Braves Impotent Bats -Managerial Ineptitude Keys To Braves Losses

Before last night’s game I wrote a piece on dumb quotes after Wednesday’s loss to the D-Backs but as the game was underway I stopped and watched instead. I should have kept writing.

One quote from the midweek game seemed particularly odd to me:  Asked by Dave O’Brien why reliever Eric O’Flaherty didn’t start the seventh inning instead of Scott Proctor, Gonzalez said,

"“When you’re on the road, you’ve got to push guys back a little bit, because you can’t use your closer on the road in the ninth inning of a tie ballgame.” (emphasis mine)"

There are many things wrong with that but the glaring error is this; the Braves were ahead; it wasn’t a tie game. The Braves were leading 3-2 and it was the perfect time to use the 1-2-3 punch O’Flaherty, Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel. Why O’Brien didn’t follow up with. ‘Uh but Skip you were ahead,’ I have no idea. Perhaps he was in shock that the Manager had no idea what was going on in the game. Holding back the knockout punch in such a situation is indefensible.

Instead of publishing the post however I deleted it and went to bed.

This morning I found this headline in my Braves news feeds from Baseball Prospectus:

Fredi Gonzalez Says Something Really, Really Dumb

It seems the author Steve Goldman and I think alike in this case. He summed up my feelings and those of many Braves fans in a couple of paragraphs:

"“. . .Yet, it’s hard to think of an occasion that demands such language more than the manager of a major-league contending team with the illustrious recent history of the Braves repeating this kind of illogical nonsense."

"Mr. Gonzalez: if you had just gone with your normal order of operations in a game in which you had the lead you might never have had to worry about using your closer in extra innings.. . .Thing is, if you keep Scott Proctorizing yourself, you’re never going to get the opportunity to find out—and someday you will be remembered as the disappointing successor to a Hall of Fame manager, a footnote.”"

At last somebody else says the emperor has no clothes or in this case the manager has no clue. Please go read the entire post.

I complained a lot about Bobby’s use and abuse of the bullpen over the years and that I thought that ran to costing us two world series we should have won. Whatever you think about Bobby Cox however, he always knew who was leading and he played to win every game. Fredi Gonzales apparently doesn’t  know when we’re in the lead.

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It seems that the Braves can’t beat any pitcher who isn’t touted as the Ace of the oppositions staff. On Wednesday we mysteriously couldn’t hit Joe Saunders while the rest of the league beats him like a rented mule. Last night the Braves impotent bats failed to make a dent against Josh Collmenter – who is apparently channeling his inner Greg Madduxon his way to a Cy Young award

I’ve heard Don Sutton, Tom Seaver and other major league pitchers say that a pitching coach is happy if you average 15 pitches an inning. The D-Backs coach must be exhilarated after last night.  Collmenter threw just 76 pitches in 6 innings with only Prado in the first (eight pitches), Freeman in the second (eight pitches) and Jurrjens in both of his at bats )seven pitches in his first and 6 in his second at bat) making him actually work. The guy never beat 90mph and had no overpowering pitch, surely we should make him show us all of them more often.

Dan Uggla continues to disappoint (0-4, reached on an error) as does Heyward (0-4).  I don’t think Uggla will hit without a change in the lineup and I’m not convinced Heyward is healthy. Meanwhile Nate McClouth seems to be bunt happy though much of that may be the responsibility of Fredi Gonzales. In any event McClouth is back to his baseball card (pre-2008) form, currently  .247/.345/.357/.702 (pre-08 he was .249/.322/.429/.752). The whole lineup is in need of a shakeup. That would normally mean going to the bench players and sitting the regulars. The problem is that save the excellent Eric Hinske the bench is tissue thin.  Conrad is a pinch hitter, Hernandez a backup infielder and Mather a fifth outfielder at best. Mather did make a list compiled by Ben Nicholson-Smith over at MLB trade Rumors of waiver claims that have had an impact but there was a caveat.

• Joe Mather (Braves, from Cardinals) – A longtime favorite of the Braves, Mather has a .747 OPS after 24 plate appearances and has appeared at three positions. With respect to Mather, his presence on this list shows how little other waiver claims have impacted MLB rosters so far in 2011. (emphasis mine)

In other words everybody stinks so far, Mather just stinks a little less. As Mr. Nicholson-Smith pointed out Frank Wren tried to trade for him before and was rebuffed by the Cardinals so it was no surprise when he picked him up off waivers. I was in favor of signing him because he had been a top prospect kind of player in the past and if he had returned to that level could have replaced Omar Infante on our bench.  So far however he has not been that player. If we weren’t carrying Conrad in a pinch hit only (mostly) mode and Hernandez because we have no other shortstop, Mather might be worth hanging onto.  As we are now built however he’s unfortunately not shown himself to be part of the solution.

Our best option seems to be to play Hinske as much as possible and put him behind Uggla in the order. While Eric is hot pitchers would rather face Uggla so he would see more fastballs and hopefully begin to become a threat again.

Whatever is done now this bench is inadequate for a contending team. Let’s hope we get some help soon.