*Official 2009 Atlanta Braves Thread*

20 and 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings now for Tommy Hanson. He is 4-0, he pitched six scoreless against the Red Sox today and he wasn't feeling well.

 

he had the flu, is what Bowman reported... nice performance.

and not to concentrate on the negative, but if i see another runner go first to third on Garrett Anderson without a throw, my heaad is going to explode.

i swear, the fastest i have ever seen him move in a Braves uniform was his homerun trot today.

glad to win, but the Braves need a lesson in baseball fundamentals 101. baserunning errors, Chippers error, the aforementioned GA lackadaiscal plays, Kelly's Johnson's bunt that bounced off home plat for Tek to get the runner going to second. UGH!

and couldn't this team use Mark Derosa and Nick Green back? two of my favorite former Braves doing well in other places.

oh, by the way, on one of Bowman's last blogs, he says that Yunel Escobar single handedly convinced former Brave Jeff Blauser to get out of the coaching business!

 

I don't even know where to begin with this one because its wrong on so many levels.

Oakland and SD are terrible this year in large part because they rank T-30th (.312) and T-25th (.316), respectively, out of 30 MLB teams in OBP.

Trashing OBP as a statistic because Beane's team never advances in the playoffs is asinine. If this is the case, how would you explain the recent successes of the Red Sox in October? Theo is certainly a disciple of Beane, even if he has never worked directly with him, in that he subscribes to that way of constructing a lineup. The thing about the playoffs is that you have to get extremely lucky to be successful because you're dealing with such a small sample size.

Someone needs to read Moneyball.

 

Their fundamentals are terrible, which is why they have failed to capitalize on leadoff doubles and even triples many times. The excellent pitching keeps them in pretty much every game. We should be seeing a lot of small ball and manufactured runs yet we really never see that stuff. Playing a lot of close games you would expect those things but nope, they're always looking for the big inning and almost always coming up short. Even Chipper is in a funk by his standards. Who do you blame for this exactly? Terry Pendleton? Bobby Cox? I really don't know.

 

Thank God Hanson is an Atlanta Brave. A reason for optimism during these disappointing times. It's a shame because this is as good as I've seen the pitching staff overall in a long time and now the offense is a joke.

 

the lack of fundamentals is so disappointing too. The Braves might not have been the best fielding team in the league during their run, but they were heads up for the most part, and didn't beat themselves. that and the lack of offense is really maddening to see displayed nightly.

but yet, they still have a chance to make a move against the Phillies if they snap out of their offensive funk.

 

there's still hope, we beat the Phils in round 1. need McClouth back tomorrow.

 

They really need to sweep the Phillies to consider themselves back in the thick of it right now. A sweep would bring them almost to .500 and really tighten the East.

 

Back when the Braves were just climbing into being a good team for a long time, they used to play small ball nightly, bunts, outs to move the runner from second to third, sac flies, Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz used to swing the bat like actual hitters..

To me, B Cox has sort of caught Earl Weaver disease, a 3 run HR solves all problems, but we don't have the players for that style of play any longer.

 

I have about had it with the Phillies. Charlie Manuel refuses to bench Rollins for a long time, or send him to AAA, or drop him to 8th in the lineup so the Phillies get 5 pop up outs from Rollins every game. The pitching totally sucks. Hamels is getting hammered 9-1 and being no hit. Everyone keeps saying we are in first place....well it won't last much longer.

 

Well the good news is that the Braves don't know how to win, the Mets have half their payroll on the DL, the Marlins are decent but don't seem to have enough bats, and the Nationals are horrible and should be a slump buster for everyone. The Phillies won't not hit for too long and no one else will run away with the division.

 

2 in a row... JJ was solid as always. i hope the Braves saved a few hits for tomorrow though.

 

The division will come down to who is playing well in September. It is clear nobody is going to run away with it. Rollins really has dropped off. I don't know what the reason is but it reminds me of how Andruw Jones went from MVP runnerup to a .200 average almost overnight.

 

Baseball is the only sport where you can go from MVP to below-average in one season. As Yogi would say: "This game is 90% mental... and the other half is physical."

 

Honestly I think its going to between you guys and us (Marlins).

You might not agree, but I know my team. We're better than our record shows right now because of a terrible stretch where our 3 through 5 pitchers couldnt get passed the 4th inning. That is fixed now.

You guys are the only team I see that has enough pitching and just enough offense to win. The Mets are too hurt, and the Phillies I just dont think are as good as they have played (which isnt even all that well).

So here's to a race down the wire.

 

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!

 

It would certainly look that way right now. With Hudson probably returning next month our pitching could be downright dominant. It's saying a lot when your worst performing pitcher over the past few weeks is Derek Lowe. Some kind of light must have come on with Kawakami because he's been very good since he outdueled Roy Halladay in that shocking victory. He could still find himself the odd man out in the rotation with Hudson's return because Tommy Hanson certainly isn't going anywhere.

