Again?

I don't know how much more of this I can take. Some times your starting pitcher is going to get knocked out early. When that happens you expect your bullpen to at least hold the other team at bay. Our middle relievers have not been able to come into a game and stop the bleeding. Yesterday just proved this point over again. Lowe left the game with runners on 1st and 3rd down 6-1. The final score of the game? 11-7. The point is, that had the bullpen been able to hold down the fort for a few innings, we would have had a chance to win this one. Even with these two dissapointing losses to the Yankees, we are still only 4 games back. Just to make sure the bullpen was the problem, I did a little research. A simple check on mlb.com shows that the Braves are right near the middle of the pack with a 4.09 bullpen ERA. My first thought was "That's not that bad, maybe the bullpen isn't losing us that many games". A little more research, however, shows that the ERA of everyone not named Gonzalez or Soriano, is a staggering 5.10. The only team that has a worse bullpen ERA in the NL is the Nationals. Soriano and Gonzalez have combined to pitch 67 2/3 innings and have given up 13 eared runs. Everyone else? 157 innings and 89 earned runs. That's 11 pitchers combining for 69 percent of the work load and 87 percent of the earned runs allowed. Another stat that appears to be terrible for our bullpen is inherited runners vs. inherited runners scored. Soriano and Gonzalez have yet to allow an inherited runner to score, the rest of the bullpen is allowing 40 percent of inherited runners to score. These stats are only available per player and there are no team stats that I could find so I don't know how this 40 percent compares to the rest of the league, but it does not seam very good at all. Our other problem is pretty obvious and it's that we aren't getting any sort of consistent production from our 5-8 hitters. So what do we need? A good middle reliever and a power bat in the middle of the lineup. So I was just thinking, what are the options? Jeff Francoeur has been talked about as a trade option, but I am not quite ready to give up on him because I'm too big of a homer. Anyway we don't have a lot of option because of the financial restrictions we have. But there is help on the way. Omar Infante should be back after the allstar break and that will bolster our lineup quite a bit. With Infante back our lineup could look something like this:
Mclouth
Infante
Jones
McCann
Escobar
Anderson
Kotchman
Francoeur
Pitcher
That lineup looks very good. Even a struggling Francoeur is a great number 8 hitter. With our deep pitching staff and improving relievers we should be able to make a solid run at the NL East division.

Sweetness

I'm working 12 hours today blah! But no one is really calling in so far so i've got a lot of time on my hands. This got me thinking about some of my most memorable Braves moments. The year was 1992 and it was October. All you Braves fans probably no exactly what I'm talking about by now. I was just an 8 year old kid and as usually was watching the game with my Dad. Looking back I think this may have been when I started biting my fingernails. Now any of you who saw the game will probably not blame me for doing so. It's kind of like that summer you got addicted to slurpees. Only imagine how addicted you would be if it had been the hottest summer ever. Now back to the game. It was game 7 and everything was on the line. The Braves wanted to beat the Pirates for the 2nd straight year, but Doug Drabek (yeah I know Doug is a very cool name) was not about to let that happen. The Pirates were up 3-0 going into the 9th and the Braves had already come up empty earlier in the 6th when they had the bases loaded with nobody out. After Ron Gants fly ball came about 2 feet from winning the game, the score was 3-1. Another walk, and a pop-up left the bases loaded again but with 2 outs this time. No sacrifice flies would do. My finger nails were barely visible now. Then Fransisco Cabrera stepped to the plate with the score 3-2. No one had even heard of him before, but they would definitely know him after. I have the "Braves win it all" video practically memorized. "It was 3-0 when the inning began but it was 3-2 when the fireworks began." Cabrera took a 2-1 pitch into left field and that is probably what got me hooked. Everything was in slow motion after that. Maybe it was because Bream was so slow or maybe it was just the greatness of the moment. Bream rounded 3rd just as pre-Barroid Bonds let go of the throw. When Bream Slid into home there was only dirt, chalk and silence. It seamed like the whole world just stopped to wait for the call. SAFE!! BRAVES WIN!! BRAVES WIN!!! BRAVES WIN!!! BRAVES WIN!!! My dad lifted me up and started jumping up and down as Braves fans everywhere lost control. Bream laid on the ground as his teamates suffocated him in a dog-pile. "I don't know how long I was under the pile," said Bream. "How long can you hold your breath?"

The answer: As long as it takes Bream and his bum knees to get from second to home.

From Braves to Politics

I've always wanted to go to a blog and read about the failing economy and the Braves failing bullpen. Unfortunatly I've never found one. That's too bad because I'm sure there are a lot of Braves fans down in Georgia who would be willing to make a trade with the White House. Peter Moylan for Barack Obama. Straight up. It works out for the Braves because you can't get much worse than Moylan (We already traded Boyer so he doesn't count) and I'm sure they could use the possitive media coverage. The White House may be down with it cause you can't get much worse than Obama and... errr actually Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are still out there waiting to be called up from the minors, so maybe they could get worse. The good news for the White House is that Moylan is only signed for a one year deal so they could release him at the end of 2009 and go after a more promising prospect. I figure they'll jump on the offer. If they are willing to pay billions of dollars for a failing car company, they should love the chance to buy a failing middle reliever for just around 400K. And that is the deal of the day.