For most of the season, it was widely believed that in the National League, the wild card would come from the Eastern division. The Braves and Phillies looked like they would be battling all season, and that the loser of their war would take the wild card. Well here we are, with under two months left in the season, and the Phillies have the division wrapped up, with an eight game lead in the division and a blistering .645 winning percentage. The Braves are the second best team in the league, with a 64-48 record, and are still leading the wild card. But in a wild card race that many expected to be a blowout (and that was, for most of the season), the Braves lead is dwindling. At the All-Star break, Atlanta led the race by five games. Today, that lead is down to 2.5 over the red hot Diamondbacks. What’s been going on with the Braves?
The struggles of the Braves can be summed up in two words: starting pitching. Since the break, the Braves starting pitching has been awful. What was a strong suit for the team in the first half of the season has been a burden for them in the three week old second half so far. Below are the staff ERAs for the Braves five starters.
Tim Hudson: 2.25
Brandon Beachy: 3.96
Jair Jurrjens: 6.26
Tommy Hanson: 6.56
Derek Lowe: 7.57
None of the quintet have been great since their extended vacation, aside from Hudson. He’s been excellent since coming back, as he’s four for four in quality starts with a 25:5 strikeout to walk ratio and has only allowed one home run. Rookie Brandon Beachy has had his moments, with two good starts sandwiched in between a pair of bad ones. But command, normally Beachy’s strong suit, has left him. In his four starts since the break, he’s struck out 17, while walking 13. He had 15 walks in the entire first half of the season. Could fatigue be getting to Beachy? Probably, though he still hasn’t cracked 100 innings for the year.
And then, there are the other three. Jurrjens, who was a cute Cy Young pick after a hot start to the year when he was a mainstay at the top of the NL’s ERA leaderboard, is now fifth in the league with a 2.63 mark. He’s allowed six homers in 23 innings since the break, and his poor strikeout to walk ratio (20:10 since the break) is catching up with him, in the form of stinkers in three out of his four starts since the break.
Tommy Hanson has been a victim of bad luck. His strikeout to walk ratio is a solid 28:9 in his four starts post-break. He’s allowed one homer in each of his starts. While that’s still too many, it’s not an absurd amount. Three of Hanson’s four starts have come at Turner Field. Yet, he’s allowed to 17 runs. Out of the three Braves starters who are struggling the most, Hanson is the one who I expect to have the ship righted the soonest.
Finally, there’s Derek Lowe. Lowe is in the third season of a four year, $60 million contract. The Tigers apparently had interest in him at the break, but couldn’t come to a deal with the Braves. Quite frankly, Lowe has been terrible. He hasn’t gone seven innings in a start since the middle of May. He’s gone under six innings in ten starts. Since the break, he’s walked nine while only striking out 11. His ERA for the season is creeping towards 5.00. This isn’t the type of guy that you want starting a game in the postseason right now, but he is not the type of pitcher that would thrive in the bullpen. With the young arms in Atlanta’s minor league system knocking on the door (all of what have been dubbed “The Four Pitchers of the Apocalypse” are now at AAA Gwinnett after this week’s promotion of Randall Delgado), you have to think that the Braves would try to move Lowe’s contract once the season comes to a close.
Combine the struggles of the Braves pitching with the injuries their offense has suffered, and you’ve got a pretty ripe looking pennant race. The team should be getting Brian McCann off of the disabled list (strained oblique) next week, while Chipper Jones remains day to day with a strained quad. The Braves are also inexplicably cutting Jason Heyward’s playing time to give career minor leaguer Jose Constanza regular starts. Atlanta’s management is using the guise of “Heyward is struggling against left-handers” as an excuse to give Constanza playing time, but there is no way in hell that these guys should even be mentioned in the same breath, let alone getting starts on the same team.
The Braves and their fans (myself included) have been taking the assumed playoff berth this season for granted. The Diamondbacks are making noise in the NL West, and if they’re not able to win the division (one game out right now), they could easily win the wild card. Atlanta needs to be careful about being too cute with their lineups and their rotation. If someone like Lowe keeps struggling, can the team really afford to keep running him out there in a pennant race? The Braves need to look past contracts and do what’s best for the team, or they could be sitting at home in October.
