Jair Jurrjens. Tim Hudson. Derek Lowe. Tommy Hanson. Javier Vasquez.
Say what you want about how boring the baseball races have been (and they have been boring), but this staff for the Atlanta Braves is taking a page out of the Rockies playbook, the team they are coincidentally chasing. The braves are having a run like the Rockies did a few years back in hopes to sneak into the playoffs as the NL wild card. They have won an outstanding 15 of the past 17 games and have 2 more games remaining against the marlins, and then close out the season with 4 against the Nationals. The Rockies are currently 2 games up, but have a tougher slate of games with 3 vs. Milwaukee and then 3 @ LA Dodgers. The Braves starting pitching is phenomenal and those aces keep them in every game. The bullpen is obviously a bit less desirable, but these five usually allow the Braves to be competitive no matter who the opponent or pitcher. With only 6 games remaining and 2 to make up on the Rockies you figure they will have to go 4-2 at the very least just to have a shot. In all reality they need to split with the Marlins and then definitely sweep the lifeless Nats @ home to get into the postseason or force a playoff.
They have a shot, and with that pitching can they actually make some noise in the NL...?
Was just talking to Millman about the terrible managing by the Twins. Man on 3rd, 1 out, top 9 1-1, they go to the squeeze play and it turns into a double play. Then they don't use Joe Nathan in the bottom half of the ninth, but Brandon Lyon did get out of it despite having a runner in scoring position with less than 2 outs.
ReplyDeleteBraves run has been pretty remarkable. You could see it lined up a couple weeks ago but the team didn't seem to have enough of a pulse to take advantage of a weak schedule. Besides the pitching carrying them the lineup started to hit a little more as well...now they look to have a pretty decent chance.