Do you think Braves can do it?

3:29 pm September 18, 2009, by David O'Brien

It’s seven in a row and 4-1/2 back, but with only 16 games to play. So are you in? Are you back aboard the Braves bandwagon, if you ever got off? Or were you ever on to begin with?

These are strange times to follow this team, aren’t they? Many of you Braves fans have had your hearts broken a few times these past few years, allowed yourselves to believe more than once, got caught up in the promise of rising young talent and/or a few key offseason additions.

Only to be left standing there in September wondering, what just happened and how did I let myself get caught up in it again?

Braves go for eighth in a row tonight behind Tim Hudson

Anyway, here we are, the Braves having followed their most disappointing week (that 1-6 stretch that we thought was the proverbial final nail in the coffin) with their best week in recent memory, a 7-0 stretch that’s included sweeps against the powerful Cardinals (in Baseball Town, no less) and the injury-depleted, flushing Mets.

But the most frustrating part for the Braves is the fact that they are playing their best ball in so long — they are 10 games over .500 for the first time since they were 25-15 in May 2007 — and yet are no longer in control of their own destiny. They gave up most of that desinty control with their 34-40 start, but certainly handed over most of the rest with their 1-6 week including being swept by the Reds at home.

After that, the Braves were put in position of having to win most of their remaining games, but also needing those teams ahead of them to play close to .500 ball the rest of the way.

So far, it’s working out about as well as they could possibly have imagined. They’ve overtaken the Marlins and moved into third in the division, only 4-1/2 behind the Rockies, who are suddenly looking a bit vulnerable again after their sustained tear thrust them into the wild-card lead, and one game behind the Giants, who are pitching-loaded like the Braves, but don’t have as good a lineup.

The Phillies are in town for a three-game series starting tonight, and hopefully we’ll be able to get in some ball between flood warnings and torrential downpours.

The Braves are still 7-1/2 games behind Philly in the East, so it would take nothing short of a sweep to make that conversation interesting. But imagine if, somehow, they swept the Phillies and were only 4-1/2 out with 13 games to play and … OK, let’s wait a day or two before even bringing up that possibility.

So here we go. Just a 16-game spring to the finish, only one-tenth of the season remaining, and the Braves need to keep playing like they have, probably needing 12-14 wins the rest of the way to overtake or at least tie the Rockies and force a one-game playoff to determine the wild-card winner.

Do you all think they are up for it? They’ve gotten to this point before, where they’ve forced us to step back and go, “well, maybe…”, only to then lay an egg and leave everyone cursing and wondering what happened to the team that had just reeled off all those wins with the clutch hitting and the great defense, etc.

The pitching, that’s been there all season. Unwavering, at least in the starting rotation. The bullpen had a couple of stretches, particularly early, where they blew a few wins. But for the most part, the relievers have done a solid job this season, particularly the workhorse quartet at the back of the ‘pen, led by Outlaw Pete Moylan.

But the hitting? Hit or miss. Without rhyme or reason. They’ll go on a two-week binge, then a collective skid the depths of which will make your head spin and leave Terry Pendleton – not to mention you all – with hands in the air looking for answers.

Right now, they’re hitting. Boy, are they ever. And this comes on the heels of one of those awful funks. Go figure this team. I dare you to try.

They hit .172 and totaled just 17 runs during that 1-6 stretch through a 2-1 loss at Houston on Sept. 9. In seven games since, the Braves have hit .333 and scored 45 runs, including six or more runs in six games.

They had scored two runs or fewer in five consecutive games before this seven-game blitz.

Can they keep it up? Or have you seen it enough times to expect a collective funk right about now, with the Braves scoring maybe five runs in the entire series against the Phillies? I’m asking you, because I’ve just about given up trying to predict what this team’s gonna do.

♣ Since June 28: I had in the paper today that the Braves have the third-best record in the NL since June 28. Which is correct. Only the Rockies aren’t one of the two teams with a better record in that stretch; it’s Philly and St. Louis. winningstreak

The best records in the league in that period belong to Philly (47-26), St. Louis (44-27), Atlanta (44-28), Colorado (44-29), and San Francisco (40-33).

And guess what? Among those five teams, the Braves have the best ERA (3.29), best team batting average (.274) and most runs (356) in that period.

If any Brave ever says again that a fast start is not important, because Braves teams of the past routinely overcame sluggish starts … well, I really don’t think any of these current Braves would say that again anytime soon. So nevermind.

♣ Matt Diaz and Ryan Howard: Not too often that those two are mentioned in the same breath, but this weekend they might just be the chief concern of pitchers on the opposing side.

Diaz has torched Philly pitching and Howard has been a Braves menace for his entire career. Chipper Jones has put up big numbers against the Phillies throughout his career, but Chipper’s been out of the lineup a few days with a groin pull and been in a slump for … well, a long time. You might have heard.

Anyway, Diaz has hit .529 (18-for-34) with five doubles, four homers, 10 RBI and a tidy 1.597 OPS in 10 games against the Phillies this season. Next-best for the Braves is Martin Prado, who’s 15-for-33 (.455) with two homers and eight RBI against them, and seems to be snapping out of his recent slump and coming around just in time to perhaps a big series.

For his career, Diaz has hit .368 with a 1.057 OPS, six homers and 24 RBI in 39 games against the Phillies, but those numbers are spiked more recently. He’s hit .424 with five homers and 17 RBI in 22 games against them since may 27, 2007, including, including those four homers in 10 games this season.

Oddly enough, May 27, 2007, was also the date when Howard took things to another level against Braves pitching. In 43 games beginning then, Howard has hit .327 with 30 extra-base hits (18 home runs), 50 RBI, a .400 OBP and .747 slugging percentage against the Bravos.

