Spring Training live diary

Can’t watch the Braves-Mets spring training opener because you don’t have local New York stations? No worries, I am camped in front of my television all afternoon and will be transcribing the events, grossly overreacting to every pitch, and most importantly, laughing at Keith Hernandez’s jokes on your behalf.

First pitch is just minutes away …

1:09- Starting lineup for the Braves:

1. DH Jordan Schafer
2. CF Nate McLouth
3. RF Jason Heyward
4. C Brian McCann
5. LF Eric Hinske
6. 1B Freddie Freeman
7. 2B Brooks Conrad
8. 3B Brandon Hicks
9. SS Diory Hernandez

1:10- Jordan Schafer at the plate. Schaf is rocking jersey number 1 this year. He’s down on strikes. Caught looking at a really filthy 3-2 curveball from Jenrry Mehia.

1:15- Nate Dog works a five pitch walk, bringing up Jason Heyward, prompting a discussion of last year’s Rookie of the Year voting. I still contend Heyward was robbed, but then I remembered the ROY is rather pointless in the grand scheme of things. Who would you rather have on your team, Chipper Jones or Hideo Nomo? Yeah, thought so.

1:18- The newer, slimmer, Brian McCann hits after Jason Heyward bounces out to short (McLouth was moving on the pitch and advanced). Keith Hernandez on McCann’s noticeable weight loss: “He’s always been kind of, well, you know … portly.”

1:21- McCann 2.0 grounds out to 2nd on a 3-1 count, ending the half-inning.

1:22- Lineup for the Mets:

1. SS Jose Reyes
2. 2B Luis Castillo
3. 3B David Wright
4. CF Angel Pagan
5. LF Jason Bay
6. 1B Ike Davis
7. C Josh Thole
8. Scott Hairston
9. RF Fernando Martinez

1:26- Jair Jurrjens started the game with eight fastballs in his first nine pitches. The velocities for those fastballs: 83, 83, 82, 83, 82, 82, 81 … Yikes.

1:31- Angel Pagan hits a soft grounder to Brooks Conrad, and Conrad commits three errors on the play, retroactively costing the Braves the ’95 World Series. Just kidding. End of 1st, no score. One hit, no errors, one left on for New York.

1:36- David Wright robs Hinske of extra bases with a nice backhanded stab and throw to first. Freddie Freeman time, I’m giddy.

1:37- Freeman scorches a low fastball to right field. An error on the throw back to the infield gets him to third. Giddiness levels, rising. Brooks Conrad, now rocking the number 7, down on strikes, reaching on a fastball out of the zone.

1:40- Wild pitch brings Freeman home. Braves 1, Mets 0.

1:41- Mejia rings up Hicks, who is also rocking new digits, inheriting Matt Diaz’s old 23. Lots of new jersey numbers this year, fellow geeks. End of the top half of the 2nd.

1:48- Jurrjens gets out of the 2nd rather easily, surrendering only a soft single to Josh Thole.

1:53- Diory Hernandez and Jordan Schafer make for a quick two outs … File this under “least surprising sentences I’ve ever typed.”

1:55- Nate Dog completes the soft ground out trifecta by rolling over a breaking ball and lightly tapping it to the right side. Strong half inning, boys. Strong.

1:58- Jonny Venters pitching now for the Braves. Final line for Jurrjens: 2 IP, 1 K, 2 H, 34 pitches, 23 strikes.

1:59- Disgusting slider from Venters induces a Fernando Martinez strike out. It’s almost unfair seeing JV face off against lefty hitters.

2:01- Ron Darling on Jose Reyes: “He does things that most guys can’t do in a 162 game season.” That’d be the first time I’ve heard “Jose Reyes” and “162 games” in the same sentence.

2:02- Double play ball to end the inning. Excellent inning of work by Venters: Three batters faced, one strikeout, no balls hit out of the infield.

2:05- Jason Heyward squeezes a base hit through the right side of the infield. McCann 2.0 up with nobody out. He really does look like a different guy out there, like the new “slim” PlayStation3 model.

