Atlanta Braves’ woes continue despite off-season preparations - MLB Feature
After being thoroughly humiliated by Detroit Tigers in two games, Atlanta Braves are looking to do some soul-searching in their management to find out what went wrong despite all the off-season preparations.
Paying a whopping $90 million to players and finding no substantive results reek of something terribly wrong with the system. After a massive 10-1 loss to Tigers, one was expecting an improved performance, but in vain as just the opposite turned out. On
March 4, Tigers building on their last victory excruciated Braves further with a massive 3-18 win.
The fact that the Braves have recorded their first Spring Training victory against Houston Astros on March 5 should never give the impression that the frailties exposed thoroughly in previous two matches by the Tigers has been overcome. Jair Jurrjens though
threw 47 pitches in the match, something that shows that he is not suffering from any pain in his right knee as he is yet to get back his health credentials by getting strike-outs and avoiding walks. In the match that the Braves won he was always vulnerable
to big hits and runs.
Giving away 33 runs in just three matches tells something of the pitchers employed and the mediocre play they put up. A troubling reality perhaps lost on the management right now is the fact that the greatest bottleneck for the Braves last season was poor
quality pitchers. They were unable to defend totals. Unfortunately the same problem persists even today and it looks like the results are not any different.
Dumped after making his Spring Training debut Julio Teheran and giving way to Jair Jurrjens for pitching in the next matches, vicious circle for the side seems to continue, with one after another being used with no concrete results.
Barring the game against the Astros, hitters also have been just as bad, with hardly few stepping up for homers and beaten largely by the controlled pitching of the Tigers. In a game Braves were just trampled over by Tigers, Tyler Pastornicky faced four
at bats and hit none as similarly Andrelton Simmons did not connect any. Stefan Gartrell from the Braves’ side managed a run.
Severity of the problem grows higher when seen in the context that the club learned nothing from the last defeat against similar opposition. To make matters worse, management kept looking for excuses in the form of un-friendly wind flow and that the pitchers
were doing fairly good job, at a time when they were not. After all, the Tigers’ pitchers tightened things for the batters on the same park where the Braves’ hitters stuttered for singles.
Braves’ manager Fredi Gonzalez said, "It was a tough day for anyone to pitch. With the conditions we had today, I am not about to count anyone out. When the wind is blowing the way it was today, all you are asking for is trouble."
A 10-5 win against Astros, one hope will just serve as a confidence building measure for players instead of invoking a “carried- away” attitude, which teams are often prone to after victory. Scheduled for their next assignments against New York Yankees on
March 9 and 10, a team that lost today to Philadelphia Phillies, Braves must brace for facing the Yankees’ debutant Michael Pineda. He had a great time against Phillies despite the loss and can be dangerous if given the role again against the Braves.
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