That’s ridiculous.

And it’s only gotten crazier lately. Howard hit .476 (10-for-21) with five homers and nine RBI in six games against the Braves during the last 2-1/2 weeks of August, including a pair of 3-for-3, two-homer games.

The biiig man has a .340 career average and 29 homers with 82 RBI in 81 games against the Braves, including a .333 average with 12 homers and 41 RBI (and a 1.078 OPS) in 39 games at Turner Field.

Walk the dude, we say. If at all possible, under most circumstances, walk the dude.

While Howard and Chase Utley have killed the Braves (between them they have 11 homer and 20 RBI in 15 games against Atlanta this season), old tormentor Shane Victorino and Jimmy Rollins have not.

In 15 games against the Braves, Victorino has hit .164 (10-for-61) with no homers and one RBI, and Rollins is just 8-for-63 (.127) with two doubles, three RBIs, two runs, two walks and a .154 OBP.

In the past 11 games against them, Rollins has hit .136 with no RBI, one run, one walk and one stolen base.

Jair Jurrjens told me before the first home series against the Phillies this season that the Braves’ focus was to keep Rollins and others off the bases in front of the big boppers.

So far, that strategy has paid dividends. Brave have won nine of 15 against them this season. But this weekend, they need a series win, at the very least. And a sweep is what it’ll take to even make the division race a relevant topic.

Tim Hudson vs. J.A. Happ tonight, Javier Vazquez vs. Pedro Martinez on Saturday, and Tommy Hanson vs. Cliff Lee on Sunday. With those pitching matchups and all that’s at stake for the Braves, even rain delays can’t spoil the excitement this weekend.

Or are you allowing yourselves to get excited? You are, aren’t you? Shh. We won’t say anything.

♣ OK, gotta get to the ballpark. Surprised I even got this done, considering I got home at 1:30 a.m., watched the terrific Office season premiere, went to bed at 3 a.m., had a periodontist appointment this morning (floss those teeth, boys and girls, for gum disease is a bad, bad thing) and then got caught up in cleaning and fixing my gutters for a while around lunchtime. You know how good it feels sometimes when you step outside your so-called field of expertise and accomplish something on your own, without paying someone who’d rip you off if they had a chance? That’s how I felt today on my roof, wet and dirty as I cleaned out my gutters — easier to do it when those leaves and all that silt or whatever is all wet — and ended up repairing a gutter that had begun to pull away from the house. Previous owner apparently bent one of those big nails that holds the gutter to the house, those 6- or 8-inch things, and hadn’t bothered to replace or bend it back. When the gutter loosened away from the house, he then tried to fix it by driving a couple of screws through the inner part of the gutter (I don’t know the terms for this stuff), but in doing so he’d allowed a few of the bottom shingles to get behind the gutter in a couple of spots. So in the torrential downpours of the past couple of days, I had a bunch of leaves and crap in those particular spots in the gutters, so I was getting big spillover both to the outside of the gutter and also a bunch of water seeping between the gutter and the side of the house, and noticed it was starting to cause some molding undernearth, etc.

Long story short (well, long story not as long): I had my butt on the roof, hanging over the side, straightening that big nail, then pulling the shingles from behind the gutter and tightening it back up. And while up there, I went ahead and cleaned all the gutters. Tons of leaves. A productive morning.

Now, let’s get to work.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy ... aka Will Oldham (New Yorker photo)

“EASY DOES IT” by Bonnie “Prince” Billy (W. Oldham)

When there’s only one thing I can do

Well you know that I still don’t want to do

When there’s just one way to get through

Sometimes I still don’t want to go through with it

There are other ways I used to think

to find my way around

the wood and the caves and the bad woman’s ways

that are always to be found

and I have done enough right

dirt and wrong can now boaster my might

and love I can’t find it again

in someone sitting close in the flashes of sin

there are other ways, I used to think,

to find my way around

the woods and the smell and the word of farewell

that I always had to sound

now there is just one way

I stretch out my arms and cry to that

just one day

I number the friends and the family that love me

I welcome the ring of the moonlight above me

and I wander, and lay in whatever old bed

with good, earthly music singing into my head

there’s a path

there’s a beach

there’s a horseshoe crab

there’s my brothers, my girlfriends

my mom, and my dad

and there’s me

and that’s all there needs to be

now there is just one way

I stretch out my arms and cry to that

just one day

I number the friends and the family that love me

I welcome the ring of the moonlight above me

and I wander, and lay in whatever old bed

with good, earthly music singing into my head

2,474 comments Add your comment

Daybed Wagmoe

September 18th, 2009
3:32 pm

FIRST

Firearm

September 18th, 2009
3:33 pm

They can, but the Braves making the playoffs is too dependent on the Rockies losing games.

Dale Murphy's Mole

September 18th, 2009
3:35 pm

third!

September 18th, 2009
3:36 pm

DOB,is it my imagination? Do you wait on me foe a posting and then press New Bloggage? huh

DAP

September 18th, 2009
3:37 pm

if the braves had 80 wins right not instead of 78, i would still say they were going to win this thing. right now though, im not to sure. they are going to need a couple more sweeps, hopefully one against the phils this series. if the braves sweep the phillies to get to 10 wins in a row, they are right in the middle of both races again. c’mon bravos…

Dale Murphy's Mole

September 18th, 2009
3:38 pm

Of course they CAN. They CAN win every game left and win the East. But with the way this team has played, I more expect them to sweep the Phillies, then get swept agains thte Nats or the Mets to end any chance …

Josh Mac

September 18th, 2009
3:38 pm

Atlanta residents — don’t be afraid to actually show up at the ballpark this weekend. The team kind of needs it.