Call it a jinx.  Call it overconfidence.  Call it not waiting for the fat lady to sing.  But whatever you want to call it, it’s ultimately bullshit, because the Braves are on the cusp of fucking one more thing up, and that’s not finishing the season with 100 losses, and ultimately the worst record in baseball.

From the very day I wrote my swan song for a guaranteed 100 losses, where the Braves were playing .133 baseball, they have suddenly gone 7-3 in their last ten games*, have reached the 62-win plateau, and literally with one more win, avoid the humiliation of a 100-loss season.  Go figure that such a sudden hot streak would coincide perfectly with my declaration that the team was done and that 100 losses was all but inevitable.

*including a sweep against the Phillies whom at the time were playing vastly better baseball than Atlanta, but if there’s one thing any sports fan should ever remind themselves frequently is that you can’t rely on a team from Philadelphia to ever get the job done

Continue reading “This is not how it’s supposed to work” →

D*C picture status: Saturday’s pictures will go up tomorrow, September 15.

At the time I’m writing this, the Atlanta Braves are 56-88, and tied for last place in the NL East division, as well as the worst record in all of Major League Baseball. They’re just as bad as the Phillies whom were popularly predicted to guaranteed lose 100 or more games; the pinnacle of futility when it comes to a baseball season.

For whatever reason, nobody except for me really had the Braves pegged for 100 losses, but as we near the rapidly approaching end of the regular season, the Braves are pretty much on a rocket ship crash course for 100 losses, if not substantially more than that.

Of their last 30 games, the Braves have literally won just four of them.  And two of them were against the Phillies, who barely count as a major league franchise in their own right, currently.  (btw, the Phillies have won 11 games out of their last 30, in comparison)  If this current trend between both teams keeps up, the Braves will undoubtedly finish out the season as the worst team in baseball, along with over 100 losses.

Continue reading “Counting down tragic numbers” →

Impetus: The New York Giants Yankees complete a sweep of the Atlanta Falcons Braves by a score of 20-6.  The day after a 60-year old Braves fan fell to his death from the upper deck of Turner Field, while trying to antagonize Alex Rodriguez.

Seriously, 20-6 is a god damn football score.

Prior to the 2015 season, I mockingly said that the Braves were going to lose 100 games this season.  After all, they had traded away just about everything worth anything, and turned a team that could have probably easily won at least 85 games into a team that well, could very well lose 100 games.  Naturally, things didn’t turn out as bad in the start, when the Braves swept the Marlins to start the season, and went like 5-1 or something in their first few games, but as is often the case with baseball, reality sunk in, and then the Braves started playing like the team they were destined to be in 2015, and likely again in 2016.

Continue reading “This might be hitting bottom” →

In some regards, this kind of start was unexpected.  Sure, it’s in all likelihood not going to last, but for what it’s worth, it’s amusing to see at any point in the season, that the Atlanta Braves are sitting up in first place, undefeated much less.

And in other regards, it’s also not that much of a surprise that the Braves are off to this kind of good start; yes, me and everyone else had pretty much written the Braves off and chalked them in for a billion losses this season, but the team isn’t completely putrid.  It’s more like, there are very glaringly putrid components and segments of the team, but that’s not to say that there are individuals who are not all bad either.

Namely the starting pitching.  It’s only been three games, but the starting pitching have all done their jobs in holding a Marlins squad expected to compete for second or third place in the division, with slim playoff aspirations once Jose Fernandez returns and if he proves to be capable, to three runs over three games.  Julio Teheran, Alex Wood and Shelby Miller have all delivered in their first starts of the year, and there’s plenty of reason to feel positive if they can keep up this kind of performance for an extended duration of time.

Continue reading “Filling up the wrong column, boys” →

Long story short: Braves trade All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel and Melvin “Stop calling me B.J.” Upton to the Padres.

Opening Day wasn’t even a full 24 hours away when this trade became official, and in one final fell swoop before the first game of the season, the Braves effectively trade the best relief pitcher in the game away, as well as one of the worst players in the game.

In return, the Braves get an old outfielder who can’t really play the outfield anymore in Carlos Quentin, as well as a guy that will always have the what-if ball and chain attached to his name and potential in Cameron Maybin.  Additionally, the Braves receive two supposed minor league studs, and an additional pick going into the 2015 draft.

Continue reading “On Opening Day 2015” →

Impetus: The Atlanta Braves trade catcher Evan Gattis to the Houston Astros for three prospects.

Between Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and now Evan Gattis, the Braves have now traded away the bats that have been responsible for 114 of the team’s last 304 home runs over the last two years.  Sure, home runs aren’t necessarily the appropriate measuring stick for talent, but they certainly are popular.  And maybe 114 doesn’t sound like a lot, considering it’s a little over 30%, but those 304 home runs in the last two seasons took 40 players each year to accumulate.  Now take away three guys that made a large chunk of those home runs happen, and you’ve got a team that isn’t going to show up on any highlight packages any time soon.

Needless to say, the MO of the Braves organization right now is to punt on 2015, and hold their breath and hope that the prospects that they’ve traded away several of their most valuable assets to acquire will develop into talented stars, and lead the team back into contention at a later date.  Unfortunately for Braves fans, that means a very likely scenario of really bad seasons in 2015, 2016 and if the prospects don’t pan out (which they probably won’t, because most prospects don’t), and in 2017 too.

Continue reading “The Braves are going to suck in 2015, and I kind of can’t wait” →