Thursday 21 October 2010

Ding Ding, Round 2

The most hyped pitching match-up of the 2010 play-offs has thankfully got a mulligan. Game 1 in Philadelphia turned into something more akin to damage limitation than the hitter domination that had been forecast after Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay’s respective play-off debuts. Against the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds the two ace’s combined to pitch eighteen innings, allowed two hit and exactly zero runs. Just as a reminder neither of the two had pitched in the play-offs before. Not a bad introduction. Unfortunately the sequel was somewhat of a letdown after the impressive postseason debuts with Lincecum prevailing with seven difficult innings in which he allowed 6 hits and 3 runs, that qualifies as a quality start but hardly overpowering, luckily for ‘The Freak’ Halladay was slightly less impressive, also going seven innings while giving up four runs on eight hits. Neither pitcher had their best stuff on that cold Saturday night but thanks to the competitive nature of the NLCS the public gets to see a rematch of Halladay-Lincecum, and all indications are that round 2 will be significantly different from round 1, at least for one side of the equation.

Lincecum has had a very successful year facing the Philadelphia Phillies, going 2-1 with a 3.17 ERA and holding only three Phillies to above a .250 average, that’s Jayson Werth, Placido Polanco and Ross Gload. Halladay has had less success against the Giants with an 0-2 record and a startling 7.23 ERA. Given his track record against this Philly line up and his relative success in game one shows a potential position of strength the man they call the ‘Franchise’ whereas his potential successor as the NL Cy Young winner will have to change his fortunes against the Giants.

Both pitchers have had outstanding careers so far but tonight can only be a defining performance for one of them, and it will be the orange clad hurler who has that opportunity. For Halladay it is a game he has to win to keep Philadelphia’s season alive, Lincecum has the opportunity to do something far more historic. The Freak can signal a new dawn for this Giants organise and send them to their first World Series since 2002, which in itself isn’t exactly a huge deal on its own but, what is significant, it would be their first Fall Classic with Barry Bonds. How fitting if the new face of the franchise was the one to seal it.

Thursday 14 October 2010

Eulogy For Something Special


It’s over, and that’s the most startling thing about this whole 2010 Atlanta Braves journey is that it has come to an end. It didn’t happen the way the players wanted it to or the way the fans wanted but maybe it ended in the way most fitting for Bobby Cox’s career. More pertinently it wasn’t just the season that ended, the game 4 loss to the Giants in the National League Division Series marked the final time that Bobby Cox would sit on a Major League bench as a manager. Bobby’s career has been eulogised enough by people far more eloquent than I but these last two series (the Phillies and Giants) showed us exactly how much love the city and team of Atlanta has for the veteran manager.

The three sell outs to end the regular season during ‘Bobby Cox Weekend’ gave the fans the chance to thank Bobby for the 20 plus years he gave to the city and the team, it was an outpouring of emotion that only ever happens in sports. The epic finale to his wonderful career was the moments following Melky Cabrera making the final out of game 4, with the Giants beginning their celebration in the middle of the Braves diamond something strange happened in the capacity crowd. There wasn’t any boos, as the fans had showered on Brooks Conrad the night before, there wasn’t the mass exodus as witnessed the night after at Tropicana Field, the 44,532 individuals inside the Ted simply began chanting one name; Bobby. With the increasing volume and passion in the chant Bobby made one more walk up the dug-out steps and onto the field, his players stopped and applauded, the fans all stopped and applauded and, in one final touching tribute, the Giants stopped celebrating to applaud. One final great tribute to one of the last great managers.

