Hitting Woes Continue, Pitching Saving The Day

Hello again everyone from the land that Spring forgot, otherwise known as Southeast Michigan! Man, it’s still COLD up here!

In fact, the only thing I can think of that’s been as cold for as long in the Braves’ hitting! Everyone says, and history supports, that both will warm up soon. For my money, neither one can happen too soon! The Braves hitting is so bad that they only score three runs or less off of other teams’ fourth and fifth starters. Shoot, our hitters could make Mike Maddux look like Greg Maddux. I think they could make Lester Maddox look like Greg Maddux :-).

So, I guess the logical question to ask first is “Why?”. Why have the hitting woes that surround the team hung around for so long? In my opinion, the answer to that question leads one to the logical solution to the problem.

Is the problem the hitting coach? Wait, no, that was the reason last year’s team had offensive problems, so they put Terry Pendleton on a rail and ran him almost out of town, dumping him off a the first base coach’s box.

Is the problem lack of talent? I don’t think so, as the lineup is filled top to bottom with All Stars and All Stars in the making.

Is the problem old age? Well, no, every starter is either in their prime years or earlier, except for Chipper. And Chipper has really played very well up to now.

OK, let’s try injuries. We’re at least a little warm here, as Heyward is starting to look like more and more fragile out there. His shoulder has to have an impact on his slump. And Chipper’s good knee has been bothering him more and more and could require “scoping” and 2-3 weeks recovery. To the best of my knowledge, everyone else has been injury free.

Hmm, we’re getting way down on the list of manageable issues. But speaking of manageable, how much of our problem could be attributed to our “Fearless Fredi” Gonzalez’s managing? This is obviously open to interpretation. Second-guessing is easy; doing is hard. So, I have a lot of empathy for Fredi Gonzalez here. Having said that, Fredi seems to be a very traditional manager. He bunts too often. He saves his best bench players for “later”, sometimes missing using them in the highest leverage situations. Many people have issue with his batting order. I’ll stop now and say this: Fredi’s decisions have cost the team some runs already, and to some degree are responsible for the team’s under-performing its Pythagorean projections. But, all-in-all, Fredi really isn’t the issue here. One can nitpick anyone and anything, and many do!

So, what’s left over? I think at this point it comes down to three issues: 1) Freddie Freeman‘s offense 2) Dan Uggla‘s protracted slump and 3) Bad luck. If you think 1 and 2 are temporary, you wait things out. If you think that Freeman might continue to struggle, you also have to put a value on how many runs he’s saved on defense. I don’t ordinarily value first base defense very highly, but Freeman’s ability to catch anything thrown near him, even ugly short hops, is maybe the best I’ve ever seen. I think you put him in the seven hole and wait for his offense to catch up. I’ve watched him hit in the minors; he can hit with authority, and has shown flashes of brilliance at the big league level. I have no doubt he’ll come around. As to Uggla, I just can’t imagine he’s washed up at 33. I think he needs a couple of days off, then he needs to come back hitting between Chipper and Brian McCann. That should ensure that he gets the most fastballs he’s likely to see anywhere. If he centers up a few more fastballs his confidence will come back.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This offense has the potential to score a lot of runs. It has much more power than last year’s team. It should be able to match last year’s team in OBP. If and when it does, this discussion will be moot. Until then, Fredi should consider changing up his order and stop bunting when all it does is take the bat out of your best hitter’s hands while giving away a precious out. Give Freddie and Uggla some time off. And, at the same time, Frank Wren needs to address out depth issues. In my opinion, if we have to substitute an outfielder and infielder at the same time, we almost have to play a replacement level person in one spot. And World Series caliber teams shouldn’t have to do that. At least, that’s my take. What’s yours?