2:07- After a GIDP by McCann 2.0, Eric Hinske homers off the first pitch he sees. Braves up 2-0 now.

2:10- Freeman dumps a bloop double just inside the left field line. He’s on pace to hit 5,000 doubles this spring. Brooksie grounds out to end the top half.

2:17- Eric O’Flaherty now pitching. After a quick two outs he got himself into some trouble, surrendering single and issuing a walk, before getting out of the inning with a Josh Thole grounder to 2nd. Good to see Conrad’s case of they yips is cured – he only bobbled it once before throwing to 1st.

2:29- A tradition of spring training, the Mets’ starting position players who are no longer in the game are shown doing their post-game run. Meanwhile, Jonny Venters is getting his post-game run done on the warning track. Reminds me of my days in the Atlanta Public Schools baseball league. Crim High had a track running directly through center field, so it was not uncommon to see an old lady in a nylon track suit power walking across the field during the game.

2:31- Pinch-running for the Braves, Jose Constanza. Of course, Seinfeld jokes abound from the Mets’ booth. I’m pulling for Constanza to make the team for this same reason.

2:33- Heyward, presumably in his final at bat of the day, gets caught looking on a nice back door curve from Taylor Buccholz. Jose “Can’t stand ya” is stranded at first base. Heading into the bottom of the 5th, still 2-0 Braves.

2:37- Craig Kimbrel on the mound for Atlanta. Will be interesting to see if his control has improved at all from last year, when he posted a 7.0 BB/9 in his major league debut.

2:38- Former Brave and general good-guy Willie Harris gives an interview in the dugout. As always, a Harris interview comes equipped with a fat pinch of tobacco in his bottom lip.

2:39- Fernando Martinez earns an “Atta boy!” from Harris as he blasts a Kimbrel fastball to right field. Kimbrel missed his spot and got punished for it. Tie ballgame now.

2:40- The WPIX broadcast completely crapped out, so now I’m looking at a stock image of the Brooklyn Bridge. Gonna give this the standard 15-minute rule that college students apply when their teacher hasn’t showed up to class. If this isn’t fixed soon, I’m out.

2:43- Ah, okay, that didn’t take long. The broadcast came back just in time to see Brooks Conrad boot another routine play. This is kind of becoming a thing with him, isn’t it? I’d hate to see this pop up down the road and cost us a big game or anyth- wait, what? Ah, shit.

2:49- Craig Kimbrel issues his second walk before getting a second out. He’s really battling with some control right now, hope this doesn’t become a thing with him, I’d hate to see it pop up down the road and cost us a meaningful game or anyth– wait, what? Ah, shit.

2:51- Cristhian Martinez comes in and cleans up the mess, inducing a double-play to get out of the jam. Tie ball game, end of the 5th.

2:56- Freddie Freeman, ladies and gentlemen! Now on pace for 9,352 doubles.

2:59- Conrad caught looking, still 2-2 heading into the bottom of the 6. Would expect to see the benches empty out here soon for Atlanta.

3:01- Just found out that the Mets’ spring training yard is called “Digital Domain Park.” I’m disappointed that the crew passed up a golden “master of his domain” joke when Constanza was pinch running. I expect better out of this group. Cristhian Martinez remains in the game to pitch the 6th for the Braves and works a perfect inning.

3:11- Diory Hernandez is on pace for 4,695 soft ground outs.

3:12- Schafer tries to bunt his way on base, but pushes it just a touch too hard towards third. Nice play by Zach Lutz gets him by a half-step. Still 2-2 heading into the 7th inning stretch. Or in my case, the 7th inning coffee refill.

3:15- Not a whole lot going on for either squad, no major league players left in the game, but no real prospects either. Anthony Varvaro, a 27-year-old waiver pickup, worked the 7th for Atlanta and pitched well against an assortment of nobodies.

3:22- A familiar face makes an appearance when Manny Acosta got in the game for New York. He made short work of the Braves, inspired this hilarious tweet from Peter Hjort.