It wasn’t just the fans who were demonstrating their love during the NLDS the Braves players made it clear from the beginning that everything they did was in Cox’s name. No player was more forthright in their feelings or actions than the only Braves on the play-off roster who appeared in Cox’s last postseason appearance back in 2005. Brian McCann was a young rookie who came up as part of the ‘Baby Braves’ and Tim Hudson was serving as the Braves ace making his first play-off appearance as a Braves. This year they were the veterans of the team and the backbone that Cox relied on to be his leaders. Both paid tributes to Cox with their performance in the NLDS. Hudson only made the one start after appearing on sort rest at the end of the season, he had however been set up to pitch game 5 had the Braves forced a decider. Huddy proved the Braves stopper again in Game 2 after Tim Lincecum had pitched his 14 strikeout complete game two-hitter; Tim went seven strong innings against the Giants number 2 ace Matt Cain without giving up an earned run. He earned his ‘ace’ tag over the season and it’s just a shame that he didn’t get the chance to pitch in a Game 5 and was denied the ability to play in his first League Championship Series. In what was an extremely challenged offence Brian McCann proved the rock in the middle of the line-up that he has been for the past 5 years. Whilst playing in all four games McCann posted a .429 batting average that included a go ahead home run in game four that looked, to all intents and purposes at the time, to have kept the Braves in the hunt. Nobody took the series loss harder than McCann as he continues to be one of the most underrated players in the game and the building block for any future success the Braves may have.

Apart from the ending of Bobby Cox’s legendary career the sad thing about the Braves postseason elimination is that never again will we find ourselves in this situation with a team like this. They were nowhere near the best team in the National League let only the Major Leagues but they were one of the hardest working and that was a quality nobody appreciated more than Bobby. After moves like the Mark Teixeira trade that began to make the Braves look like a faceless team of hired guns, this team was one of the most easily likeable Atlanta has had in a long time. Regardless of how it ended this season was unique and incredibly special and should not be forgotten by anyone.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Whoda Thunk It?

For the first five months of the season Braves fans everywhere were lamenting the fact that Frank Wren hadn’t been able to trade Derek Lowe in the pre season. The 4.53 ERA Lowe posted through the end of August had the ever decreasing attendances at Turner Field wishing for just one more sighting of Javier Vazquez in a Braves uniform. In just five starts since the calendar flipped to September however something drastic changed with the man formerly known to some as ‘Lowdermort’. On September 3rd Lowe skipped a start to rest and rehabilitate an elbow that had some unwanted bone fragments floating around in it, that meant Braves Country got one last memory from Japanese import, soon to be Atlanta export, Kenshin Kawakami and everything looked gloomy. Then came the new Derek Lowe who, for the first time in his Atlanta career, earned the huge contract he received two years ago. September 8th D-Lowe went 6 innings and allowed one run, solid without being spectacular, September 13th however was. Over eight shutout innings Lowe allowed only 6 hits and struck out a career high 12 Nationals hitters in what became his season defining performance in the middle of his season defining month. In September Lowe pitched 30.2 innings allowing only four earned runs and, most importantly he achieved a 46 ground outs to only 15 fly outs, the kind of ratio that will always ensure success for Derek.

This is now success that the Braves will need him to provide as he goes into the post-season as the teams ace, a position that D-Lowe has earned this past month especially given Tim Hudson’s recent struggles including a 5.35 September ERA. Lowe has been to the post season six times, four with the Boston Red Sox and twice with the Los Angeles Dodgers, while Huddy has been four times with the Oakland Athletics and once with the Braves. This means that the Braves starters in games one and two both have extended play-off experience, Lowe is the only one however to have travelled beyond the division series advancing to the league championship series four times. D-Lowe also has the experience of pitching in the World Series having picked up a ring with the 2004 Red Sox. In 21 play-off games (10 starts) Derek has posted a 5-5 record with a 3.33 ERA, Hudson has pitched in 9 postseason games (8 starts) and gone 1-3 with a 3.97 ERA that includes going 0-1 with a 5.27 earned run average in 2 starts for the Braves back in 2005. It seemed a pretty obvious choice for Bobby to go with D-Lowe in game one especially against Lincecum to try and put the Braves up in the series and then hope Huddy returns to his early season brilliance in game two. The wild card (pun intended) is Tommy Hanson who will pitch game three at Turner Field, Tommy has been great down the stretch posting a 2.04 ERA in September and not allowing a run over five innings against the Phillies on Saturday. The Braves have much more post season experience in their rotation and one that is coming into the series hot, at this stage of the year you don’t need to be good you just have to win; Lowe and Hudson have done that an awful lot over the years.