Recapping Braves’ Numbers Over the Past 7 Days

The Braves have gone 4-3 over their past seven games. They split a four game series with the Dodgers and finished off a sweep of the Phillies. In addition, they have traded wins with the Diamondbacks over the past two days.

Here are the hot and cold players over the past week of play:

Hot:

Troy Glaus: .296/.387/.667, 2 HR, 4 2B, 5 RBI, 3 R

Omar Infante: .387/.441/.419, 1 2B, 4 RBI, 5 R, 1 SB

Martin Prado: .357/.379/.500, 1 HR, 1 2B, 1 RBI, 5 R

Jonny Venters: 4.2 IP, 0.00 ERA, 9 K, 0 BB, 3 H, 1 W, 1 SV

Billy Wagner: 3.0 IP, 0.00 ERA, 4 K, 2 BB, 1 H, 2 SV

Eric O’Flaherty: 2.2 IP, 0.00 ERA, 1 K, 0 BB, 1 H

Cold:

Kenshin Kawakami: 6.1 IP, 7.11 ERA, 4 K, 3 BB, 9 H, 1 L

Derek Lowe: 12.0 IP, 6.00 ERA, 9 K, 3 BB, 14 H, 1 W, 1 L

Jason Heyward: .172/.333/.172, 0 XBH, 2 RBI, 3 R, 1 CS

Nate McLouth: .188/.316/.250, 1 2B, 1 RBI, 3 R

Jesse Chavez: 1.1 IP, 6.75 ERA, 0 K, 1 BB, 1 H, 1 L

Jason Heyward is the least usual suspect on the cold list. Some, or possibly most, of Jason’s troubles could be attributed to an injured thumb. Derek Lowe had a great start to the week but an awful outing in the series opener against the Diamondbacks made him crossover to the cold list. Chavez continues to pitch terribly and McLouth has yet to turn it on at the plate. Kenshin had a rough start against the Dodgers but can hopefully rebound tonight and give the Braves at least a tie in the series in Arizona.

The three lefties in the bullpen have been great in relief this past week. Jonny Venters, Eric O’Flaherty, and Billy Wagner have combined for 10.1 scoreless innings with 13 strikeouts, a win, and three saves. Offensively, Troy Glaus has started to accumulate some more doubles as I projected. However, I thought the doubles would come at the cost of some homers, but he was able to maintain the deep ball stroke as well over the past seven days. His double in the opener of the Diamondback series would have been gone in nearly every ballpark. Omar Infante played well in Chipper’s absence and again last night as Prado rested his injured hand. When Martin played over the past week, he played well as he has all season long.

Over the next seven days, the Braves finish off two more games against the Diamondbacks, play three against the Twins, and finish with a game against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Braves get to use their DH later this week against the Twins, so it will be interesting to see who the decide to use as their extra hitter.

Streaking Braves Sweep Phillies, Extend NL East Lead to 2.5 Games

Thanks to the powerful stroke of Troy Glaus, a surprisingly dominant outing from Derek Lowe, and a huge clutch hit from Omar Infante, the Atlanta Braves have taken the division lead and are beginning to pull ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Troy Glaus hit two three run homers in back-to-back days over the series’ first two games, and Omar Infante had a clutch base hit with men on first and second and two out in the bottom of the eighth inning earlier today to close out a three game sweep of the Phillies.

Infante only entered the game today because of Chipper Jones’ injured ring finger. Chipper is said to be day-to-day, but thankfully Infante was able to step in and produce in Jones’ absence.

Omar pushed ahead the game-winning run, but Derek Lowe’s performance is the real story from today’s game. Lowe pitched eight great innings while allowing just one run, one intentional walk, and six hits. This was easily Derek’s best outing of the year and it could not have come at a better time or against a better opponent. Billy Wagner closed out the game, earning his ninth save as he allowed just one baserunner while facing the heart of the Philadelphia lineup.

The Braves are now winners of eight straight games. They are 23-8 since their nine game losing streak at the end of April, and 13-2 in their last 15 games.

This has been a dominant stretch for the Braves in Bobby Cox’s final season as they closed out a perfect 6-0 homestand and improved their major league best home record to 19-6.

The Braves problems have come on the road (12-16), where they will play there next 11 games. Championship teams win wherever they play, so if Atlanta wants to prove they can withstand the difficulties that come with success,they will need to have a respectable road trip against some difficult opponents in the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, and Twins.

The Phillies will play better throughout the year, but as I said earlier last week, the Braves were in a great position to take over the NL East lead and they did just that in incredible fashion as they swept the two time defending National League Champions.

