Friday, October 8, 2010

The Braves Blog: Down 0-1 in the NLDS

Before we get to tonight’s game I have some thoughts on game 1.

Played out basically as expected: There was little about last night’s game that was surprising. Lincecum’s strikeout total may have been higher than expected but it wasn’t totally surprising. For a variety of reasons, the Braves lineup at this point is much more susceptible to being dominated by a power pitcher than the lineup was in May. Rick Ankiel, Brooks Conrad, Matt Diaz, and Alex Gonzalez are all free swingers who have trouble laying off high hard ones, and they weren’t in the lineup during the first few months. Also, Jason Heyward has a tendency to get overpowered at times, and at this point in his career, Derek Lee has a hard time catching up with heat. I mentioned yesterday that it was to the Giants’ advantage that their staff was built on power pitching because power pitching is what traditionally works in the playoffs.

Atlanta’s offensive struggle wasn’t the only thing that played out as expected last night. The Giants struggled with runners in scoring position and double plays just as they did during the regular season. As I wrote yesterday, the Giants don’t give the lead up once they grab it, and there was no hint of a comeback last night. I said yesterday that the Braves’ defense was my biggest worry going into the series, and unfortunately my fear proved to be well founded.
Still some questions with the lineup: I didn’t have a problem with Bobby Cox going with Matt Diaz in left even against a right handed starter. However, I continue to be mystified by Bobby’s insistence on putting Ankiel in the starting lineup. Ankiel is the weakest hitter on the Braves roster. His defensive prowess is also greatly overstated. He may well be the best defensive centerfielder that the Braves have, but as he proved again last night, he’s not nearly good enough to justify having him in the lineup. Yes, he has a super arm, but he isn’t much better than Nate McLouth in any other aspect of his defense. I was also puzzled by the decision to hit Alex Gonzalez 5th in the lineup. Granted, regardless of where Cox hit Gonzo last night it wouldn’t have made a difference in the final score, but that’s really not the point. Why would you have a guy who finished the season 2 for his last 35 batting 5th in the order? I don’t care that he was 3 for 7 with a homer in his career of Lincecum. 7 at bats over the course of a few years are not as relevant as his last 35 at bats.

More managerial questions: Look, I know that we’re supposed to be appreciating Cox right now, and trust me, I do appreciate Mr. Cox, but that doesn’t mean I agree with all of his maneuvers. There were a lot of different things that led to the Giants eventual game winning run in the critical 4th inning. I think a managerial error by Bobby was one of the causes. I thought the intentional walk of Pablo Sandoval with 2 out and a runner at 2nd was out of the blue and very hard to justify. I know that I’m second guessing here, but I was first guessing last night. What possible reason could there be to walk Sandoval in that situation? Sandoval had looked terrible striking out in the 2nd inning, while Cody Ross led off the 3rd with a walk. In the 4th, Lowe gave up a leadoff single to Buster Posey but then got Pat Burrell and Juan Uribe swinging to bring up Sandoval with two out, a runner at 2nd, and Cody Ross on deck. Sandoval is a better hitter against righties than lefties, and there was a right hander on deck, but the split differences are not enough to justify the move (or even consider it). First base was open but it didn’t much matter because there were already 2 outs and you didn’t need the force with the slow hitting Sandoval about to bat. Yes, Sandoval was now 4 for 11 in his career off of Lowe (2 for 7 this year), but so what? Ross was 3 for 10 in his career off of Lowe (including 3 hits in his last 4 at bats off of him) and 1 for 2 this season. Pablo Sandoval hit .224 with a .274 OBP in September/October. He hit .208 with a .289 OBP with RISP this season. He hit .238 with a .310 OBP (8 intentional walks included, as he often hits 8th) with 2 out. He hit just .182 with a .318 OBP (8 IBB included) with 2 out and RISP. As for Ross, he hit .288/.354 since coming to San Fran and he ended the season 15 for his last 38 (.395/.439). He batted .264/.343 with RISP this season. With 2 out he hit .283/.343. He hit only .215/.311 with RISP and 2 out, but again, Sandoval hit .182/.318 in those spots and was helped by 8 IBB. The bottom line is that this wasn’t the move to make. This is just my perception, but it looked to me like Lowe wasn’t happy with the move either. Ross ended up getting the “hit” to left that scored the game’s only run. Infante should have made the play, but I don’t think Sandoval would have even made contact.

