ESPN – Braves vs. Mets Box Score, September 10 2007 – MLB
I think that the problem is that the Braves suck.
They fell behind in the first when they couldn’t turn a double play on a ground ball, allowing Reyes (who else?) to score. And essentially didn’t threaten at all until the sixth, when Hudson singled and Escobar walked leading off the inning. (That the pitcher was leading off the sixth tells you a lot about innings one through five.) But Renteria lined out, and then Hudson was picked off, and then he allowed a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-0.
McCann hit a two-run homer in the seventh to make it 3-2, but that was it. The Braves didn’t get another baserunner. Because they suck. Chipper and Andruw didn’t play, Chipper because of the ever-popular sore oblique and Andruw for being “sick”, which nine times out of ten in a player’s first game in a series in New York means he was hung over.
Brutal, heartless, punchless and sad.
That’s how its been.
By the way, do any of you remember a year where there have been so many devastating home runs giving up by the Braves? Not so much tonight, but the gopher ball Cormier gave up on Sunday is one of many examples.
PS – KJ — cut down on your strikeouts.
Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg? Who came up with that for a Monday night football game?
The Braves will probably finish 81-81. Even with a quality 3rd starter, as many around here believe all is necessary for a ‘playoff’ team, the Braves are still a mediocre-to-decent team.
It’s gonna take some work to get this team, with this crop of vets, back to playoff form. It’ll take more than a good starting pitcher. Think about it. This season, the Braves got unexpected quality production out of LF and 2B, while RF, 3B, and for the last part of the season, 1B all improved (Chipper stayed healthier and hence played more). Only CF and C regressed, and again, for the second half of the season, McCann has hit very well. So yes, while the Braves may be able to replace Andruw’s production from this season, they will probably suffer in a couple other spots where they did not this year – probably LF and SS, where Renteria has overachieved, and possibly 3B, where Chipper has been wonderful at the plate despite his age.
I think the Braves need a much better 3rd starter, probably a 5th starter who can eat innings at a league-average ERA, and another serious bat, preferably an outfielder. Oh, and a couple reliable guys on the bench and a better bullpen, which, despite some folks’ optimism for next year, will never make me feel secure. At least not until I see them perform well for an entire season.
PS – Bobby please learn how to manage baseball again or dont come back
Golic at least has some color commentary experience. Greenberg is inexplicable as always.
Where are all the Bobby supporters? I used to argue with many of them…
What about Mac, kc? I think he picked Cox as the “face of the franchise” over Smoltz.
Dan, I thought so, but Mac has been quiet on this and even picking on Bobby’s bunting habit. Honestly, I still think Bobby has been managing the same way ever since the first time I see him…nothing has changed…
What has changed is Bobby no longer has Pat Corrales to keep him from making really bad in game decisions. Pat was the angel sitting on Bobby’s shoulder when Bobby would be thinking about some crazy thing. It was obvious the year Pat was not available to make road trips and we saw many more bad moves on the road (at least that was my impression). Now that Pat is gone completely we see bad stuff at home and away. The current bench coach does not understand he is supposed to help Bobby remember how to make good moves. Oh, and Pat is still the best at defensive positioning IMHO.
I missed the game but I can say that .500 is not something I would take for granted. At this point I am also hoping that we do not get swept in NY….
Bobby is the same. He just doesn’t have Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux to cover up his mistakes any more.
According to cnnsi.com, Chipper Jones may be out for the rest of the season with that oblique injury. I would have to say, with out a doubt, the post season is now officially out of reach….Mac, write the obit on this season.
It really seems like this team should have been better.
And I really don’t remember thinking that about other Braves’ teams under Cox (except playoff performances)
The post-season has been out of reach for weeks. This team has shown NOTHING all year. They don’t scrap, they don’t fight, they are passionless. If the Braves had 1/3 the heart of the Nationals, they would be a decent team. I don’t know what it is with these guys–too many middle-class Georgia boys? (:
Everyone talks about how good the offense is, but this is the 70th game the Braves have scored 4 or fewer runs.
According to the AJC story, Hudson was mad that Perex picked him off, angry that he would focus on picking off a fellow pitcher. Huh? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Is this spring training or something? Aren’t you supposed to get outs however you can?
