Jun 27 2008
With all that’s gone wrong, Braves reach midpoint still in the hunt
By Bud L. Ellis
braves.today.com
ATLANTA – A baseball season indeed is a marathon, a long grind that marches on game after game, week after week, month after month. The 162 games of a baseball schedule pass by methodically – riding the highs of victory and the lows of defeat – as the days of the calendar fly by.
When the Atlanta Braves take the field tonight to open a three-game series at Toronto, they will reach the midpoint of a 2008 season that’s been far more interesting than perhaps any other season this franchise has experienced in its long and storied history – and with the exception of Chipper Jones, mostly for all the wrong reasons.
Game No. 81, tonight against the Blue Jays, is the middle mark of a campaign that’s seen just about everything that can possibly go wrong for a baseball team.
If the Braves are winners tonight, they will conclude the first half with 40 victories, putting them on a pace to finish the season 80-82. On the surface, that’s far below what the Braves and their fans hoped for coming out of spring training. Remember, this team left Lake Buena Vista the final week in March branded as a potential World Series champion by a couple of experts, labeled as a legitimate playoff contender by just about everybody.
You know the bloody details of what the Braves – and the good denizens of Braves Nation – have endured since: the injuries (nine guys on the 40-man roster currently reside on the disabled list), the abysmal 4-20 record in one-run games, the 1-7 mark in extra-inning contests, the 11-27 showing on the road, the disappointment of Jeff Francoeur, the overworked bullpen blowing saves left and right, the reliance on several players who weren’t even on that 25-man opening-day roster.
And yet, as the Braves take the field for the final game of the first half, they find themselves a scant four games out of first place. Like a grizzled prize fighter who absorbs punch after punch, the Braves have stood perilously close to the brink of slipping out of contention. Yet, Atlanta has steadied itself enough to stay in the race as June draws to a close, refusing to hit the canvas.
That is reason, Braves fans, why you should be optimistic about what could transpire during the second half.
There is no way – and I know I’m chancing fate here by stating it, but here goes – no way the Braves can have so many things go awry as the second half plays itself out. Certainly, the Braves won’t lose three starting pitchers from their rotation in the second half, as they did in the first half (John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton). Certainly, they won’t play .289 ball in games away from Turner Field in the second part of this season. Certainly, they’ll get enough clutch hits and enough solid bullpen work to win more than four out of 24 one-run decisions.
This team has survived everything that’s went haywire in the first half, from an overworked bullpen to questionable decisions by its manager, from its cleanup hitter going weeks without hitting home runs to its young superstar playing like a timid rookie, from having to employ two rookies and a journeyman to man two-thirds of its outfield to having to employ four pitchers with less than one year of major-league pitching experience in the rotation.
The Braves have survived all of it and – somehow – find themselves within spitting distance of first place.
So, during the second half – which starts Saturday afternoon north of the border – is it too much of a reach to expect an overall better showing for this team? No. They should play better. Is it too much of a reach to expect they to win eight or nine more games during the second half than they did during the first half? No. Not only is it not much of a reach, it should be expected from a team that has underachieved as a collective unit for the better part of three months.
That’s how close the Braves are, when you strip away the frustration and angst of the past three months, the injuries, the close losses, the blown chances … eight or nine more wins in the second half puts them at 88 to 89 wins, and that very well could be enough to capture the NL East title.
But it all starts this weekend in Toronto. No more six-game losing streaks. No more 1-5 road trips. No more getting swept by Philly at home. No more dropped final outs of games. For everything that’s gone wrong for the Braves in the first half, the most important thing has gone right:
They’ve reached the halfway point still in the race. And certainly, one must think the second half has to be better than the first.
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