The situation in the field: Again, the one thing that had me most concerned about our chances in this series was the defense. You just get a feeling of hopelessness because there’s really nothing the Braves can do about it. Brooks Conrad simply isn’t a Major League caliber defensive infielder, at any position, period. Everybody boots a ball from time to time, but Brooksy made an error last night on a ball that most Major League second basemen will field cleanly 999 out of 1,000 times. In a scoreless game, in the playoffs, most second basemen will make that play 1,000 out of 1,000 times. I don’t mean to sound harsh because I love Conrad and it’s not his fault that he’s been forced into this spot, but when the ball is hit to him he reminds me of when my coaches tried to play me at 3rd base in the 2nd season of “Majors.” It’s total panic. The only thought is to stop the ball and somehow or another get it to somebody else as quickly as possible. Most infielders have made every play so many times that it’s just 2nd nature, they don’t even have to think about it. There’s nothing routine about Conrad’s mechanics. Omar Infante is good enough at second but he’s clearly not comfortable at third base and he’s not very reliable there. Last night, with 2 out and a runner at first in the 1st inning, Posey hit a one hop grounder to Infante. With the runner going on contact and the catcher running to first, the safest play was obviously to throw to first, but Infante went to 2nd where the play was relatively close. We saw Conrad do the same thing in the final series of the season and it ended in disaster. Then in the 2nd inning Infante short armed a throw across to first and Lee had to go to a knee and make an excellent play to save an error on a routine ground ball. And of course, in the 4th inning, Infante could not make the play on Ross’ ground ball that ended up going as a hit to drive in the only run of the game. It wasn’t a routine play, but it was certainly a play that you would expect a third baseman to make 9 out of 10 times. It’s going to be absolutely terrifying ever time there is a ground ball hit when we are in the field. And this is a problem because our pitchers are ground ball guys.

The situation in the infield is miserable because there’s nothing you can do about it. The more befuddling issue is how the Braves ended up without a single player that is reliable defensively in the outfield. There were 2 balls hit to center field last night and Rick Ankiel—supposedly the Braves best defensive outfielder and a guy whose glove is so valuable it makes up for the fact that he is a complete zero at the plate—looked like a guy who had never shagged a fly ball in his life on both chances. On a semi-line drive into medium right center by Andres Torres in the 5th he fell down while catching the ball. Then in the next inning he went back on a deep fly ball to straight away center hit by Posey and flat out missed it. Was it an easy play to make? No. But any good center fielder makes that play, certainly one who plays every day in spite of a .210 batting average and a 2.83 AB/K ratio. The ball was not hit over his head. He got to the spot and missed it. Then he flubbed the ball while trying to pick it up and Posey made it all the way to 3rd. Within the last 2 weeks we have seen Jason Heyward, Melkey Cabrera, and Nate McLouth all make more than 1 bad play in the outfield. We all know the limitations of Matt Diaz in the field. Hinske is okay but fielding is clearly not his strong point. I just don’t know how this occurred, because 4 of those players—Cabrera, McLouth, Heyward, and Ankiel—were billed as at least solid defensive players.