What about Mac, kc? I think he picked Cox as the “face of the franchise” over Smoltz.
And he’s absolutely right. There’s really not much argument. Just because we’re struggling doesn’t make it any less so. In fact, the Braves suck right now and so does Cox’s management—seems like a perfect fit.
this season is just bad timing. When we get good pitching, we get no offense and vice versa. As for our #1 and #2 SP’s they pitch great and get no run support, #345 guys get run support but cant keep us in ball games. Unlucky injuries, bad players still getting playing time, and very poor coaching all the way around. Thats why we are where we are. The only coach I see as being beneficial is Hubbard, he did another great job this year with KJ. However, Bobby does his best to make sure he sits on a regular basis.
This season was over about a month ago, Chippers injury just confirms it.
I’m actually kind of looking forward to the Hawks’ upcoming season. In the bad East, they might have a shot at the 8th or even 7th seed.
It’s also nice being able to ignore the Falcons from week 1 instead of having them crush my hopes around week 12. Go get a high seed, guys! Don’t try to win too hard.
McCann’s homer aside, the offense really stunk yesterday. Perhaps a skunk would be an appropriate animal picture for today’s game.
Interesting that the Braves are playing in NY on September 11. I imagine it will be a pretty weird atmosphere.
Did anyone else see the Diamondbacks’ game last night?
That organization is building a dynamic, motivated team that will need to be reckoned with for years.
I wish the Braves were that kind of organization.
I have had some on this site disagree with my assertion regarding this, but a major Braves problem is that there is not an organizational focus on the value of the walk as an offensive weapon (on base for run scoring, swinging at higher quality ptiches to increase BA and SLG).
Oliver Perez walks everybody except the Braves. That is because they all seem to want to swing at the first pitch. The more they need patience, the less they have.
This is a Cox problem. He is legendary as the manager without a take sign. If people don’t know how to hold up, give them a take sign. If they are ahead in the count, give them a pitch and a location. If they swing at anything else, put them on the bench.
Last night (7th inning?) Texeira even swung at the first pitch. And it came in a stretch where obviously Perez’ control was wavering.
Cliff,
I agree with you and this is a great observation(although Teixera isn’t really a good example since he did not come through the organization). This lack of interest in plate discipline (or, alternatively, an obsession with aggressiveness at the plate) has manifested itself for years and, IMO, was a major reason why the Braves have struggled in the playoffs. With exceptions like Chipper, there seems to be little emphasis on working the count and getting the pitcher’s pitch counts up. On the other hand, you would always see the other teams working Maddux and Glavine enough to get a few runs. The problem is even more obvious now that the Braves don’t have overwhelming pitching. With all the talk about the Braves offense and the total number of runs they score, they get shut down an awful lot. It’s not like they consistently score 5,6, 7; it’s more like 10, 2, 5, 1, 14.
It amazes me how today hitters (not just Braves) will swing wildly even when the team is behind. I don’t know how often I have seen a guy up with the team behind several runs, get the count to 2-0 and then swing at the next pitch and make an out.
Are there any of our people who know how to do a standard deviation analysis on runs scored and compare it to major league averages? My guess is that this Braves team is way out there (as Marc observed)
Martin Prado hitting above McCann, hmmm.
Something I’m curious about guys. Hudson got picked off, and apparently was upset about it that. I wasn’t aware of an unwritten, “don’t pick off a pitcher” rule. I DID love what he said afterwards (about not being on 2nd very often so not sure how far to lead off, now he knows how far is too far), and hadn’t even seen the bit on being upset about Perez chosing to pick him off until I went hunting for it after a read something by a Mets fan snarking on it.
So, is it a “code”/”rule”?
The Braves are 4th in the NL in OBP.
The Braves haven’t really had problems with walks since Merv Rettenmund left.
I admit to being a Cox supporter.
I have always thought he bunted too much and second guessed certain in-game decisions as well as lineups, though his use of the bench guys might have kept them fresh. I give credit to him because I feel like his long-term record as a winner is compelling, especially with teams that seemingly overachieved in recent years (well, not the really recent ones).
This comment from Marc is why I see this failed season as largely Bobby’s fault.