3:30- Stephen Marek now pitching. You may remember him as a throw-in from the Mark Tiexiera-to-the-Angels deal. At 27, he still has a shot to make an impact with the big club but hasn’t seemed to be too well liked by the organization for whatever reason. He spent all of last season in Richmond, where he put up some nice numbers, including 74 Ks in 63 IP. Marek starts the inning by issuing a walk to Zach Lutz.

3:35- Top 9, the diminutive Matt Young leads off the inning for Atlanta by drawing a walk. Young has an outside shot at making the club as the backup center fielder with a good spring.

3:38- Full count to Joe Mather, it’s pretty a much a guarantee that Young is going to try to steal 2nd here. Nobody wants extra innings and Young is trying to showcase his best skill. The entire ball park knows he’s taking off.

3:41- Mather hits behind the runner but a nice play by the 2nd-basemen Jordany Valdespin manages to keep it in the infield and get the out at 1st. Regardless, the go-ahead run is in scoring position and everyone is hoping for a merciful break in this tie. Nobody wants to see extra innings in February.

3:44- And there it is! Eddie Lucas laces a shot to left-center to plate the go ahead run. “Atta boys” all around.

3:47- Lucas is gunned down by three feet trying to steal 2nd, but the pitch was ball four anyway. In addition to giving up the go ahead run, Manny Acosta has now issued two walks. Good to see he’s already in mid-season form.

3:49- Diory Hernandez’s effort to go for the ground out cycle (one to each fielder) is dashed by the hard infield dirt when the ball bounced over Zach Lutz’s head and into left field. Lucas scores, but is called out for not touching 3rd base. Comical stuff.

3:52- Juan Abreu in to close out the 9th. Please, oh, please let him get through this either without surrendering a run. I’m running low on snark.

3:59- Crap, 1st and 3rd now for the Mets after a beautiful hit-and-run. Abreu needs to either give up a three-run bomb or induce a double play, I won’t settle for allowing the tying run. Extra innings not an option.

4:00- Jordani Valdespin rips a double that one hops the fence. Just groove one, Abreu. I know you’re trying to earn a job and everything, but take it from me, you probably already blew it. You’re not gonna win a job anyway, so just put one over the dish and let someone hit it far so we can all go on about our day. Sound good?

4:06- Abreu walks the bases loaded, bringing up Lucas Duda. [Shameless Star Wars joke time] You’re my only hope, Lucas. (As someone who has been victimized by shameless Star Wars jokes my whole life, it feels good to be on the other end of that deal.

4:07- Duda pops out in foul territory, and we’ve got FREE BASEBALL! I can barely contain the excitement.

4:14- After leadoff singles by Jose Can’t Stand Ya (gotta love spring training substitution rules) and Wilkin Ramirez, JP Boscan lays down a perfect sac bunt to advance them to 2nd and 3rd.

4:17- Matt Young, you are my hero. Braves re-take the lead when Young chops one to short and Constanza beats the throw home. We may be out of this soon enough.

4:20- Ed Lucas with another RBI single, and the rout is on. 5-3 Braves now.

4:25- Keith Hernandez just informed me that Missouri has the most states bordering it in the entire union. This is why you hang around for the 10th inning of spring training games.

4:28- Willie Harris at the plate, his pinch has tripled in size. And just like that, this game is tied again, as he with the forever protruding lower lip plants one behind the wall in left center. Thankfully, this game is going to be called at 10 no matter what happens.

4:30- And that’s all folks! Tie ball game is your final. Always good to blow two saves in one game.

Time to hand out some grades: Freddie Freeman gets an A+ for his triple-double performance; Matt Young and Manny Acosta each get A’s for their collective efforts in the 9th inning, which almost gave us a timely end; Ed Lucas only gets an A- for his two ribbie effort due to failing to touch third base in the 9th, a mistake which only prolonged things; Willie Harris gets an A for his fat pinch and entertaining in-game interview; Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling get a B- for their work in the booth (I have to deduct for failing to fully capitalize on the Constanza joke potential), Juan Abreu gets a D- for a disastrous inning of work, and Brooks Conrad gets an E4.

