Well, the postseason is upon us. Actually, it's been upon us for quite some time now. While I haven't watch any full games, I've kept up with a few things. For instance, there is no God. Yes, yes, all of you dammed atheists were right. God does not exist. For the simple evidence concludes that a true God would pull the rug under the Yankees' and Phillies' momentum.

You expect me to believe that the likes of Mark Teixeira and Ryan Howard produce by "free will" and "talent" WITHOUT divine intervention?

Oh no, no, no. If Jesus sits at the right hand of God, A-Rod and J-Roll surely sit and the left.




.....or something to that extent.


BUT! I finally have Braves related news! Here's what happened:

• Tim Hudson didn't want to sign with the Braves
• Tim Hudson wanted to sign with the Braves
• McCann had lasik surgery
• The AFL started

 
 Tim Hudson

Folks, this whole thing was baloney from the start. There is about a 5% chance Hudson isn't a Brave next season. He is too involved in Atlanta's community to just be shipped out, and he's a clubhouse guy. Now, I know what your saying: "But Kris! John Smoltz was involved in Atlanta, was a great clubhouse guy and a legend, and he was tossed out on his *** (aka the BoSox)." Well, the difference is Hudson still knows how to get batters out without the 15 run intervals.

Brian McCann    

The only thing I know about this is that McCann had lasik surgery. I don't know if it helped or not, although as soon as word comes out, I, as well as hundreds of other people, well give our thoughts and opinoins on it.

The Arizona Fall League

Ah yes, the AFL is back, the only thing that gives Braves hope in October. You may recall that at last years AFL, a young Tommy Hanson tore up batters all around. So much so, that he was awarded that years MVP crown. That mearly paved the way for young Hanson to a succseful rookie season at the show.

This year the Braves are sending another batch of hopefulls. I'll go over who they are and how they're doing so far:

Jason Heyward (.286/.375/.500):

The biggest prospect in baseball today has had a fine first 14 at bats. He has 2 BB, 2 SB, and 3 of his first 4 hits are doubles. 

Freedie Freeman (.100/.308/.100)

Freeman suffered a slump in his last portion of MiLB play. It appears to have carried over to the AFL, although, he's barrely played three games. He has, however, managed to draw 3 walks, but K 3 times. He has one hit, it was a single. But! You know what they say, "You can't judge a book by it's first 16 plate appearnces!

(NOTE: I'm told "he has lined out several times")

I'll start with the American League.

Twins vs Yankees:

Twins.
Why?
Because their the underdogs...
America loves the underdogs.
America loves to love the underdogs
America loves to hate the Yankees.
Pretty simple.

Red Sox vs. Angels:

Angels.
Why?
Because I like them more, I guess.
Also because I like Mike Scioscia.  
And Nick Adenhart

Now the National League...

Rockies vs. Phillies:

I don't care, like at all. This series is bittersweet for me. Why? Because I know one of these teams will fail (YEY!!!), but one will succeed (BOO!!!).

Cardinals vs. Dodgers:

In a way I want to see the Cardinals win it all, but I would mind watching the Dodgers win...


So, Who are you rooting for??

 

Anyone remember that commercial from Staples where the Dad took the two kids school shopping? They played that classic Christmas song, the kids were depressed and pissed, and the Dad was dancing with glee...

No?

Why, here it is.

) would face off against Rick Porcello (14-9, 4.04).

I like the move the Twins made. I like haing the veteran pitcher playing in the must win game, and playing their best pitcher in the tie-breaker. You want a guys whos been there, a guy who could pitch under pressure.

Both teams are in 1st place, both team are good, both can make the playoffs.
Its all up in the air!

Whoever wins will face the Yankees on 10/7/09 or 10/8/09 and swept out of the postseason on 10/11/09...

...Just kidding!

That's all for me folks!

The last time I came back from a break, this blog finished first among all Braves blogs in August. Lets see what kind of magic we can come up with this time.

Why I Left?:

Because of Hewlett Packer. Those expletives took forever to give me my laptop back!

Anyways:

The Braves are eliminated from the playoffs, and they sure are playing like it. Having dropped three in a row, two to the Nationals no less, that spark in the team certainly has left. I'm a bit tardy on covering their near-historic streak, but I will say that pitching and timely hitting carried them.



Fridays loss was disappointing. Lowe needs to go, for one big reason:

• His contract: Lowe makes 45 million dollars over the next three years. Thats good for      the highest paid player on the Braves...
• His performance: Derek was brought in to lead the staff, and a 4.55 ERA doesn't really say, "leader". Sadly, he does lead the team in wins, but thats a totally different story.
• His age: The man is 36 years old. While thats young in our world, he's old in baseball years. Much like dog years, you have to convert it. So Derek Lowe is actually 72 years old, until he retires.
  
• His sweat: Its amazing how much sweat he can produce. Does he ever stop? He could have an endorsement deal with speed stick...

Oh look at that, I had four reasons, well isn't that something... [Rolls Eyes]

Nate McLouth deserves some serious props for this incredible play.
 


Award Picks (without explanation):

AL ROY: Gordon Beckham
NL ROY: Chris Coghlan

AL MVP: Joe Mauer
NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke
NL Cy Young: Adam Wainwright


Also, I will be covering select playoff games, so, there is something to look forward to do.
(I guess)

GO TWINS!! (and Braves!)

That's all for me folks!

Until October...