“This team has shown NOTHING all year. They don’t scrap, they don’t fight, they are passionless.”
I do not think it’s the “business-like” demeanor that is the culprit, but the team’s repeated failure to rise to the occasion. Not once have they come through when they had a chance to make a move. The mediocre Mets kept us in it for 5 months, but in my opinion, Cox’s team failed where they had so often succeeded in year’s past. If I gave him credit then, he deserves blame now.
And Cox is still the face of the franchise.
I am reserving judgment until the official end of the season.
I wonder how many games Cox has cost the team with his dumb lineups, loyalty to unproductive players, mindboggling handling of relievers, and infatuation with giving away outs by bunting. I suspect it could be enough games to put them ahead in the wild card in spite of all the pitching problems, Andruw’s bad year, etc. Of course since virtually every other manager does the same stupid stuff, you could make the same argument for all the other teams in the playoff race. In the end, you don’t make the playoffs when 3/5 of your rotation is Chuck James, Buddy Carlyle, and Lance Cormier.
We’re really starting to sound like Mets fans. They can’t do this, they can’t do that, more pitching, more hitting with RISP, not enough patience at the plate, boo fuckin’ hoo. No fight, no passion, no nothing, whatever, we just suck and that’s that.
We, for the most part, don’t know what goes on in the clubhouse, we aren’t on the field everyday, all we get to do is sit back and judge these guys who get payed a lot of money to play a kid’s game. I don’t think the Braves really like the fact that they’re barely average this year, after all the hype in April. Most of us bought into it, and then we got burned when reality set in.
All the good Braves teams I remember had a sort of confidence, a knowing that no matter what happen, they were gonna leave the rest of the division in the dust. This year, they don’t have that. The Braves are a year off thier worst season since 1990, 19 fuckin’ 90! We’re just spoiled I guess. Maybe all this humiliation will put fuel on the fire, maybe it’ll give us the push to be really good next year. Except for maybe after the 99 WS ass whoopin’ or the 2005 DS crap , this is the gladest I’ve ever been that the season is (well, almost) over.
The biggest crime is as bad as they were last year, I was kinda numbed, cos I knew they were already way out of it, but this year, they kinda hung around long enough to get my hopes up and then started showing thier true colors.
Nothing personal or anything to any of you fine people on here, but I’m just pissed off that now, we can’t even beat the godless heathen Mets, let alone sweep the lousy Nationals.
Stepping off the soap box now.
Part of the problem with the bunts is the execution. Shouldn’t a major leaguer be able to make a passable bunt for sacrifice and a passable bunt for a hit (when infileders are appropriately misplaced based on the speed of the batter) as part of his skills set?
@26,
“They are really more like guidelines, anyway”.
#33, yes but a lot of the times Bobby asks players to bunt who shouldn’t be major leaguers anyway (Orr, Woodward).
I don’t really think it’s Bobby’s “fault” because there is no single cause of a team struggling. Let’s face it, a baseball manager isn’t like a football coach that draws up strategy and really is the focus of the team’s success or failure. Baseball strategy is much less definitive–good managers can have bad teams and bad managers can win pennants. In football, a bad coach won’t win. Bobby’s strategy is, I think, not much different from other managers of his generation, like Torre, et. all. We don’t like it because it goes against the grain of modern sabermetric analysis, but he was making the same moves in 1995. I certainly have problems with some of his roster decisions, but I’m not sure how much difference that made.
I sort of regret saying the team lacks heart because who am I to say that? But, as I’ve said before, it seems to me that that this team has been playing not to lose all year–and the players seem to recognize this. They seem to go up trying to hit home runs all the time. Chipper and Smoltz have both made comments about this. I think to some extent they are carrying the burden of the division title teams and may be trying too hard to regain the mantle. This seems to me to be the area where a manager should make a difference and, traditionally, the Braves have been a very resilient team.
But the fact is, too, that this team is flawed; a weak starting rotation after the Big 2; shaky bullpen, inconsistent defense (although it has been better than most expected, I think), extremely weak bench, and a lack of clutch hitting late in games. The latter may be a matter of luck; the others will require work in the offseason.