That concludes this installment of Grapefruit Diaries. Until next time …

Midweek Linkage, including a few updates

A few previous stories need updating it would seem.

…First, yesterday’s fantasy of Devin Harris in a Hawks uniform is now out the window, because he was shockingly sent to Utah today (along with Derrick Favors) in exchange for Deron Williams. The Hawks still need a point guard though, and as Michael Mark Bradley writes, the decision to pass on Chris Paul (and Williams) in the 2005 draft still haunts the team. Can’t wait for Bradley’s next column, in which we’ll learn why Kennedy’s trip to Dallas was a bad idea.

(Edit- not sure why I initially called Mark Bradley “Michael.” I’d like to blame it on something, maybe that I was reading a Michael Cunningham article at the same time, or maybe I was perusing the injury list for my 2010 fantasy football team, but really I just screwed up.)

…Oh yeah, the Hawks played a game last night. I would like to provide some insight, but it’d require more effort than the team has displayed of late? We can talk about lineups and personnel all we want, but the central issue is that the team just isn’t playing hard. They’ve dropped four of their last six games, three of which by 15 or more points. Something has to change and soon. As Al Horford tweeted, the team has “some soul searching to do.”

…A couple weeks back, the Falcons desire for a new stadium was just a talking point, but with the re-worked financing agreement between the team and the Georgia World Congress Center, the new crib could become a reality by as early as 2017. When I wrote about the possibility of a new stadium, I was mainly concerned with financing (I wanted the team to pay for all of it) and location (I wanted the team to stay in the city limits). One out of two ain’t bad. The new proposal will call for the city to kick in about half of the funds, with the rest of the bill being covered by the team.

The good news, however, is the new stadium will remain near downtown, adjacent to the Dome. And if you have grown attached to the jagged-roofed, (formerly) teal and mauve palace, fear not. The Dome will remain in tact to will continue to host college athletics such like the Chick-fil-A Bowl and ACC/SEC championship events.

… And lastly, it flew under the radar a bit, but the Braves announced a two-year contract extension for general manager Frank Wren earlier this week. I’ve come full circle on Wren, and am absolutely thrilled to have him as my favorite team’s GM. I take it most other fans who were once critical share that sentiment. He’s made more good moves than bad in his tenure, he’s rebuilt the pitching depth both at the major league level and in the farm system, and he made a huge splash this offseason in trading two minor assets for Dan Uggla. The present day Braves are looking pretty good, and the future looks even better. The extension was well deserved.

Jermaine Dye possibly hanging it up

Jermaine Dye as a rookie in 1996. (AJC staff photo)

Before there was Jason Heyward, there was Jermaine Dye. On May 17, 1996, a then 22-year old Dye made his major league debut with the Braves. Like Heyward, Dye homered in his first at bat.

I vividly remember being at that game with a childhood friend of mine and his father. For a reason that now escapes me, we had to leave the game early. We were headed to the exit ramps of the old Atlanta Fulton-County stadium when Dye was called to pinch hit in the bottom of the 5th. (Obviously, with significantly less fanfare than Mr. Heyward.) I didn’t think much of it at the time: “Oh that’s the guy who was wearing #74 this spring … I guess one day he might be good.”

As we were leaving though, we heard the crowd erupt, and the voice on the loudspeaker informed us that the rook had become just the 72nd player to go deep in his first plate appearance. I ran back through the concourse just in time to peer through the tunnel and catch a glimpse of Dye rounding the bases. He went on to have a respectable rookie campaign, hitting .281 with 12 HR and finishing 6th in rookie of the year voting. That summer he was traded to the Royals for Michael Tucker and Keith Lockhart and he went on to have a fine career, also making stops in Oakland and the southside of Chicago.

