Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sports

No laughing matter

Braves struggle to produce the big hit

By Michael Mahan

In baseball, much like comedy, timing is everything. And there’s nothing funny about what’s happening with the Braves lately. Atlanta’s offense, predicted to be one of the best in baseball coming into the season, has seen more strikeouts and whiffs than open mic night at the Improv over the last few weeks.

Like a comedian with good material but terrible delivery, the Braves are struggling when it matters most. Getting hits with runners in scoring position in close games is to a baseball team what the punch line is to a comic—it’s the payoff. Without it, the rest is meaningless.

“We have to start getting timely hits,” All-Star catcher Brian McCann, one of the few Braves having a productive season, tells The Sunday Paper. “When we get guys on base, we have to drive them in, and we’re not doing that at a consistent rate. For us to play in October, we’re going to have to start doing that.”

The statistics are misleading. Hovering around the middle of the pack in the National League in virtually all offensive categories, including batting average with runners in scoring position (RISP), the Braves haven’t come through in the clutch, when another run or two can mean the difference between winning and losing a close game.

Although as a team, the Braves have one of the better on-base percentages in the league, they’re also near the top in the number of runners left on base.

“We’re getting guys on base, but coming through with the big hits has been a problem for us all season,” first baseman Mark Teixeira says. “We’re trying to put together good at-bats, and we’re hitting some balls hard, but it’s just not working out for us.”

No, it’s not. The Braves have lost an astounding 21 games by a single run, an astronomical figure that accounts for nearly half of their losses after the season’s first 90 games. How many of those games could the Braves have won, if only they’d gotten one more hit at a more opportune time?

“Teams that win are the teams that [hit] with guys on base,” says second baseman Kelly Johnson, who struck out 20 times in his first 70 plate appearances this year with runners in scoring position. “They get big runs when they need them, when they have to have them, to set a tone early, or when they need to make a comeback.”

The Braves enter this week’s All-Star break with a losing record for only the third time in 18 seasons. One of those years, of course, was the magical season of 1991, when Atlanta advanced all the way to its first-ever World Series. The reality is that in playing in the jumbled National League East, the Braves are still very much alive in the postseason race and could still return to the playoffs for the first time in three years—that is, if they can snap out of their slumber at the plate. But can they?

“That’s a good question, man,” says centerfielder Mark Kotsay. “You got an answer for that? Because I don’t. Baseball’s a weird game. Things happen in bunches, and obviously right now we’re not scoring enough runs to win games. Just pick out the offensive category, whether it be on-base percentage, batting average, whatever, we’re not at the bottom of the league. It’s like it’s contagious when people are going well. So hopefully a couple guys will get hot and everybody will feed off of it.”

With a struggling Jeff Francouer (.206 batting average in June) having been sent back to the minors, only to quickly return as a result of injuries, rumors of the Braves trading for another big bat have abounded. The Braves have gotten very little offensively from their outfielders this year. Will Atlanta try to nab Jason Bay or Xavier Nady of the Pirates? Raul Ibanez of the Mariners? Or would they consider signing (gasp!) Barry Bonds?

“We’ve got plenty of bats,” skipper Bobby Cox says while shaking his head. “We just need for guys to get in gear at one time, and we’ll score a lot of runs.”

Cox is also quick to deflect the blame from his offense. “Sometimes we look great, you know? Other times, we run into great pitching. Good pitching is going to win most of the time.”

Unfortunately for the Braves, their good pitching has not won most of the time. But they still control their own destiny, with the bulk of the second-half schedule to be played against N.L. East rivals, including nine games remaining against the Phillies. Then again, in their recent three-loss series against Philadelphia, the Braves managed to go 2-for-32 with runners on base—a woeful .063 average.

“We’re in a division where everyone is beating each other up,” adds Johnson. “Everybody’s still close. We’ve just got to win these games. It’s about being as good as you can, as intense as you can, in those big moments.”

When it’s all said and done, if their timing is right, the Braves can still have the last laugh. But so far in 2008, the joke is on them. SP