| Douglas Benton. 8th August, 2006 - 5:47 am
 Even after a come from behind win at Cincinnati Sunday afternoon, the Atlanta Braves still sit in ninth position in the Wild Card standings, 5.5 games behind the same Reds that they lost two out of three games to this weekend. With the division race long over, the Braves have turned their full attention to winning the Wild Card, but a lack of timely hitting and consistent pitching ruined a golden opportunity this past weekend, and might very well keep them home for the playoffs for the first time since 1990.
First, the hitting has been there since the All-Star break, but it always seems to come up missing in the crucial situations. In the three games against the Reds, the Braves left a total of 30 runners on base and ended Friday night’s contest with no runs in the ninth after loading the bases with no outs earlier in the inning.
This comes at a time when they start two hitters hitting over .300 in shortstop Edgar Renteria and catcher Brian McCann, while first baseman Adam LaRoche is swinging the bat as well as he ever has in his two and a half years in the big leagues. Centerfielder Andruw Jones also is building on his breakout season a year ago that has seen him improve his hitting in clutch situations, unlike the majority of his teammates, and rank third in the National League with 95 RBI.
Injuries to Chipper Jones have left a void in the line-up that new addition Willy Aybar is having trouble filling, but it leaves no excuses for not having productive at-bats and picking up your teammates when they get on in front of you.
Switching over to pitching, in the last 12 games that have seen the Braves go 4-8, the Braves have had only four quality starts, and two of those resulted in losses. The point behind this is that the starting pitching has been suspect at best and has put the offensive in a hole to climb out of on an almost nightly occurrence. Throughout this season, John Smoltz has been the rock for the rotation and has played the part well up to the present date. It is his running mates that have struggled to keep up their end of the bargain; most notably future ace Tim Hudson.
Hudson came to Atlanta with an impeccable reputation, but he has gone a pedestrian 22-19 so far with the Braves and has had his worst struggles of his career recently. He has given up five or more earned runs in seven of his starts this season and has been nothing close to what his displayed with the A’s.
Other starters Horacio Ramirez and Chuck James have had their moments, but like Hudson to some extent, lack the consistency to be counted on every fifth day.
The Braves still have a shot at the Wild Card if they play better, more consistent baseball because of the overall lack of talent in the National League, but their bigger concern should be playing better first. If they don’t, it won’t matter if there is one team or nine teams in front of them, but they will be looking ahead to meaningless games come September. |
