Braves surge came a week late

Chipper was hurt Saturday on this winning McCann double

 St. Louis – The Braves are going to try to complete a sweep of the Cardinals today, and they’ll be doing it without Chipper Jones. He’s hurt again. And on an unrelated not, I’m not looking forward to spending a depressing Sunday night in downtown St. Louis, where you could roll a bowling ball down the street and not hit a car nine times out of 10 on Sunday night. Slooooow. But the airport is even slower — almost no flights out of here on Sunday night.

 Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes. Chipper. He strained his left groin running the bases in the ninth inning Saturday, when he had to hold up rounding third after the Cardinals got the ball in quicker than he’d anticipated on Brian McCann’s winning two-run double to center.

 Chipper had intended to try to score from first on the play, but when he had to hold up suddenly he said it “pulled pretty good.” With the off day Monday, he said “we’ll see about [playing] Tuesday” against the Mets.

 Now, about today’s game. McCann is also out of the lineup for a scheduled day off. And Chris Carpenter is on the hill for the Cardinals. Yikes.

 It figured to be a formidable task winning today even if the Braves had McCann and a non-slumping, healthy Chipper in the lineup. Without them? Well, hey, one could always look at it optimistically and reason that Carpenter’s due to have a bad game….

 Should be a great pitching matchup, with Javier Vazquez taking on the man I consider to be a slight favorite for NL Cy Young over the Giants’ Tim Lincecum and Cardinals teammate (and former Braves prospect) Adam Wainwright.

 You can’t get much hotter than Carpenter, who’s 11-0 with a 1.97 ERA in his past 13 starts. Dude’s last loss was June 30, he’s had 20 quality starts in 24 this season (he spent five weeks on the DL in April-May).

 “Carp” is 8-1 with a 2.09 ERA in 10 home starts, with two homers allowed in 69 innings. Against the Braves, he’s 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in his only four starts against them this century, and only one of those was in the past three seasons.

Garret Anderson is 7-for-24 with a homer against him, and Kelly Johnson is 2-for-4 with a homer. Both are in the lineup, Kelly at second base with Martin Prado at third.

As for Vazquez, he’s had a stellar season but been a bit erratic lately. He’s 2-2 with a 3.82 ERA in his past five starts, with two scoreless outings, two five-run outings and one four-run outing in that period.

But he pitched seven scoreless innings of three-hit ball with nine strikeouts Tuesday in a win at Houston, and he’s 5-0 with a 2.96 ERA in his past five road starts.

Penelope Cruz is not at this game

Against the Cardinals, Vazquez is just 1-6 with a 4.31 ERA in seven starts this decade, including an April 29 loss (eight innings, five runs). Albert Pujols is 7-for-17 with a homer against him.

In winning the first two games of this series, the Braves handed the Cardinals their first home-series loss since the end of June.

The Cards had gone 31-9 and not lost back-to-back games since July 25-26 (against Philly) before losing Friday and Saturday to the suddenly resurgent Braves, who took two of three at Houston to start this trip, right after the Astros had swept four from the Phillies.

♣ Waited too long? Winning four of the first five on this trip could have created quite a buzz around the Braves — if they hadn’t dropped five in a row before this rebound.

As it is, that 0-5 skid against the Marlins and Reds all but eliminated the Braves from the wild-card picture, and actually gave them a slightly better chance of winning the division (than the wild card).

But that, too, is very unlikely, even with the Phillies looking a little rough lately.

Because even if the Phillies were to collapse and the Braves make up seven games on them with only 20 left including today, there’s still the significant obstacle that is the Marlins standing in the way.

Remember, Florida is second in the division, not Atlanta. And the Marlins, who are five games behind Philly entering Sunday’s games, have not struggled lately like the Phillies have.

The Marlins lead the NL with a .298 team average this month, and they’ve hit .302 and scored 75 runs while going 8-2 in their past 10 games, a stretch that began with those wretched wins against the Braves when Atlanta pitchers gave up five and six runs in the sixth innings on consecutive nights.

