Jul 01 2008
Frenchy needs to break slump by going to bench
By Bud L. Ellis
braves.today.com
ATLANTA – Consider for a moment what it’s like to be Jeff Francoeur.
Drop-dead good looks. Outstanding personality. Fantastic sense of humor. Beautiful wife. Sports Illustrated cover boy. Foundation pillar of the team he grew up cheering for as a kid.
Sounds like a heck of a life, doesn’t it? Ready to change places with him this morning? If so, best be prepared to bear the ever-increasing weight of Braves Nation on your strapping shoulders.
That scream of joy you heard when the clock flipped from 11:59 to midnight last night/this morning was undoubtedly Francoeur celebrating the end of the worst month of his major-league career. In June, Frenchy hit .206 with only two homers, eight RBIs and 23 strikeouts. The last nine games of the month were just putrid: three hits – all singles – with eight strikeouts and no RBIs.
June swoon? It’d be disrespectful to June swoons past and present to describe Frenchy’s month in such glowing terms.
It’s painful to talk about Francoeur in those terms. After all, he’s the centerpiece of the Baby Braves movement who’s won fans over with his boyish charm, his hustle, his willingness to play hurt and his performance in his first three seasons (62 homers, 253 RBIs and batting averages of .300, .260 and .293).
But the deeper Francoeur’s 2008 season have plunged, the louder the critics have become. Hitting just .239 with only eight home runs and 41 RBIs, his numbers are even worse with runners in scoring position: .211 with 22 strikeouts in 95 at bats.
The Braves – for all their injuries and inconsistencies – sit just four games out of first place as July begins. Even without John Smoltz and Tom Glavine and Mike Hampton (who pitched three innings at Class-A Rome Monday night), the pitching has been plenty good enough. Even with 21 losses in one-run games, an abysmal 12-29 record away from Turner Field and losses in seven of eight extra-inning contests, the Braves find themselves squarely in contention in the middling NL East.
But Atlanta’s offense has been the problem this season, and Francoeur is a big part of that problem. And with Mark Kotsay on the shelf with back problems and Matt Diaz recovering from a knee injury, the Braves have had no choice but to run Francoeur out there every day, hoping he would snap out of his season-long funk.
It hasn’t worked.
Kotsay is expected to be activated in time for tonight’s game, the first of three ultra-important games with first-place Philadelphia. With Kotsay back in the mix and Gregor Blanco playing well of late, the time has come to put the Golden Child on the bench.
It’s not time to trade Francoeur. It’s not time to send Francoeur back to the minors. Fans have swarmed blogs, chat rooms, message boards and talk shows suggesting such drastic moves. They are as far off-base as are Francoeur’s mechanics at the plate.
He shouldn’t be sent packing for another organization, or for Triple-A Richmond. Instead, he should sit on the bench for two or three games. The Braves need Francoeur producing runs in the second half if they are going to win this division. It’s not happening right now, so the smart move is to put him on the bench for a few days and let him clear his mind.
The critics will howl with every strikeout, every double-play grounder, every ball misplayed by an outfielder who won a Gold Glove last season. And as the slump deepens, the kid who grew up in the Atlanta suburbs dreaming of taking his place in the Braves’ lineage of great young stars will continue to press, continue to put immense pressure on himself.
It’s time to stop the downward slide. It’s time to put Frenchy on the bench. He needs to step away, refresh, get his swing back and return to being a key contributor to this team. There are 79 games left in this season, and if the Braves want to make all of those games mean something, they need the Francoeur we’ve come to know and love, and not the 2008 version.
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