Archive for September, 2011

In spite of blowing the save in games 162 and losing his wallet the same night, Craig Kimbrel had a record breaking rookie year. Kimbrel appeared on the Braves horizon early in 2010 pitching 8.1 innings in eight May and June games. There were hints in those performances that he was something special as he struck out 15 of the 41 batters faced and had an ERA of 1.08. He would likely have stuck around if not for the 10 walks and the resultant 1.680 WHIP. Instead he returned to Gwinnett to work things out returning at the end of [...]

Last night the Braves 2011 campaign ended as most who watched them every day regretfully predicted. It’s too early for an inquest so while most of us have ideas why things went as they did the time for examining those is later, after the pain is mostly gone. Then the distance of time and hard data will determine which are ideas accurate and which are emotional bias. Certainly decisions have to be made at the highest levels about how to fix our shortcomings and do better next year. By most standards however, the year was successful. We finished with 89 [...]

  Now or Never It’s September 28th, last day of the 2011 MLB season and the Braves last chance to book a post season spot. The fans have heard all of the excuses and none want to see Fredi Gonzalez tip his hat to anyone except the doorman as he leaves for a new job. Tonight’s lineup was just posted: Bourn 8 Prado 7 Jones 5 Uggla 4 Freeman 3 McCann 2 Diaz 9 Wilson 6 Hudson 1

Every time Derek Lowe is scheduled to pitch, while the game is in progress and after on the blogs and twitter there are some extremely unkind, inaccurate and unjustified statements made about him. In an effort – inevitably unsuccessful – the inform and ad perspective, here are just a few words about Derek Lowe’s “bad” year. We all know Derek Lowe hasn’t been as sharp this year don’t we? I mean look at his won/loss record he’s awful, right? Then he had that unfortunate traffic stop where the did all those awful things. The charges for those awful things were [...]

I’d seen the movie before, many times for many sports. Throughout the season the veteran leader of the team is injured but the team scrapes by to put itself in line for an unlikely championship. When it looks darkest the game worn veteran drags his body to the heights one more time and lifts the whole team in his wake (okay mixed metaphor, stay with me) to eventual victory. You’ve seen that right? When Chipper Jones took Cliff Lee’s letter high heater out to dead center field last night and Dan Uggla followed with a double that bounced into the [...]

Last night the Red Sox who have been significantly worse this month than the Braves decided in Game 2 of a double header at Yankee Stadium that enough was enough and they would not be beaten again. They were down most of the game but forced extra innings and eventually won when Jacoby Ellsbury hit his third homer of the double header (off Scott Proctor, how does that guy keep getting hired?) to put them in front for good. A 14 inning second game of a Sunday double header and the Red Sox were still giving it everything they had.  [...]

As Yogi Berra may or may not have said, today was DeJa Vu all over again. Today the Braves played like they did yesterday,for much of the year workman like and professional but listless and without fire. Possibly Actually it was a bit worse. I said yesterday and again this morning that the Braves had to decide not to be beaten, to act like they wanted it more than anything else and leave everything on the field. They did not. I said Fredi Gonzales had to act like he cared and let the fans know he cared. He didn’t. I [...]

After a zombie like performance in Saturday’s loss, the Braves turn to rookie Mike Minor to right the ship in Sunday’s series finale. Minor has been up and down between Gwinnett and Atlanta this year becoming a permanent fixture in August after injuries to Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens cut into the starting rotation. In his eight starts Minor is 4-0 with a 4.03 ERA and a 1.433 WHIP. He’s struck out 46, walked nine and hit a batter in his 44 2/3 innings. This year he’s become a five innings + pitcher who seems to have caught gopher ball [...]

Today’s loss by the Braves (made worse by Carlos Marmol forgetting what the strike zone was in St. Louis) shouldn’t surprise anyone. The offense has been boom or bust all year and in close games recently, mostly bust. They look excited about the game only when they have a big lead and have strung a bunch of hits together and are already winning. That hasn’t happened that often this season.

Last night’s win was a great morale boost for the Braves. In addition to pushing the Cardinals to three games back with five to play it reminded us (and them?) of the damage they can do by simply stringing a few hits together and taking advantage of extra outs. Today’s gave presents another challenge; we have to do it two days in a row and make it a habit for say the next month or so. Make that five weeks please.