The 2010 season has been one that this group of Braves will likely never forget and, for five members of the team, it just got a whole lot better. The July 4th announcement that there will be five Atlanta Braves on the National League All-Star roster capped what has been an outstanding first half of the season for the team with the second best record in the NL. The five selected were Martin Prado, Brian McCann, Tim Hudson, Jason Heyward and Omar Infante, a list that includes both deserving and surprising selections with only Heyward making onto the team via fan vote. So how did each of these five end up bound for Anaheim and a place amongst baseballs best?
Prado
Ever since Bobby Cox named the 26-year-old Venezuelan as Braves second baseman around the All-Star break last year Prado has repaid the faith shown in him with interest. Having spent the first three and a half years of his Major League career as a useful utility player he seized his opportunity to start with both hands, ending 2009 with his .307 average good enough for second amongst the regular roster. That was just a preview of what the 2010 version of Martin Prado would be. Coming in with the starting job already his and as an established member of the team he has lit up pitching from both leagues while compiling an NL best .335 average with a league leading 116 hits. If he continues to hit this way through the second half of the season he will accumulate well over 200 hits and should be in the voting for league MVP. This has all been achieved while stabilising the Braves lead-off spot and committing only 3 errors all year. Despite only starting in the All-Star game because of Chase Utley’s injury it continues an incredible season that will allow Martin’s mother, visiting form Venezuela for the first time, to see her son be an All-Star.
Heyward
It was predicted at an early stage in the 20-year-old slugger’s career that he would go to many All-Star games but very few thought he would make his very first in his first year in the big leagues. Despite his average now looking much more like that of a rookie (.251) his regression appears to be linked to the thumb injury he sustained sliding into third base back on May 14th. Heyward went into that game with a .301 average, 8 home runs, and a gaudy .1044 OPS, none of which look anything like the rookie J-Hey was supposed to be. This is the Heyward that made the All-Star game, the one whose home run trot was more like a gallop, who came up time and again with clutch hits late in the game and who electrified the City of Atlanta. The struggles he encountered ever since going head first against Arizona did not affect the fans reaction to one of the most talented young players of this generation, not even a .181 average in June could do that. Since the announcement of the ASG teams Heyward has confirmed he would consider taking his place in right field at Angel Stadium if his thumb has fully recovered, it would only add to the growing mythology of the young man if he made his triumphant return as an All-Star.
Hudson
This time last year Tim Hudson was rehabbing his surgically repaired elbow following a successful Tommy John procedure, neither he nor Braves officials knew if he would be able to return as an effective member of the rotation. Hudson returned in August and pitched seven games that impressed GM Frank Wren enough to reward him with a new contract and position in the Braves starting five. Much like Prado the 3.61 ERA Hudson posted last year was just a prelude to the dazzling form produced in the first half of this season; Hudson has gone 8-4 with a 2.44 ERA and held opponents to a .221 average against him. He has also compiled an astonishing 114.1 innings so far and would be on pace to exceed 220 innings pitched, a regular occurrence before the elbow troubles that lead to the surgeons table. Hudson may not be putting on the kind of show that Ubaldo Jimenez and Josh Johnson have been but when you take into account his recovery from surgery and the return he has made Hudson is as deserving of an All-Star selection as any of the younger pitchers in what is an extremely strong pitching year for the National League.
McCann
While not impressing in the way he has in his previous four All-Star years Brian McCann has none the less made it to his fifth consecutive ASG but has, once again, missed out on a starting spot after losing the public vote to the Cardinals Yadier Molina. McCann’s .265 average and 10 home runs don’t display the excellence at the plate that the Georgia native has displayed in the past the qualities that have been on display were enough to convince NL manager Charlie Manual that McCann was worth a spot on the team. The catcher has developed into one of the best leaders in the National League despite battling vision problems and a lack of production he has shouldered other burdens and moulded himself into a model professional. McCann hasn’t improved as a defensive catcher in the way it was hoped, posting a career low fielding percentage that could also be blamed on his troublesome eyes, but his handling of the pitching staff is improving at an incredible rate. The pitching staff, as a unit, has posted a 3.67 team ERA which is the fourth best in the National League and fifth best in the Majors, a tribute to the work that Brian puts in with the talented hurlers he catches, and none will be more talented than those on the National League roster.
Infante
The most surprising and controversial All-Star of at least the last decade was the utility man that Bobby Cox likes so much. In many regards Omar Infante is in exactly the same position that Martin Prado found himself in this time last year, he is playing considerably better than someone in his spot on the diamond (Yunel Escobar), has impressed managers and reporters repeatedly with his work ethic and production and is loved by the majority of Braves nation. Whether that results in an All-Star calibre player is a debate raging amongst the smartest people in baseball at the moment, or at least the ones that have the pens, but is not affecting the second most popular Venezuelan on the Braves roster. Infante has hit .309 in 57 games so far this year and is continuing the steady improvement he has shown in the three years since he arrived in Atlanta from Detroit, he hit .293 in 2008 improving to .305 last year before bettering that in the first half of 2010. Regardless of your opinion as to his inclusion on the NL roster it was a pleasant surprise for Infante and the Braves best summed up by the man himself when talking to Dave O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“I got a call from Frank Wren, and the first thought I had was that I got traded,I was kind of nervous and choked up. By the time Frank told me I was going to the All-Star game, I thought he was joking around. It took, like, five minutes for me to realize I’m going to the All-Star game.”
Infante’s selection only goes to prove that in this crazy season anything could happen for the Atlanta Braves.
