Show #127: The Braves Limp into the Final Week
Reviewing the Phillies series. Heyward’s post game comments. Prado’s shrinking numbers. And evaluating the Braves’ post season chances.
227 Responses to “Show #127: The Braves Limp into the Final Week”
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Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 » Show All
September 28th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Wags forgot to take his Valium pre-game. Dude is hyped. Take a deep breathe Billy.
September 28th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Meadow.
September 28th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Woooooohooooooooooooo! Another big win.
September 28th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Ya know…when we win my hope meter goes WAAAAAAY up and when we lose it plummets. Weird…
September 29th, 2010 at 8:37 am
twss
September 29th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Hah…funny guy! Anybody else see who closed the Rays game clinching their playoff role? Anybody see the lack of enthusiasm on the Yanks team winning their division? Hate the stupid Yanks! Playing in the post season has become such a common place event for them. Did it get that way for the Braves?
September 29th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Sadly, yes
September 29th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Curt, next time just lie to me ok?
September 29th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Mara, those $10 and $6.48 bags of Tilapia are the shiznit, are they not? I was taking a bite of it as I read your comment, cousin. Have you tried sprinkling parmesan cheese on during the last 5 minutes of the bake? Yummicious.
September 29th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Do you guys still want the Braves to make the playoffs? I’m torn. I don’t think we’ll get very deep, and I’d like to be spared all the bullsnap about Bobby leading the team back for one more go.
Win one for the jipper?
September 29th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Braves lineup: 1. Infante 2B, 2. Heyward RF, 3. Diaz LF, 4. Lee 1B, 5. Gonzalez SS, 6. Ross C, 7. Conrad 3B, 8. Cabrera CF, 9. Lowe P
September 29th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
But, Bub – if the Braves go back to the playoffs, Bobby will have lead them back there. I realize that there’s a hundred examples you can point to of ridiculous line-ups, awful bullpen management, crazy batting orders, lack of running, etc, etc. But this team, on paper, had no right to lead the NL East for as long as it did. And this team, with all the injuries, really have no right to go to the playoffs. If they do, a lot of that, in my opinion, is to Bobby’s credit. You may now eviscerate me.
And to answer your question – I abso-friggin-lutely want the Braves to go to the playoffs. And think, if they play great ball, like we saw for so much of the summer and these past two nights, they could beat the Reds/Giants/Pads. No doubt in my mind. I don’t think they can get past the Phillies in the 2nd round. They are just too, too good.
September 29th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Here’s one from Buster Olney for you starryeyed dreamers:
Having been a rabid Dodgers fan in the first 24 years of this life, I present to you the championship lineup for Tommy Lasorda’s team in Game 5 of the 1988 World Series:
2B Steve Sax
1B Franklin Stubbs
LF Mickey Hatcher
RF Mike Marshall
CF John Shelby
DH Mike Davis
C Rick Dempsey
3B Jeff Hamilton
SS Alfredo Griffin
Lasorda’s choices had been greatly altered by injuries to Kirk Gibson, Mike Scioscia and others, but in a short window, this collection of journeymen and castoffs somehow managed to finish off the Mets in the National League Championship Series and then win four of five games from an Oakland team loaded with the likes of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and a bunch of other mashers. They rode the brilliance of Orel Hershiser and the Dodgers’ pitchers to a title.
If Lasorda had been forced to use that lineup the entire summer, the Dodgers wouldn’t have ever had the chance to compete in the postseason, but in a short time frame — in a small window — they made it work.
Lasorda’s lineup came to mind after word broke about Martin Prado’s injury on Tuesday night. Prado is done for the year in Atlanta, and so is Chipper Jones, leaving Bobby Cox to quilt together some young players and veterans around the steady Brian McCann. An example:
2B Omar Infante
RF Jason Heyward
C Brian McCann
1B Derrek Lee
LF Melky Cabrera
SS Alex Gonzalez
3B Brooks Conrad
CF Rick Ankiel
The 2010 Braves look like the ’27 Yankees in comparison to the ’88 Dodgers, and they have three good starting pitchers and a very deep bullpen. But the mystery every day will be about how the runs can be produced, and some pixie dust will be needed — the unexpected bolt, the kind that came in the seventh inning on Tuesday night.
