I elected to take some days off before making any comments on the Atlanta Braves’ diabolical meltdown in the month of September which allowed the St Louis Cardinals to rest the wild card from their sweaty palms. I resisted a knee jerk reaction to their pitiful end to a season, but before I voice my own comments there were some interesting quotes from various beat writers around the country:
— “Fredi Gonzalez struggled all season long to get his best players on the field, while riding the three relievers he trusted into the ground. For the second straight season, the Braves had a championship-caliber pitching staff and an offense not worthy of it. For the second straight season, the Braves had no path to victory when the pitchers let them down.” – Joe Sheehan, SI.com
— “It was one more reminder of why the Cards are still alive and the Braves are done. Some folks look at the bright glare of a playoff hunt as if it were a scalding heat lamp. Others bask in the warmth of the intense pressure and act as though it’s some soothing morning sun. That would be the Cardinals.” – Bryan Burwell, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Neither the Red Sox nor the Braves could find that one guy to come up with the key hit, or get the key out when they needed it most.” – Bob Harkins, NBC Sports
— “Gonzalez will take plenty of fan heat but, so did Cox for the perceived underachieving of teams that won 14 division titles but just one World Series.” — Paul White, USA Today
— “I’m sure the City of Atlanta will be devastated by the Braves’ collapse for another five or six minutes.” – Dan Wolken, Memphis Commercial Appeal
— “My heart goes out to the Atlanta Braves, mostly because they didn’t play with any in September.” – Matt Sussman of Detroit, on Twitter
The club’s statistics for the month of September make for harrowing reading, but baseball is all about statistics and averages, and analyzing them can give some insight into what went wrong for a team that was coasting into the playoffs at the beginning of the month.
The St. Louis Cardinals won 16 of their final 21 games, including sweeping the Braves to win the wild card and deny the Braves’ postseason bid in Gonzalez’s first season as the managerial replacement to retired icon Bobby Cox. The Braves led the Cardinals by 10 1/2 games Aug. 25 and by 8 1/2 games Sept. 5. but matched the 1964 Phillies for the dubious distinction of largest blown lead by an NL team in September.
Rookie-of-the-year candidate Craig Kimbrel gave up a run in the ninth inning for his third blown save in his last six chances, and the Braves lost after leading in the ninth inning or later for the third time in their final 20 games. They scored three runs in 13 innings, two on Dan Uggla’s homer that staked them to a 3-1 lead in the third. They didn’t score for the last 10 innings of their season.
Three runs are about what the Braves averaged (3.1) during the fateful 7-16 stretch that began Sept. 5. They scored three runs or fewer 14 times in that 23-game slide, forcing their injury-depleted starting rotation and overworked bullpen to pitch with little or no margin for error.
On opening day the pitching rotation comprised five men: Hudson, Lowe, Jurrjens, Hanson and Beachy. By August Hanson and Jurrjens were injured and did not pitch again which naturally placed a lot of pressure on the rookie replacements who understandably could not pitch sufficient innings to give the bullpen a well deserved rest. Consequently Venters and O’Flaherty pitched more innings than any other relievers in baseball and understandably were exhausted coming down the home stretch. Closer Kimbrel had a rookie record 46 saves for the season, but succumbed to the pressure of attempting to stop the September slide into oblivion.
Braves management and fans had every right to expect veteran Derek Lowe to step up to the plate (literally) and pitch at a level to match his inflated salary. After all, he came good last September and played a major part in the team reaching the playoffs. Unfortunately lightning doesn’t normally strike twice and the 38 year old failed to deliver.
In a team sport the manager/coach is usually the fall guy or scapegoat when the team experiences an unsuccessful season. His supporters would claim that the manager of a baseball team cannot make the hits or pitches for his players and the overpaid stars need to take responsibility which is true up to a point.
However, a manager decides on the line up for the game; he decides how long to leave a pitcher in a game; he makes a decision on the match ups with his pitchers for the opposing hitters, and correspondingly his choice of right and left hand hitters to play against the opposing pitchers . Former manager Bobby Cox was an avid disciple of the righty-lefty match up and endorsed by his successor; BIG MISTAKE.
Indeed Fredi Gonazalez made several mistakes during September. In the middle of August he called up Costanza who provided speed and versatility at the plate to complement lead off hitter Michael Bourn. The combination of those two at the top of the order revitalized the offense until Constanza picked up a niggling injury, and was benched for the rest of the season in favor of the predictable and unproductive Jason Heyward; BIG MISTAKE by Gonzalez.
Batters No2 through 8 in the lineup played with very little imagination or intensity. They were all swinging for the fences with very little thought given to manufacturing runs; BIG MISTAKE by Gonzalez. Professional hitters should be able to bunt or execute a squeeze play if demanded by the manager.
Derek Lowe had a torrid time through September and had lost his last four starts with an ERA approaching a ridiculous 9.0 when Gonzalez decided to persevere with him in the last game of the season with play offs on the line. Gonzalez informed the media that he was “relying on Lowe’s experience to get us into the playoffs;” BIG MISTAKE
Twenty years ago the Atlanta Braves ignited the City of Atlanta by going from worst to first in the national league. In contrast the current line up provided a cure for insomnia with regular servings of boring baseball. Winning teams need “heart.” If that’s the case the 2011 Braves are in desperate need of a transplant.