The blown call: Neither the missed call on the stolen base attempt by Posey or the fact that it played a huge role in the outcome of the game was surprising. Had the Braves scored in the 1st inning and the Giants tied it up in the 4th and then gone on to win the game in extra innings it would be one of the hardest losses to accept in Braves postseason history. But the truth of the matter is that the Braves didn’t come very close to scoring last night, and even if the Giants hadn’t scored that inning, the chances of the Braves winning a game that went to extra innings scoreless would not have been very good. It’s true that anything could have happened, but the Giants would have gone into extra innings with their entire bullpen available, while the Braves would have already used Johnny Venters, Peter Moylan, Craig Kimbrell, and Mike Dunn. It’s possible that the Braves would have used Billy Wagner in the 9th as well. All I’m saying is that I don’t we would have won last night even if the correct call had been made.

Obviously, that does not take away from the fact that the Braves lost by 1 run that should never have scored. It was an obvious call that anybody watching could have made. Unfortunately, the guy closest to the play couldn’t see it. This really isn’t hard to believe if you think about it. The umpires are often totally blocked out of the play as a direct result of their close proximity to the action. I’ve long held the belief that the reason there are so many clear cases of blown calls by officials is not that the refs or umps have gotten worse, the problem is that athletes and technology have gotten much better. In football, the speed and complexity of the game is more of an issue than in baseball. Throughout the history of baseball there have always been disputed calls. The reason there seem to be so many obviously missed calls lately is that we now have crystal clear replays of every single action from multiple angles. Thus, disputed calls have become blown calls. We now know almost every time whether or not the umpire got the call right or wrong. There are very few instances when “the guy who had the best look at it” really does have a better look at it than somebody watching on TV.

Of course there are many other factors involved, and there’s no question that the so-called “human element” plays way too much of a role in the game of baseball. There’s been a steady rise in the clamor for instant replay due to the reasons already stated and also because replay is now readily available and in use in so many other sports. I don’t believe we will see instant replay until much further in the future when there is a different “commissioner” at the head of Major League Baseball. We’re just going to have to live with frequent blown calls for the time being. Of course it’s still going to piss us off. While I don’t think complaining does any good, I hope people keep it up in order to annoy Bud Selig as much as possible.

Game 2 Preview

Trends

In yesterday’s blog we discussed how crucial game 1 had been for the Braves during the run of postseason appearances under Bobby Cox. To reiterate, under Bobby Cox the Braves’ chances of winning a series have decreased drastically whenever they have lost game 1. In 14 postseasons from 1991-2005, the Braves were 10-2 in series in which they won game 1, and 2-11 when they lost game 1. The splits were even more drastic in the NLDS, as the Braves were 5-0 in the NLDS when they won game 1, and 1-5 when they lost game 1. The Braves have lost 5 consecutive postseason series going back to game 1 of the 2001 NLDS, and they lost game 1 in each of those series. They have lost in the first round in their last 4 postseason appearances, losing game 1 of the NLDS each time.

Obviously those are troubling numbers for Braves fans, as we lost the crucial game 1 of this series last night. What sucks even harder is that judging by history a win tonight wouldn’t do much to increase our chances in this series. From 1991-2005 the Braves went down 0-1 in a series 13 times, and came back to win game 2 and tie the series 9 of 13 times. However, after losing game 1 and winning game 2 the Braves only went on to win 3 of those 9 series. In fact, during the current streak of 5 consecutive series defeats, the Braves have lost game 1 and won game 2 every time. I guess the lesson is that we can’t get our hopes up if we win tonight’s game. However, if we lose tonight’s game we are really fucked. Under Bobby Cox, the Braves have fallen behind 2-0 in 4 postseason series and have never come back to win.

Keys to Tonight’s Game

Well, not to beat a dead horse but the Braves have to find a way to avoid mistakes in the field. At the plate, it will again be crucial for the Braves to get a lead early in the game. For Tommy Hanson, one key as always will be to avoid 1st and 2nd inning trouble. Also, Hanson can help his teammates out by getting some strikeouts, as that takes fielding out of the equation. While the Giants as a team do not steal many bases, there are a couple of guys in their lineup who can swipe a bag (Aubrey Huff is 7 for 7 and Andres Torres is 26 for 33), and Tommy needs to keep these guys off of first.

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