Fifteen seasons and 324 home run later, that career could be over. Dye didn’t play at all in 2010 after failing to receive a contract offer he deemed suitable, and he likely won’t play in 2011 either. As he told Ken Rosenthal this week, he’d rather call it a career than accept a minor league offer.

And what a career it was. No, the lifetime numbers — two all-star games, one gold glove, one top-5 MVP finish — won’t get Dye into Cooperstown, but who cares? In the introduction to his superb series of Hall of Fame related posts, Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski illustrates how good you have to be just to not be inducted.

Every year, the ballot features a few players who, frankly, look kind of silly on a Hall of Fame ballot. The funny thing about most of these players is that they are probably better than we remember. For instance, last year Todd Zeile was on the Hall of Fame ballot. Todd Zeile? He did not receive a single vote, to no one’s surprise.

But you know what? Todd Zeile was a good player. He got 2,000 hits in the major leagues. He drove in 90-plus runs five times. He played five positions, and even pitched a couple of innings.

He was not a Hall of Famer, not close to a Hall of Famer, but that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? To play 10 years of major league baseball — a qualification just to get on the ballot — means that you must be one of the very best baseball players on earth.

…

To achieve so much … to reach the very height of your profession … it is an extraordinary thing to be a baseball player with 10 years of big league experience, an even more extraordinary thing to achieve enough to get on the Hall of Fame ballot. And then, you get there and it is STILL miles and miles and miles to go before you get to the Hall of Famers. It is still the gap between Todd Zeile and Cooperstown.

Bolstering this point, only two of the “HR in first AB” club (which now has 108 members, including names like Gene Stechschulte and Charlton Jimerson) ended up in the Hall of Fame. Two out of 108. So it’s not a surprise that Jermaine Dye’s career left him short of greatness. Short of greatness is where most baseball careers end up. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that for 15 seasons, Jermaine Dye was a damn good baseball player, and damn good baseball players don’t come around everyday. I’ll always remember Jermaine Dye, if only for the time I almost saw him hit his first dinger.

The moral of this story – if you take your son to a ballgame, and a rookie is coming to the plate to make his debut, don’t let him leave his seat for anything. There’s a small possibility that you could witness the start of something great, or at the least, something very good, and equally memorable.

Crazy Thought of the Day: Jose Reyes in a Braves uni?

I could get used to this.

This is pure conjecture on the part of myself, with a little help from the fine folks at Fangraphs, but work with me here. The following things are truths:

• The Mets are short on cash.
• Jose Reyes will be a free agent at the end of this season.
• The Braves have a need a shortstop next this year.

The first option for the Braves acquiring the 27-year old Reyes would be a midseason trade, but with his impending free agency it’d be necessary to sign a long term extension. While the Braves should have some extra cash laying around next season, it’s likely that most of that surplus will go towards the Tommy Hanson/Jason Heyward contract extension piggy bank.

The second option would be to wait for Reyes to hit the open market this offseason and sign him then. The same monetary obstacles would be there, but without the loss of prospects that acquiring him via trade would present.

I’m not saying I think this will happen in a million years, but you have to admit that it would be cool to see the Most Exciting Baseball Player on the Planet with a tomahawk on his chest. If you’ve ever seen Reyes play in person, you know what I’m talking about. A few seasons back, I had seats behind home plate for the home opener vs. the Mets. Reyes smacked a Tim Hudson fastball in the right-center gap and zoomed to third base before the ball even got back to the cut off man. That play was more exhilarating to take in as a spectator than anything you could ever see on a basketball court or a football field. The Braves have had a lot of great players, but not since Rafael Furcal departed have they had a true speedster on the base paths.

Sure, he can’t stay healthy and will probably cost too much — he’s owed $11 million for this season — but I would be in favor of Reyes in Atlanta, if only to stick it to the Mets). How great would it be to have an Uggla/Reyes double play combo? We could just call ourselves the NL East All-Stars at that point.