Eric Hinske chatted earlier this year about the Braves, and near the end of the conversation he mentioned his personal postseason streak. He was with the Red Sox when they won the World Series in 2007, was part of the Rays that made it to the World Series in 2008 and then he was in the group of Yankees that sprayed champagne in 2009. He’d like to keep that streak going, he said cheerily.
When Cox sent Hinske to the plate in the seventh inning, he was 31 days removed from his last home run; he’s hitting .250 for the month of September after batting .180 in August and .212 in July. And the pitcher he was about to face, Anibal Sanchez, has been one of the best in the National League at keeping the ball in the park.
When Cox sent Hinske to the plate in the seventh inning, he was 31 days removed from his last home run; he’s hitting .250 for the month of September after batting .180 in August and .212 in July. And the pitcher he was about to face, Anibal Sanchez, has been one of the best in the National League at keeping the ball in the park: Sanchez had allowed only eight homers in his first 189 innings this season, and no homers since August 26. And Hinske was 0-for-10 in his career against Sanchez.
Sanchez threw a thigh-high two-seam fastball on the inner half of the plate, Hinske jumped it, mashing the ball so cleanly that he knew on contact that he had hit his first homer in a month. As Hinske dropped his bat and took the first step in an I-know-it’s-gone strut, Sanchez jerked his head back in anger, so violently that his hat flew off.
On Sept. 28, 2010, the pixie dust fell on the Braves: Tim Hudson was excellent on three days’ rest, the bullpen dominated for three innings, Brooks Conrad hit a pivotal RBI triple and Hinske blasted an improbable home run. The Braves are upright despite losing Prado, writes Jeff Schultz. To climb to where they want to get to, more of the same will be needed. You can’t imagine how it could happen, but it’s happened before, as the living members of the 1988 Dodgers will tell you, and it can happen again.
September 29th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
“You may now eviscerate me.”
Well, I can’t, either. I haven’t been able to keep up, so for all I know Bobby’s been brilliant since I left off. But his Venters Abuse and cockeyed lineups, his grandpa’ing up the atmosphere so that injured players can hold the offense hostage (and three AMENS to the excellent Capitol Ave article on the injury weirddom that you linked for us; what a cathartic read that was for me)… his 2010 shenanigans did me in forEVER.
I guess it would be super petty of me to begrudge the boys a playoff spot so I can be satisfied that Bob Cox gets one less carnation in his absurd parting boquet, so I can’t quite push that button. But this really has been the year of my disillusionment. The Hanson/Boras contract, Heyward’s highly revelant thumb dishonesty, McCann’s world 300 decibel F**K screams, and, oh yeah, the losing, has left me running on fumes. Probably school, too. I’m sure half of my indignation is neurotic, but the other half…
September 29th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
*forgive the busted sentences and frigged spellings. I’m one lit crit paper over the line, sweet Jesus.
September 29th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
First of all, BUUUUUUB! Now, before you disappeared into school, school and more school you were working back to your homeristic ways. I absoLUTEly want to make the post season. Finally, I rarely cook fish but found some at Trader Joes and my kids loved it. I’ll try the Parm cheese next time cause that sounds fabulous. Thanks for the tip and…*sniff* welcome back.
September 29th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
If any among us have not seen Quiz Show, I highly recommend it. I can’t imagine any from the Michael Clayton/Frost-Nixon set not appreciating it. I watched it again in 30 minute snatches this week and I’d forgotten how very good it is. Sometimes Ralph Fiennes(sp?) does nothing for me, but in this role and in Schindler’s List he really takes over the screen. I remember being bummmed out when I first saw it that the ending was kind of cynical, but this time I saw the value in standing that ground.
Lordy, I’m babbling today. ABT withdrawal.
September 29th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Magic. Now if Conrad can settle in.
September 29th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Oh…and some runs would be helpful as well.
September 29th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Yay!!
September 29th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Finally busting thru against Andrew Koufax
September 29th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Conrad was a wee little man.
A wee little man was he.
He held his bat without any gloves
And sent baseballs to the sea.
Well… that didn’t work out as well as we’d'a hoped…
September 29th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Lowe looks crazy, insanely awesome!
September 29th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Derek Lowe’s ERA: 3.96
September 29th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
scratch that.