LIVE: Braves can clinch tonight (and it starts with Lowe)
The Braves will do more scoreboard watching tonight, and hope to have another banner to raise.
Amid all of the angst of the Braves’ collapse (10-18), the injured starters (Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson), the slumping hitters (Martin Prado, Jason Heyward, Brian McCann) and the overused bullpen, guess what? The Braves can actually clinch the wild card tonight.
OK, for that to happen, the Braves need to hit a long-odds parlay: 1) The maligned starter, Derek Lowe, needs a strong outing to defeat the Phillies at Turner Field; 2) The St. Louis Cardinals need to lose for a second straight game in Houston. Those two developments would give the Braves the National League wild card spot for the second straight year, and render Wednesday’s regular-season finale against Philadelphia meaningless.
Few expected the Cards to lose to the Astros Monday night. It happened (5-4 in 10 innings). But the Braves’ postseason chances mostly hinge on Lowe. If he and the Braves win tonight, at worst the magic number is down to one, with Tim Hudson on the mound Wednesday against Joe Blanton (advantage: Braves).
What the Braves need is the Lowe of Sept. 2010, not 2011. Last season, he went 5-0 with a 1.17 ERA (29 strikeouts, three walks) in his final five regular season starts. But this has been the worst season of his career. He’s 9-16 with a 4.92 ERA. He’s 0-4 in his last four starts with an 8.24 ERA (though his last start at Florida was solid).
The other obvious issue for the Braves is a lack of offense. They lost 4-2 on Monday, have scored two or fewer runs in four of their last five games and three or fewer in six of their last 10. They’re also hitting only .239 in the month of September and .181 (32-for-177) with with runners in scoring position this month.
They’ll need to break out of that against the Phillies’ Roy Oswalt, who has been strong in two starts against the Braves this season (1-0, 2.08 in two starts) but in his career is only 1-3 with a 5.15 ERA.
As you prepare to scoreboard watch, your second favorite team, the Astros, will start Henry Sosa (3-5, 4.68) against the Cardinals’ Jake Westbrook (12-9, 4.48).
And with that, I turn it over to you. We wait to see what Lowe gives us.
Can this be an omen? There was a rainbow over Turner Field two hours before the Braves' game.
By Jeff Schultz
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1,258 comments Add your comment
PhilliesFan
September 27th, 2011
10:22 pm
What can D Lowe say? He had a great career. He is just done. The contract was too much money and too long
rally
September 27th, 2011
10:23 pm
Chipper’s got to get to the Double Dime and get ready for hunting tourists. http://www.doubledimeranch.com/hunting.html
You name the animal and he will run it out there for you to shoot.
Rabid Dawg
September 27th, 2011
10:34 pm
7-6….Cards now lead.
Rabid Dawg
September 27th, 2011
10:34 pm
correction 8-6 Cards
Rabid Dawg
September 27th, 2011
10:35 pm
9-6 Cards.
BOB
September 27th, 2011
10:35 pm
ATLANTA DREAM WIN GOING TO THE WNBA FINALS SECOND STRAIGHT YEAR AND NO ONE IN THE ATL CARES WE WOULD RATHER SUPPORT LOSERS.
Kimbrel rocks
September 27th, 2011
10:42 pm
@bob- the dream played great. very tough team
Kimbrel rocks
September 27th, 2011
10:46 pm
if the braves are dumb enough to pitch derek lowe over and over and over then they really don’t deserve to make playoffs. i feel bad for the young players who have to deal with such bad management. they will forever be scarred by this mess. derek lowe should have been moved into the pen in june (when we really needed help). instead, we left scott proctor blow late inning games and derek lowe blow starts. just bad time to be a fan.