The Braves’ Time Is Up

The Braves are off to Arlington to take on a beaten up, sunken, leaderless team in the Texas Rangers. After missing the playoffs for the first time since 2009 (despite being 19 games over .500 in 2013), Texas has gone belly up under a slew of injuries and currently reside a whopping 37 games under .500.

And you thought the Braves were bad.

Well, currently, yes they are. They were just handed two defeats in three games from their biggest rivals and their recent best opponent to beat up on. With just a little over 2 weeks remaining, the Braves have officially run out of time to put it together. If this isn’t a series sweep, you can almost certainly kiss the playoffs goodbye Braves fans.

And for better or worse, the hardest game of the series will be on Friday against Derek Holland. who has been brilliant in his two starts since returning from a freak offseason injury. Just one run in 14 innings so far for Holland, who hasn’t walked a single one of the 51 men he’s faced. The Braves will counter with arguably their best pitcher of the second half in fellow lefty Alex Wood. It’s definitely going to be the game to watch.

With so many offensive pieces missing, Julio Teheran should have no trouble on Saturday night, as he squares up against the ever hittable Scott Baker. Baker doesn’t walk many, but he also overpowers virtually no one anymore. The veteran has always been a contact pitcher that logged enough quality innings to be considered a number 3 starter, but Tommy John seems to have zapped the little bit of stuff he once had. So in other words, look forward to 7 shutout Scott Baker innings everyone.

Much of the same can be said for Colby Lewis, who has struggled returning from his own various injuries. Still a solid strikeout pitcher, Lewis has obviously lost a step, as his 11.4 hits per nine are easily much worse than the 7.8, 8.4, and 8.5 rates tallied in his previous 3 variously successful seasons with the Rangers.

Adrian Beltre will lead the Texas offensive assault against the Braves pitching. In fact, he’ll be the only one. At a glance, you’d swear this was the Braves roster with this many sub .700 OPS’s in tow. Disappointing years from the ridiculously overpaid Elvis Andrus and the aging and the offensively perplexing Alex Rios have kicked the Rangers while they were already down. The loss of Prince Fielder was obviously a big blow as well, and losing whatever little 32 year old Shin-Soo Choo would contribute didn’t exactly help.

The Braves are in position to take 3 easy candy games from a struggling, baby team and if they fail, it likely spells the end of the 2014 Atlanta Braves.

Game 1:

8:10 PM EST, Friday, September 12th

Probables:  Alex Wood (10-10, 2.90 ERA) vs Derek Holland (1-0, 0.64 ERA in 2 starts)

Game 2:

1:05 PM EST, Saturday, September 13th

Probables:  Julio Teheran (13-11, 3.00 ERA) vs Scott Baker (3-4, 5.52 ERA)

Game 3:

3:05 PM EST, Sunday, September 14th

Probables:  Mike Minor (6-10, 4.58 ERA) vs Colby Lewis (9-13, 5.29 ERA)