KTE - April 23-25, 2010 - Remember the Braves?

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Remember the Braves? Mortal enemies of the Mets for many a year, before the Phillies took over the role in 2007. The Marlins, by way of their season-ending series in 2007 and 2008 have, in the minds of many Mets fans, jumped past the Braves as rivals as well. So, while they may no longer be the first name that comes to mind completing the sentence �Boy, I really hate those�.,� they remain a division rival and, as such, worthy of scorn.

Let�s start with the manager, Bobby Cox. This season marks the end of a long career in baseball that began with a the eleven-year-old Bobby donning an oversized St. Louis Browns uniform to pose for Norman Rockwell, an illustration that would grace the cover of the March 27, 1922 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. Since then he has been a marginal third-base prospect, a GM and a manager, and has graced countless dugouts with his special brand of folksy wisdom, profanity and tobacco spittle. He is what the Wilpons thought Art Howe was.

The story for the Braves this year is offense. Ain�t hardly anybody hitting, and there are some guys who are REALLY not hitting. After scoring 16 runs on Opening Day, they have inched their way down to a .229 team BA. The main culprits will be listed by position, but, if I may get all Gene Rayburn about it, �Bumbling Bobby said: Boy, my team�s lineup is really, really bad.� �How bad is it?� �Well, let�s put it this way. We have more gaping holes than BLANK.� Yet, they are holding steady at 8-7 after losing 2 of 3 to the Phillies.

Pitching: The starters have been OK. Tim Hudson and Tommy Hanson are both 1-1 with an ERA in the 2.8 range. Derek Lowe has three wins, but has benefited from a few big offensive days. Jair Jurrjens' ERA is over 6.0, but that�s two good starts and one disaster (8 ER in 3.1 innings). Kenshin Kawakami has started twice, and while he didn�t have great starts he faced Tim Lincecum in one, and was on the other side of Ubaldo Jiminez�s no-hitter in the other.

The bullpen has been pretty good. Billy the Alpaca Boy hasn�t been getting many save opportunities, but he has 11 strikeouts and a 0.83 WHIP in six appearances. Tahakashi Saito hasn�t been scored upon in his six appearances, and Peter Moylan, Eric O�Flaherty, Jesse Chavez, Kris Medlen and recent LOOGY callup Johnny Venters are all doing well.

First Base: Troy Glaus is the everyday guy here, and he is off to a slow start - .170 BA, .283 slugging with 16 Ks. Check that � he�s done. Finished. Shot. Pining for the fjords. Eric Hinske is hitting a bit in just 16 AB, so perhaps he may get the start in the Friday game, with Maine pitching, and Glaus will get off the first half of the day game after night game flip and face the lefty Niese on Saturday. Or maybe they�ll do the Mets a favor and give this stiff eight more ABs.

Second Base: Martin Prado has been getting on base a lot, a .417 BA and .478 OBP, but without a lot of power. He has nestled into the second spot in the order, and has 10 RS. Second base has been a revolving door for Atlanta, and he looks like he may stick for a while.

Shortstop: A 1-4 Thursday pushed Yunel Escobar over the Mendoza line. Barely. He�s not hitting and not getting on base, and his careless-looking error Thursday against the Phils ruined Derek Lowe�s day.

Third Base: Dammit, Chipper can still hit, clocking a .968 OPS so far. He�s taken a few days off, but he should be ready to try to do to Citi Field what he did to Shea all those years.

Left Field � Center Field: Three guys take the starts here � Matt Diaz in Left, Nate McLouth in Center, and ex-MFY Melky Cabrera in whichever one those other two guys aren�t playing. Diaz or McLouth have led off all season, and this trio has provided a run-sucking vortex of fail. Stats, if you please:

Mc Louth - .171 BA, .333 OBP, .619 OPS
Diaz - .167 BA, .167 OBP, .417 OPS
Cabrera - .125 BA, .250 OBP, .396 OPS

Wow. Matt Diaz has stepped to the plate 36 times, most as the leadoff man, and walked none of them. Cox may want to shake things up at the top of the lineup, but there aren�t too many choices there.

Right Field: Rookie pheenom Jason Hayward, formerly of the Moody Blues, has gotten off to a fine start, including a couple of highlight-reel clutch homers. He has 16 RBI, twice as many as anyone else on the team, and all non-statistical evidence says he is the real deal. He comes to NYC on an 0-10 mini-slide, but most of those ABs were against Roy Halladay and Ol� Man Moyer, who eats young lefty hitters sprinkled over his All-Bran. It will be fun to see what all the noise is about.

