As I said, as a native Southerner, I've been around Braves-mania my entire life. I didn't embrace it, being the Yankees fan that I am, but even I felt a tinge of pride in 1995 when the Atlanta boys won it all in the World Series (although, unsurprisingly, they won against the Cleveland Indians; the next year, they made it back to The Show, but fell to none other than The Pinstripes). But even with that Series win, and the 10-year string of division records, the thing the Braves have been most famous for is "choking" every time they make an appearance after September. If you look closely, you'll see that for every playoff season, the Braves either lose in the NLCS, or get sweeped by the Yankees in the 1999 postseason rematch between the two. By 2000, they were getting eliminated in the NLDS, and by 2006, they were no longer contenders period. Now, for a team that actually has a genuinely strong coaching staff (much as I'm a Yankees fan, even I can respect that Bobby Cox is one of the best managers the game's ever seen) and with a core of good players that's been led by Chipper Jones since the mid-'90s, it's almost sad that they haven't been as strong in recent years as they should have been. This season, however, has seen a recent Tomahawk Chopper resurgence: they started off a few games behind those darn Phillies, and were being heavily challenged by that other team in New York (who, by the way, is now the home team for Jeff Francouer, a Georgia boy who was drafted by the Braves a few years ago and actually went to the high school that was the rival to my own school), but they've been leading the division with a pretty healthy amount of games over both teams for most of the past 2 months. Clearly, it's the offense that's responsible for this; rookie Jason Heyward is the biggest phenom in Atlanta since Francouer (and is already putting up superior numbers), and players like Martin Prado, All-Star MVP Brian McCann, Omar Infante, and Brooks Conrad (who always seems to hit a walk-off grand slam whenever he pinch-hits) have been smashing the ball for hits and runs like never before. It's certainly not the pitching that's heavily impacted their winning spree; Kenshin Kawakami is an embarrassing 1-9, Derek Lowe has almost as many losses as wins, and Jair Jurrjens' stint on the DL really didn't affect the team much either way. It goes to show that offense is still more important than defense. However, we have to face facts: if they make it to the postseason this year, which it seems like they will, the smart money says that they'll lose in the NLCS, if they even get that far. I mean, I sure as hell wouldn't want to face the Cardinals or the Giants (who seem to have the NL Wild Card seemingly locked in) with the kind of year they're both having. So, let's not count the Atlanta crew out just yet...but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves either.
Switching gears now from a team that's done better than expected, I want to talk about how the Seattle Mariners had the chance to make this year their best ever. For a team with so much promise (and rightfully so: Ichiro is still one of the best outfielders in the game, and with the addition of fast-running, base-stealing madman Chone Figgins from the Angels and the strong pitching of Cliff Lee, even though they only had him for half the season), they quickly showed us that, even though they had strong players, a team can still lose with an astounding rapidity. Maybe it was the eventual oversaturation of the lineup (as of now, they currently have 3 rotating first basemen: the not-worth-remembering Casey Kotchman, Cleveland's Russell Branyan, who's played for 8 different teams in the past 12 years and made absolutely no impact on any team, and Texas's Justin Smoak, a hot young prospect sent to The Rainy City in the Lee trade and definitely deserves more playing time than either of the former two); maybe the expectations on the pitching rotation (which were deserved, considering Lee's and Felix Hernandez's spectacular skills) were just a little too high; or maybe the devastation of Ken Griffey Jr. finally hanging it up (even though they were in last place since the season began, long before Junior left) did them in. I think it probably has a lot to do with the preseason switch of Figgins and Jose Lopez: while Figgins was already established as a third baseman, and Lopez the same at second, the Mariners decided to switch the two, a decision that confused at least me and could be one of the major problems that led to their abysmal performance. Whatever it was, it's a shame. It's likely they'll end the season well under .500; if this comes to pass, it will be the 5th time in 10 years they've ended with a losing record. However, with their record now at .379 two months before the season ends, this could be the worst year in the previous 10 (let me put it in perspective...only 3 teams have worse records; the Diamondbacks, the Pirates, and the Orioles, three of MLB's perennially awful teams). This team could have done so well this year, but at the time this blog is written, they're 21.5 games back in their division, and with Texas and Los Angeles still having strong seasons, 2010 looks just as bleak for the M's as...well, every other year that wasn't 2001. But hey, Seattle, don't be upset: I hear that Philadelphia's Jayson Werth is a free agent after this year...maybe send Milton Bradley and Kotchman/Branyan away for him? Not like Philly needs a first baseman that badly, seeing as Ryan Howard is still putting up great numbers for them, but you could get rid of yours...and it seems like you finally realized why Chicago wanted Bradley out. And if you put Werth in a lineup and an outfield with Ichiro, I'd say 2011 suddenly looks a little brighter.
I recently heard a report that Pedro Martinez's agent said that, although Martinez wouldn't return for the last half of the 2010 season, he hasn't retired and hopes to pitch in 2011. My immediate thought was "Who gives a flying f%*k?!" Believe it or not, my dislike of him has a lot less to do about the fact that he was a member of the Red Sox (especially when they broke the Curse of the Bambino in '04) and a lot more to do with the fact that he's just an absolute schmuck (I can't use the word I really want to, as I'm trying to keep this blog somewhat censored and hopefully classy). Obviously, the most prevalent example is game 3 of the 2003 ALCS, in which he threw the 72-year-old Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer to the ground. What kind of supposedly mature and rational grown man does that to an elder? It showed a complete lack of disregard and truly horrid conduct. Now, it's not feasible to think that competitive, angry athletes aren't going to fight; but in a multiple-player scruff, who thinks to attack the old man? It's absolutely ridiculous that he wasn't suspended after that. While his career numbers are good (a 219-100 overall record, 2.93 ERA, and 3,154 career strikeouts), he lost all my respect that October, and he'll never get it back.
In my next post, I'll talk about why testing minor-leaguers for HGH is actually a better idea than it seems, how the Chicago Cubs could possibly win a World Series title in the next 10 years, and why Albert Pujols is even more important to St. Louis than everyone already thinks (and also why he'd do much better in the American League than the National League).
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