The Phillies, by the way, are 3-6 with a 5.52 ERA in their past nine games, and you may have heard they’ve got serious closer issues. It’s worth noting, however, that they’ve hit 16 homers in their past seven games and still won 15 of their past 26.

So it’s not like we’re seeing signs of a Mets-like September meltdown.

As for the Braves, they are 4-6 with a .219 team batting average in their past 10 games, although they’ve amassed 35 hits (only two homers) during their current three-game winning streak.

To me, this 10-game streak has been something of a microcosm of their season, offensively. By that I mean, the Braves’ overall offensive numbers this season are middle-of-the-pack or better. But they’re skewed a bit, in my opinion, by the relatively small number of games when they’ve piled up hits and runs.

Look at the past 10 games: They’ve scored 34 runs in three of those games, and had 10 or more hits in each of those. In their other seven games in that stretch, they’ve totaled 23 runs (3.3 per game) and 36 hits (5.1 per game).

Granted, that’s an extreme 10-game sample, but you get the point I’m making. To a degree, it represents what they’ve done all season, looking like a potent offensive team in about one or two games a week, and just trying to scrape together enough hits to win behind a quality start from their pitchers in the others.

♣ Talkin’ slumps: It appears that McCann has shaken off his by going 8-for-13 with three doubles and four RBI in his past three games. This after going 5-for-45 (.109) with two extra-base hits, four RBI, nine strikeouts and no walks in his previous 12 games.

Chipper and Prado, that’s another story altogether. Those two are still mired in slumps and power outages.

Chipper did have pair of singles Saturday, just his second two-hit game in his past 25. But he’s 11-for-82 (.134) with 10 RBI, 21 strikeouts and a .183 slugging percentage in his past 25 games, and has but two extra-base hits (one homer) in his past 28 games.

He has more than three times as many errors (seven) as he has extra-base hits during that stretch.

Prado also has more errors (three) than extra-base hits (two) in his past 21 games, going 16-for-76 (.211) with five RBI in that stretch, with five walks, a .265 OBP and .263 slugging percentage.

This after he was the catalyst for a revived Braves offense for six weeks, batting .340 with 18 extra-base hits (five homers), 28 RBI and a .381 OBP and .512 slugging percentage in 38 games from June 30 to Aug. 12, just before his headache woes sidelined him for a week.

♣ OK, out of time. We’re about to tee this one up. Take us out, Sir (that’d be Hank Sr.). Oh, and happy birthday, Bill Monroe (the bluegrass giant was born this day in 1911) and Irish footballer Keith Treacy.                                                                                  Hank

“I’LL NEVER GET OUT OF THIS WORLD ALIVE” by Hank Williams

Now you’re lookin’ at a man that’s getting’ kinda mad

I had lots of luck but it’s all been bad

No matter how I struggle and strive

I’ll never get out of this world alive.

My fishin’ pole’s broke the creek is full of sand

My woman run away with another man

No matter how I struggle and strive

I’ll never get out of this world alive.

A distant uncle passed away and left me quite a batch

And I was livin’ high until that fatal day

A lawyer proved I wasn’t born

I was only hatched.

Ev’rything’s agin’ me and it’s got me down

If I jumped in the river I would prob’ly drown

No matter how I struggle and strive

I’ll never get out of this world alive.

These shabby shoes I’m wearin’ all the time

Are full of holes and nails

And brother if I stepped on a worn out dime

I bet a nickel I could tell you if it was heads or tails.

I’m not gonna worry wrinkles in my brow

‘Cause nothin’s ever gonna be alright nohow

No matter how I struggle and strive

I’ll never get out of this world alive.

I could buy a Sunday suit and it would leave me broke

If it had two pair of pants I would burn the coat

No matter how I struggle and strive

I’ll never get out of this world alive.

If it was rainin’ gold I wouldn’t stand a chance

I wouldn’t have a pocket in my patched up pants

No matter how I struggle and strive

I’ll never get out of this world alive.