Catcher: Brian McCann is a good hitter. You know that. He is hitting well again this season. He has been hitting cleanup, ahead of Glaus, and in that configuration any righthander that does not pitch around him when he can should be shot on sight. David Ross could get the start at catcher for the gay dame Saturday against Jon Niese, as this works lefty-righty-wise.

Bench: Hinske can hit a little, but the rest of them are firewood. Whoever doesn�t start in the LF-CF shuffle is there, and if Ross starts McCann will be available to hurt Nieve or Mejia. Omar Infante gets the odd start at third when Chipper is feelin� the rheumatism, or whatever. There is also a guy named Brooks Conrad, but this job doesn�t pay enough for me to look up who he is or what he does.

Matchup:

Friday, 7:10 - Kenshin Kawakami v. John Maine
Saturday, 1:10 � Jair Jurrjens v. Jon Niese
Sunday, 8:10 PM � Tommy Hanson v. 2010 All-Star Mike Pelfrey

Ex-Mets on the Braves: RP Alpaca Boy Wagner, pitching coach Roger McDowell.
Ex-Braves on the Mets - RP Manny Acosta, RF Jeff Francoeur, C Henry Blanco

LGM. YGB. JFK. LSMFT.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Blackburn Lancashire.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Prado looks like he could be another one of those guys who's always killing the Mets. I'll go look up the numbers now but I'd be surprised if they're not pretty awesome

(checks)

.322/.352/.500 //852 in 118 ABs -- that's slightly bvetter than his overall slash numbers but not much. I guess he's generally better than I thought as a player.

[metirish]

Let�s start with the manager, Bobby Cox. This season marks the end of a long career in baseball that began with a the eleven-year-old Bobby donning an oversized St. Louis Browns uniform to pose for Norman Rockwell, an illustration that would grace the cover of the March 27, 1922 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. [/quote:394meg5b]


I feel like a twat asking this...Is that true, any pix of the cover?

[Frayed Knot]

Let�s start with the manager, Bobby Cox. This season marks the end of a long career in baseball that began with a the eleven-year-old Bobby donning an oversized St. Louis Browns uniform to pose for Norman Rockwell, an illustration that would grace the cover of the March 27, 1922 edition of the Saturday Evening Post. [/quote:9xgu6h3n]


I feel like a twat asking this...Is that true, any pix of the cover?[/quote:9xgu6h3n]

He ain't THAT old!



Nice of Melky Cabrera to pick this year to start sucking. I always had the feeling it would start eventually.

[Ceetar]

Prado looks like he could be another one of those guys who's always killing the Mets. I'll go look up the numbers now but I'd be surprised if they're not pretty awesome

(checks)

.322/.352/.500 //852 in 118 ABs -- that's slightly bvetter than his overall slash numbers but not much. I guess he's generally better than I thought as a player.[/quote:2gqv6qja]


8/19 at Citi Field.

Leads the league in hits right now.

[Fman99]

Nice KTE Swannie. Enjoying the kuh-nowledge coming off the CPF this year thus far.

[Guest Edgy DC]

He's got his back to us:

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

�Well, let�s put it this way. We have more gaping holes than BLANK.�

Ooh, ooh, ooh-- Fman's Farrah poster?

Su-fucking-perlative, Swanny.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Prado looks like he could be another one of those guys who's always killing the Mets. I'll go look up the numbers now but I'd be surprised if they're not pretty awesome

(checks)

.322/.352/.500 //852 in 118 ABs -- that's slightly bvetter than his overall slash numbers but not much. I guess he's generally better than I thought as a player.[/quote:1m44crbo]


8/19 at Citi Field.

Leads the league in hits right now.[/quote:1m44crbo]

He also hit that big home run off Ken Takahashi in that crazy gay dame last year when I was frantically driving all over the city trying to rig my car to pass inspection.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And doesn't he just have such a villian's name, though?

[metirish]

And doesn't he just have such a villian's name, though?[/quote:2exb7tjs]


the Devil wears Prado ?

[seawolf17]

Nice of Melky Cabrera to pick this year to start sucking. I always had the feeling it would start eventually.[/quote:2rqxyb5r]
If he wasn't a Brave, I would want him to hit .600 this year, just to hear Yankee fans bitch about it.

Fuckin' hell, baseball deities. Can't you just give us ONE? You know if we trade Fartinez to the Red Sox he's going to win the effing ROY.

[Chad ochoseis]

Blackburn Lancashire.[/quote:e3yanzhw]

A New Orleans bordello.

[TransMonk]

[Gwreck]

Small sample size (11 IP in 10 games) but Takashi Saito has better numbers against the Mets than any other ML team he's faced. The Mets have 39 plate appearances against him, with no runs, 3 hits, 3 walks, and 16Ks.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Nice job, Swannie!

[G-Fafif]

Add to the dossier, "The Braves don't know rules well."