Braves sign Rodrigo Lopez

Per MLBtraderumors – the Braves have signed Rodrigo Lopez to a minor league contract. Allow me to take this moment to say … what? It’s not like pitching depth is a concern, so I’m not sure why the front office felt the need to bring a lifetime 4.85 ERA into the mix. There are already 7 or 8 better options in the organization. Kenshin Kawakami is among the better options, which pretty much says it all.

Lopez pitched 200 innings for Arizona last season, and surrendered a league high 37 home runs and 111 earned runs en route to a 7-16 year. It was the second time Lopez led the league in earned runs allowed. Unless this deal is a precursor to Kawakami getting traded, chalk this one up as a head scratcher.

State of the Blog

When I started this site exactly one year ago, I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go with it. I just knew that I wanted to provide Atlanta sports fans with the coverage of their teams that they deserve.

After a few months it soon morphed into pure Braves talk – “write what you know” and all that – with the occasional Hawks or Falcons update. I still love following the Hawks of course, but with a wealth of outlets – including but not limited to Brett LaGree’s oustanding work at Hoopinion – providing insightful game-by-game analysis, I started to enjoy reading about Atlanta basketball more than I did writing about it. There will still be Hawks talk aplenty, but I’m going to steer away from game recaps.

To the scarcity of Falcons updates, I owe both my lack of DirecTV’s absurdly expensive Sunday Ticket package – which forced me to turn to dubious and unreliable methods for watching the hometown team – and my increasing disenchantment with pro football. The reasons why I dislike the NFL more than I once did could span an entire series of blog posts, but for the sake of brevity I’ll just say that I prefer Saturdays to Sundays. I decided to focus more on college football last fall, specifically the SEC, and that will continue to be the case going forward.

That’s not to say this space won’t ever feature any news or opinion about pro football, because the Falcons will still have a presence. I’ll cover topics like free-agency, the draft and other major personnel moves. But given the droning prominence of NFL discussion in the national media, I don’t feel the need to add my voice to the cacophony during the season. While I still love the Falcons and am excited about the current state of the franchise, unless I have something fresh to say I won’t be writing about them here. In respect to this site’s coverage of football, college will remain king. (And let’s face it, that’s just how it is in the south.)

As this blog ambles into its second year, I hope to continue to fill this space with a unique and heartfelt perspective on what it means to be a part of one of America’s most underrepresented fan bases. What you’ll find is a continued examination on just how crazy you have to be to keep cheering for these heartbreaking sons-a-bitches every year. To the many irrational homers, unapologetic apologists and rabid enthusiasts out there, I am writing on your behalf. I don’t wish to provide you a voice, but rather to echo your outcries to the rest of the world. The only goal I have for ctrlATLdel going forward is that it continues to provide the Internet with a glimpse of Atlanta’s distinct brand of fanaticism. The hope is to continue to provide timely and relevant viewpoints on Atlanta’s pro teams, as well as the variety of college programs which Atlanta residents support.

So yes, that will include a disproportionate amount of Braves talk, but only because no discussion of the Falcons or Hawks (or um, Thrashers) during a Georgia winter can be complete without the utterance of that one uplifting sentiment:

“It’s okay, spring training is right around the corner.”

Braves Notes

A few Braves-related notes came across the wire this week:

• For starters, Jair Jurrjens had successful knee surgery today. (See what I did there?) Dr. James Andrews operated on the 24-year old Jurrjens, who had a slight tear in his meniscus. JJ’s injury troubled 2010 season started in spring training, when he needed an MRI for his shoulder, and continued with an early hamstring injury which cost him most of May and June. All told, JJ was only able to make 20 starts on the year. With this successful surgery, hopefully the Braves’ ace-in-waiting can move forward from what was, essentially, a lost season.

• Speaking of moving on, the Braves said farewell to the worthless Melky Cabrera, releasing him outright today. After hitting .255/.317./.354 and turning in some of the worst outfield defense anyone has ever seen, Melky will not be missed. The fact that Cabrera’s contract was up for arbitration made it a no-brainer, Frank Wren told Mark Bowman. “With the arbitration situation, we knew that he would likely only be around for one year.” One year too many, Frank.

