The Atlanta Turkeys?
Could it be? The Indians sure wouldn’t mind.
I loved today’s story in the AJC about Jeff Francoeur’s lucky turkey undies.
The guy could use the help of just about anything, and if he wants to use a pair of undies as his rabbit’s foot, I support him. I support the Atlanta Braves changing the mascot for the entire year to TURKEYS if they can put on a 10-game winning streak. It seems like such a steak has eluded the Braves for 10 years.
Apparently, when Fran wears the undies, the Braves are 7-0. I’ll take a seven-game winning streak. The [...]

Javier Vazquez pitched another gem saturday afternoon.  He threw 7 and 1/3 innings, giving up but a single run.
He lost, of course, because this is the Atlanta Braves, after all.  But let’s focus on the positive.
Uh…I guess I already did that.  Okay, the negatives, then.  Are you comfortable?
The Braves have scored one run in two games.  Chipper Jones is hitting .179 for the past 2 weeks and isn’t driving the ball with any authority.  Nate McClouth is hurt.  Yunel Escobar is hurt.  Jeff Francoeur is still in right field.
The Braves have looked so agonizingly overmatched during long stretches of interleague [...]

Jair Jurrjens pitched great.  That’s not a surprise.  His teammates, on the other hand, looked tired, indifferent, bored even.  That’s not shocking either.  It’s getting to be quite predictable, actually.  Every time the Braves play an inspired game, like the one against the Cubs on Monday, they, within days, again look like the Bad News Bears.  There are teams out there, in the expanse of Major League Baseball polarity, who are further out of first than the Braves, but who manage to show a pulse on a consistent basis.  What they lack in budget (talent), they make up for in [...]

The guy who Ozzie Guillen once regarded as “not a big game pitcher” ; the guy who was widely pigeon-holed as a “decent number 3 starter” ; the guy who the Braves hoped would simply give them a quality start more than half the time, is not the guy that arrived in Atlanta in the off season.  This guy has simply led the league in strike-outs per inning, allowed a mere 8 earned runs in his last 5 starts, and in a rogue make-up game leading into the Braves’ metaphorical climb to the summit of Mt. Everest this week, when [...]

The Braves managed to salvage the final game of the three game series against the suddenly explosive Reds, thanks to 6 innings of 3 hit ball from their rookie hurler, Tommy Hanson, who won his second straight start in impressive fashion, and made sure no one started second guessing Tom Glavine’s dismissal.  Matt Diaz emerged from the shadows and hit his 3rd homer of the year batting in the clean up spot, while Nate McClouth had easily his best day as a Brave, driving in 4 runs.  The road trip started less than auspiciously–the Braves would need to sweep the [...]

The Braves have been bringing more dead things back to life lately than George Romero.  They single handedly resuscitated two defunct offenses in the Orioles and Reds, while failing to reanimate their own.  They are standing at the precipice of the hardest part of their schedule–in the coming days they play the Yankees, Phillies, oh and the Red Sox twice, just to add insult to injury.  They have run out of room for error.  Joe Simpson said it quite plainly last night after another pitiful performance: they HAVE TO win this series.  I’ll punctuate that, if I may, with: or [...]

The phalanx of Division flags circling Turner Field’s eaves, cutting across a mind boggling decade and a half swath of uninterrupted dominanance, seem to be slipping further and further into cob-webbed obscurity, representing a bygone era as mysterious and dated as Stonehenge.  The white, cursive capital A, which ubiquitously jumped onto baseball caps across the country during the Tomahawk fervor of the 90’s, now may as well be Scarlet.  The 2009 season, has been marred by the same agonizing ineptitude as 2008, which itself was a re-run of 2007.  The Braves keep removing their thumb from one hole in the [...]

Tommy Hanson didn’t fool anyone into thinking he was Johan Santana Friday night against the Orioles, but aided by a cameo appearance by the Braves offense, he earned his first victory, and more importantly, precluded what would have been a three game skid and a loss to start the road trip.  If the Atlanta Braves are a playoff team this year, they may be asking more from a rookie pitcher than is reasonable: to minimize the growing pains, and be significantly better than a future hall of famer would have been in his stead.
In a division race that seems destined [...]

The Atlanta Braves want to be considered a legitimate threat to challenge for the N.L. East title again.  If that is to happen, several things must stop happening.
Jeff Francoeur has to learn to stay in the batters box long enough to see more than 9 pitches a night.  He must holster his weapon (if it still qualifies as such) for the first pitch at least half the time, regardless of how enticing it looks, which apparently, is every time.  His devil may care approach to hitting over the past 3 seasons has devolved from ferocity, to tenacity, to obstinacy, to [...]

Yunel Escobar can be, well, unpredictable.  His nightly adventures on the base paths range from bold to obstinately asinine.  His smattering of English concedes to a repertoire of colorful expressions, facial and physical, that give us clues to his temperment at the moment.  So, when his trademark wide eyed look of incredulity flashed across his face in the first inning after being called out on strikes (via a caught foul tip), I actually said to myself,  “Good night, Yunel.” To my surprise, however, he reined in his emotions, having risen only to a simmer, and walked back to the [...]