Analyzing The Atlanta Braves’ Depth: http://bit.ly/9LNGFk

I posted a slideshow analyzing the Atlanta Braves depth on BleacherReport.com. Below is the introduction and a link to the BleacherReport.com article.

Depth is key to any team with legitimate playoff aspirations. The Phillies were able to win a world series with Matt Stairs having some key hits in there NLCS series against the Dodgers, and the Yankees benefited from having Brett Gardner running around the bases late in games last October.

One thing Bobby Cox has always managed to do with the Braves is maximize the potential of the Braves fringe starters and bench players. Willie Harris, Wilson Betemit, and Charles Thomas are a few players who were great with the Braves in limited roles and played pretty poorly with other teams.

This season the Braves have a number of position players who can move all around the diamond and this could be critical if the Braves hope to make the post-season for the first time since 2005. A long playoff drought is something that Braves fans have not come to expect out of the Atlanta franchise and in order to avoid another season of golf in October the Braves must get the most out of their high energy players.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/350966-analyzing-the-depth-of-the-atlanta-braves

The Importance of the Bench

The Atlanta Braves two best hitters are third basemen Chipper Jones and catcher Brian McCann. Chipper Jones is one of the best all around hitters in the game but with his injury history you can nearly guarantee that he will only play 130 games a season. Brian McCann is one of the best catchers in the league but catchers don’t have the privilege of playing every game as a second basemen or left fielder does. McCann shouldered a huge load last season due to the fact that the Braves had a very poor backup behind him in Corky Miller. This season should see more rest for both Chipper and McCann due to the fact that the backups behind them are solid backups who could very well be starters on other teams.

Martin Prado will be the primary backups to Chipper this season. Last season Prado saw a nice increase in his extra base hit totals. Prado is a contact hitter and due to the increased velocity of the pitches at the major league level he was able to let the pitchers supply the power to his bat. He hit the ball gap to gap consistently last season in limited play. His minor league numbers suggest that this was an aberration but his isoSLG (the difference between his average and slugging which tells how much extra base power a player had that season) has steadily increased over the past three seasons going from .079, .104, and .141 last season. This tells me that he is getting better as a hitter and should be solid for the twenty or so starts that he will see at third base. He is not a prototype corner infielder but his defense and contact rate make him a more than adequate backup.

Omar Infante is one of the most versatile backups there are in the game. Having the ability to play every outfield position along with second, shortstop, and third base is a quality that almost no players have and he is especially valuable when you consider his skills at the plate. Infante was able to hit 24 doubles in only 317 at bats. To put that into perspective, Chipper Jones had 24 doubles last season as well in 439 at bats. Infante will be the primary backup at shortstop and centerfield this season. Yunel Escobar will play nearly every day unless he is injured, but Josh Anderson, Jordan Schafer, and Gregor Blanco are all left handed bats so Infante may start against some tough lefties. The Braves lineup is dominated by left handers so when facing pitchers such as Cole Hamels and Johan Santana, Cox may try to get as many right handed bats in the lineup as possible which would include inserting Infante in center. Infante is a crucial part of this team and his versatility will spell players from injuries and poor play while still providing solid offense and defense.

David Ross is the new backup at catcher for the Braves. Ross’ career OPS+ of 90 is a considerable drop off from Brian McCann’s 122 OPS+, but it is also a considerable increase over Corky Miller’s -24 OPS+ from last season. Ross will be able to give McCann more days off this season as he supplies a good amount of power as he had 21 and 17 home runs in 2006 and 2007 respectively. He always has a fairly low average but balances that with very good patience at the plate as he has walked more than 30 times in the past three seasons in limited at bats. Ross is not the quality backup that Kelly Shoppach is but he has the ability to give McCann a rest without seeing an enormous drop in production as we saw last season with Miller

Overall our bench will be very important to us with an inexperienced center field, an injury prone third basemen, and a catcher who needs to be rested. Having quality players such as Prado, Infante, and Ross is invaluable and many teams, especially the teams in the division, don’t have these types of players available.

KJ in a Platoon?

…posted by Ben Duronio

Can someone actually try and make sense of this platoon that Kelly Johnson is in with Omar Infante?

I just don’t see where Bobby gets the idea that Kelly shouldn’t play vs. lefties while Infante is insanely worse against them.

Omar Infante

vs. RH, .256 AVG/.301 OBP/.387 SLG
vs. LH, .248 AVG/.291 OBP/.382 SLG

Kelly Johnson

vs. RH, .263 AVG/.353 OBP/.405 SLG
vs. LH, .279 AVG/.363 OBP/.447 SLG

Kelly is better both vs. RH and vs. LH. Hell, Infante himself is better vs. RH than LH! This platoon is beyond ludacris, and I really can’t understand Bobby’s methodology with this.