And, let’s face it, the Braves teams of the 90s–at least once they switched to the East–benefitted from relatively weak competition–at least once the Expos got broken up. The division has gotten stronger. Like it or not, these are not the Mets of the 90s. The Braves, through a combination of reduced payroll and inability to develop pitching, have gotten worse. Given the resources over the last couple of years, maybe it was unrealistic to expect this team to be more than it has been.
At any rate, Dustin is right; we are spoiled. This team has not been fun to watch. Like others, I was thinking after they got Teixera, they would at least be a more exciting team, but, except in spurts, they have been losing the same kind of games they lost earlier. What bothers me more is the predictability of the games–Braves get behind early, game is over.
Every time I start to complain about the Braves suckitude this year, I think back to the 1987-1990 era, then I take a deep breath and just move on.
@ 36
Totally agree about Teixera. When he hit that home run in his first game with us, and I saw the crowd actually on their feet cheering (totally out of character) , I jumped up and was telling my wife “We’re gonna win something this year, we HAVE to.”
That feeling left for good when the Mets swept us.
It had to be the Mets.
Sigh.
Greetings from sunny Ibiza.
I suppose it´s not surprising that while I´ve been away from American sports civilization the Braves are exactly where I left them: two games over .500.
Guess I better crack open another San Miguel…
This season is what it is. How many times did we either win the division because everyone behind us sucked, or we pulled a John Burkett from the scrap heap. It had to come to end, the rest of the NL east has had 13 years to build ballclubs to beat us, and we got complacent and placed too much hope in guys like Raul Mondesi and Kyle Davies. Let Andruw go, get some starting pitching and lets go get em next year….the magic had to run out sooner or later…
Dustin, fantastic comment. Many of us, myself included, are guilty of contributing to the sour grapes rant that has pervaded this site the last few weeks. It’s all Bobby’s fault for mishandling the bullpen, its all JS’s fault for falling through on a #3 starter, its all Andruw’s fault because he hits the buffet line for seconds every night. I’m over it.
I’m curious to see what we do in the offseason. The fact that JS and Bobby are gone after 2008 may be reason enough to dramatically improve this team. An extra $15-20 million from Liberty Media won’t hurt things either.
Hey ububba, hope you’re enjoying Ibiza. New York is rainy and miserable.
But the Braves won the year Raul Mondesi was on the team.
I think the Braves are second in runs scored overall. The Phillies are first. That’s what it was in 2006 too, Phillies leading the NL in runs scored and the Braves in second in runs scored. Yet neither the Phillies nor the Braves made the playoffs in 2006 and the same goes for 2007.
Hmm….maybe, just maybe, it’s not the offense? Maybe it’s….you know, the pitching?
But by all means, let’s spend 15 million for another year of Andruw Jones.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment on this thread. The run has been great and it is over for many of the reasons mentioned here.
However, I must object to the misconceived notion that the Braves dominated a substandard Division. This rationalization has often been used by fans of other teams to down play the Atlanta franchise’s accomplishment and it is simply not supported by the facts.
During the Braves’ run in the Wild Card Era, 1995-2005, the NL East won two thirds of the NL pennants represented by three different teams. No other Division can claim suce success. Everyone knows that we have had our share of wild card winners and two Marlins teams won it all from that position. The collective record of the Division (probably the best way to measure the relative top-to-bottom strength of a division) was consistently in the top half of all the Divsions in baseball and number one in several years. Additonally, only one Division has managed to have every team in it finish .500 or better since the introduction of the unbalanced schedule (Guess who.). In fact, no other Division has come close.
Do I even need to go into the races in the NL West when the Braves beat out two teams who had just been World Series Champs within the previous two years and a Giants team that had the second best record in baseball (up by 6 games on #3), but missed the playoffs?
To say that the NL East was weak is simply not true and is not really supported by statistics. For the most part, these were relatively good divisions dominated by an even better Braves team.
I’ve generally like Cox, but it’s clear that he’s gone downhill this year. His use of overused relievers in non-close games has been inexcusable. I suspect Cox-McDowell is a real downgrade, and McDowell probably isn’t giving Cox adequate guidance/reminders about how to not make releivers’ arms dead. Sorry, but mental sharpness does decline with age, and I’m starting to think Cox waited 2 years too long to retire.