights later off Gio Gonzalez. He drove in five runs in Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
This is why the Braves traded for Upton. He’s among the few players capable of carrying a team for an extended period. He’s not always this hot — last year he had 20 homers and 35 RBIs in the two “A” months, seven and 35 in the other four — but there’s always the possibility he’ll get that way.
There aren’t 10 more talented players in the sport, which made the Braves’ trade for Upton rather mysterious. At issue wasn’t why they wanted such a gifted player but why Arizona no longer did. Upton was the first player drafted in 2005. He signed an extension for $51 million over six seasons in 2010. He finished fourth in the 2011 National League MVP voting. All that, and the Diamondbacks were giving up on him at 25? What made his employer so desperate — he blocked a previous trade to Seattle — to dump him?
I’ve asked a half-dozen baseball men, and the most telling answer came from someone who once worked for the D-backs. “Management there wants it done a certain way. They want their guys to be Luis Gonzalez, who was very active in the community. They wanted Justin to be the face of the franchise — they had that ‘Uptown’ sign in the outfield — but that’s not Justin. He would say, ‘I just want to play the game.’ “
It’s hard to imagine anyone wouldn’t like the guy. He’s unceasingly pleasant. He’s low-key, which apparently the D-backs didn’t appreciate — they seemed bent on constructing a roster of firebrands in the mold of manager Kirk Gibson — but plays well in Fredi Gonzalez’s clubhouse. And there’s this: Since the Upton trade, Arizona is 20 games under .500; the Braves are 36 games above.
It would be incorrect to say Upton has fully delivered on his immense promise. He hasn’t made an All-Star team as a Brave. His 2013 season in full — he batted .263 with 27 homers and 70 RBIs — was disappointing. Sometimes, though, it’s not as much what you do as when.
Upton’s April set the tone for last season. His August is changing the course of this one. If somebody will just rename the month after September “Achtober,” the Braves will be set.
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