Chipper has done a good job staying in the lineup but he needs to come out of his funk and get back up to his normal .330 average or so. If they can get their average run per game number up by maybe one they could definitely win the East. I've been very encouraged to see them bunting and making efforts to move runners a lot more lately. They still have some work to do [they failed to score Escobar from third with zero outs in the 2nd last night] but at least they're trying now.

 

Kawakami as a set up man?

 

if other teams have taken notice of his recent outings, maybe they could trade him for a bat.

Wren was quoted in the AJC the other day saying they will look to add a bat without mortgaging the future like the Tex deal did, or if the Braves have fallen out of it, look to improve for the future by adding via trade.

i read that Huddy is supposed to make his first rehab start soon. glad we have til the end of the month to get a better idea about Hudson's stuff before making any moves.

 

oh, and Kelly Johnson was put on the 15 day DL with wrist tendenitis.

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/...t_id=5672918&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

 

I think timmys contract is up after this year. Not to sure, if they would want to trade away kawakami in that light.....

 

I really hope they dont' trade Tim Hudson away.

Don't look now, Kawakami is having a bad outing. I think long relief would be his best role if he went to the bullpen.

 

i think they have an option on Tim for next season, but it is an expensive one, in the 10-12 million range.

welcome to the Braves Brooks Conrad! his pinch hit 3-run jack made the Braves winners tonite!

 

That looked like a fairly good pitch too, a fastball that looked to be headed towards the bottom inside corner of the zone. He must have been expecting it because he put a great swing on it. Welcome to Atlanta indeed.

 

You never know what you're going to get from Mike Gonzales. Today we got a lead blown to the worst team in baseball. Moylan didn't help either.

 

Hanson is going to blow out his arm with that herky jerk delivery of his.

 

they made mention that some scouts see Hanson's delivery as a problem on yesterdays telecast. guess time'll tell.

i could tell Gonzo was not on his game from the first pitch yesterday. stinks for Hanson, who pitched well again.

 

As long as he can repeat the delivery he will be fine.

If he cant repeat the delivery he will either be injured, or have Dontrelle Willis syndrome.

 

Scouts will tell you just to call him up and ride him and if he breaks down, he breaks down but at least you'll get something out of him and he's obviously way too good to trade if you have concerns about his motion. So just put him out there and hope for the best.

 

McCann made the All-Star team again. As a backup, what a joke. I don't have a huge problem with Chipper getting snubbed given he's playing below his usual standards. Disappointing not to see Jair Jurrjens or even Javy Vazques on the roster. Why let uninformed fans select the starting lineup for a game that counts for something? It doesn't make sense to me. The fans usually do a bad job outside of a few can't miss players like Albert Pujols. With the game having meaning more value should be placed on who the managers and players pick as All-Stars.

 

You mean the same managers and players that picked Jason Varitek to go to the game last year when he was hitting around .200? The fact is the managers and players don't do any better a job than the fans do. The All Star game is a complete joke anyway, the whole 'this time it counts thing' is beyond silly and pointless. I mean hey it's great that Ben Zobrist is having a very good half year but if the game really mattered would you rather have Zobrist playing over Arod or Miguel Cabrera? How about Tim Wakefield pitching over Cliff Lee? See what I mean? The game is for the fans who might actually care, it shouldn't count for anything.

Personally I could care less who makes it and who doesn't because a week or so after the game everyone forgets who need it and who didn't anyway, it's the only hot story going on right now since the trading deadline is still 3 weeks away.

 

Well played sir, well played.

 

I was talking about this with some guys on a Braves board...

I think its really a crap-shoot when wondering whether or not guys will be able to have longevity with reagrds to injuries.

For instance, Mark Prior was said to have some of the best mechanics and balance some scouts had ever seen. On the flip-side, the Mets traded Scott Kazmir because they thought he wouldnt last 2 years in the league with his delivery.

 

man, these guys are such a roller coaster to watch this season. i thought for sure the Phillies sweep would build some momentum.

then everything fell apart in the 8th inning of game two against the Nats.

5 games out again.

i've read now that Escobar will not be traded and Vazquez will only be traded for a deal that blows away Frank Wren.

 

They CANT trade Escobar. Especially after they traded Andrus in the Teiexiera deal. He was the main reason that deal was able to work. We do have a surplus of pitching right now, but I think its smart to hold onto Vasquez until the deadline to see if anyone wows us with a deal.

 

yeah what i am reading bares that out about Vazquez. plus they can always move him this offseason for a bat when they have a better idea about Hudson for next season.

they have a 10 million option on Huddy for next year and a 1 million buyout.

and also, Yunel is so cheap, contract wise, that nothing could justify trading him, even if Bobby does hate him.

 

oh yeah, and back within 3 tonite... Phils and Mets lost. and pitching came thru again for Atlanta.

 

Something may be clicking for Yunel. He's looked great in the field and has been hitting pretty well. I dont see that cocky swagger as much recently.