• Also getting released today was 40-year-old setup guy Takashi Saito. Saito’s one-year contract was due to run out anyway. This move simply allows him to hit free agency earlier.

Melky .gif source

Braves Offseason Preview

It won’t be easy, Braves baseball will resume next April. And for the first time in 20 years, it will continue without the iconic Bobby Cox. After 91 wins and a disappointing first-round exit from the postseason, general manager Frank Wren will have a busy off season ahead of him as he preps the team for the PBE (Post-Bobby Era).

We’ll leave the managerial search for another day, when the dust has settled a bit on this season and the candidates begin to emerge. I’ve already made it clear who I would like the successor to be, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, let’s focus on how the Braves can improve on the field by Opening Day 2011.

Game 3: Given Back

This team is not equipped for the postseason, it’s just not. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking how close it came to taking the series lead. After Eric Hinske’s pinch-hit home run gave them the lead in the 8th, it looked liked the Braves would steal another late victory in this series.

Craig Kimbrel was one strike away from closing out the ninth, until a Freddy Sanchez single up the middle forced Bobby Cox into action. In what could only be deemed (with hindsight of course) as a panic move, Bobby went with the lefty-lefty match up, even Huff is hitting .296 against LHP this year, and even though Kimbrel has superior stuff.

Huff tied the game with a single, and then Brooks Conrad’s third error of the game (eighth in last seven games) secured the 3-2 final for the Giants.

Heartbreaking, but the series goes on. Game 4 is tonight, and Derek Lowe will pitch on short rest, which he’s sort of made his reputation on in the playoffs. The Giants will throw rookie Madison Bumgarner. A loss for the Braves and the season’s over, a win and we head back to San Francisco for a fifth game.

I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet.

Game 2: Braves Find New Life

 

With his 11th inning shot into McCovey Cove, Rick Ankiel was the hero for the Braves in Game 2. (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

 

The clutch plays came from unlikely sources tonight, but nobody in Atlanta will complain. First, Alex Gonzalez’s two-run double sent the game into extra innings. From there, the Braves relied on a gutsy pitching performance from Kyle Farnsworth, some tricky defense by Troy Glaus (at the hot corner for the second time all season), and a very long, very loud, game-winning homer from Rick Ankiel to tie the National League Division Series at 1-1.

Farnsworth entered the game in the bottom of the 10th, after Billy Wagner pulled his oblique muscle on an Edgar Renteria bunt single. Wagner pitched to one more batter, but doubled over in obvious pain after fielding a sacrifice bunt. The word on Wagner’s injury is a pulled oblique, so it’s doubtful he pitches again this series. This is obviously terrible news. Barring a minor medical miracle, Craig Kimbrel and Johnny Venters will probably shoulder the bulk of the late-inning work from here.

As for the ejection, think it’s a coincidence that Cox was ejected by the same ump who made the erroneous call on Buster Posey’s steal attempt in Game 1?

“Well, I brought that up,” said Bobby, when asked about it in the post game presser.

After two innings, it looked to be a long night for Atlanta.  Tommy Hanson never  struggled with his control early, and left a mistake fastball up to Pat Burrell with two runners on. The 3-run homer was bad enough, then in the next inning, Hanson gave up another run, this time a single up the middle from pitcher Matt Cain. Not gonna lie, with the Braves mired in a 15-inning scoreless streak, I thought that the 4-run lead was insurmountable.

The players believed though, and more importantly, Chino Cadahia believed. He believed in every player who the fans were no longer able to trust. Chino put his faith in the scapegoats, the easy targets, the guys who get ripped endlessly in the press, the guys who nobody believed in. Much has been made about what is missing from the Braves’ lineup, and what the Atlanta hitters can’t do. Credit to them for not listening.

Now, the Braves head home with an even series, and nominal ace Tim Hudson ready to pitch for Game 3.

After 15 innings of sorrow, things are suddenly looking up.