Have this to hold you over:

Forgive me, but right now I'm writing a parody to "Behind Blue Eyes" and I'm a little distracted. And now Church... Ok, I'll be back.


Ok. So. Where are we now?

Well, we're now elated...
 
Three 1/2 back in the wild card, coming off a big win against arguably the best pitcher in the past 7 or so weeks, and having Jurrjens on the mound isn't to shabby either...

(If you don't know by now, I've fallen in love with the ellipsis...)

The SD Padre series was horrible. Should have taken swept 'em., or taken two outta three, or not under perform with the bases juiced, OR, pitched better, OR let Vasquez continue his bid for a shutout...

Its worth noting that the Padres are killing right now. But thats in the past. Now we're are looking toward the future! FUTURE! Its an electric word, future, its means forever and thats a mighty long time. But I got to tell you, there is something else... The present. Yes, the present. Right now we have to win this game, its not "must win" but its pretty darn tootin close. Why?

1. The most important is to gain ground on the The Rockies and The Giants.
   
2. To gain ground on the Philles. Yes, I said it. They might take the division, but I'm won't let them to it easily. What I'm I going to do? Fire words of hate across the internet... That'll show 'em.
3. Give Jurrjens a win! This fella deserves it like no other! I wish my 'pen name' (Jurrjens4NLCY) was not just a pen name...

Right. So now we have our reasons. The goal?
 
STAY ELATED! and stray from FRUSTRATED!

A few notes:

• Matty D is not just hot, he's a flipping supernova!
• McLouth reagravated his injury
• LaRoche tweaked his hand or thigh, or something, but he should be fine
• Church tweaked his back again.

Now, Today is Sunday and even if you are not a big christain, by the by, I don't consider myself a big christain either, you should pray for the Braves. Hands crossed, head bowed, eyes closed (OKAY! You got me, eyes open to read.)

Dear Lord/Higher Power/Jesus/Budda/Moses/Space Monster Scientology thingy,

We have endured so much during this season, please guide the Braves to finish strong enough to take the wild card or perhaps the division. If you could find it in your heart/space monster thing to do so, that would be greatly appraciated. Push the Braves to win now, and forever more!

Can I get an AMEN!!!





GO BRAVES!

Thats all for me folks!

Well, if you never read the first, "Why ESPN sucks" I talked about why ESPN and all its reporters, analysts, etc sucks.

Example one:

Today the Braves beat the Marlins. That means the Braves and Marlins have identical records, and... You know what? Just take a look for yourself...  

MLB.com:



Yahoo Sports:



Fox Sports:
 

ESPN:



You if can't tell, one of these sites posted the Marlins in second place (hint: Its the one that sucks).

Seriously ESPN? How petty is that?? No, not petty, pathetic, more pathetic than the Braves' offense. Oh, and thats not fake, look it up (before the Marlins - Braves game on Sunday) though.

Example 2:

 ESPN lied to me (and everyone else watching). They told me that I should stick around because Tommy Hanson would be there. What they should have said was, "Stick around, we're going to show videos of Tommy Hanson and talk about his heavy balls." They would have told the truth, and generate more viewers.

Example 3:

Jonathan Coachman. General rule of thumb. If it's not good enough for the WWE, its not good enough for ESPN, or anything for that matter.

Example 4:

They're need to please everyone. Apparently ESPN figured out that no one outside of the northeast cares about the BoSox-Yanks rivalry. What do they do? Enter Buck Showalter:

"Are you sick and tired of the BoSox Yankees series? We'll I think they should not play so many games, we should limit the amount of games they play."

Listen d**chebag, They are both ML baseball teams, and they play in the same divsion, they have to play games against eachother, what people don't like is the obsession coverage by di**wholes like you.

Not to mention, ESPN only wants them to limit games so as not to oversaturated them. Doing that we'll get more viewers (i.e. Superbowl vs. MLB World Series).




The American League ROY candidate and most likely winner is Gordon Beckham. Simply because he has no competition, like last years AL ROY winner.

Now the National  League, thats different. I see three possible candidates: Randy Wells, Tommy Hanson, JA Happ. All pitchers.

Randy Wells -

Randy has been just dandy for the slumping Chicago Cubs. Having a turblelent begining of the season by going from the minors to the majors, bullpen to rotation, Randy proved he is the only consistant Cubs SP that doesn't have temper tantrums, doesn't get injuried by the stupidest thing, and doesn't suck. How does the Cubs repay him? By giving him no run support. Thus for the 2009 campainge, he has posted a 9 - 6 record, 2.84 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and 74k's. He should be somewhere around 12 - 3, but you don't get a ROY award by what you should be.

J.A. Happ -

Happ also had to deal with call ups and send downs until things clicked for him. It was not as hard for Happ to get into the starting rotation than it was for Wells to. Phillies could not pitch, Happ finally could, boom. I have called Happ the "luckiest pitcher in baseball" because of his high strand rate and large amounts of run support. Happ has the most innings pitched than either of the other two. He Currently has the best winning percentage (one more win that Hanson). He has the lowest WHIP and ERA (1.17, 2.59). So why isn't he largly considered the favorite...?

Tommy Hanson -

...Because of this man. Tommy's stats may not be as good as Happ's, but he has the one thing that really matters, hype. Hype is what won Soto the ROY last year, even though Jurrjens clearly deserved it. Tommy Hanson is also the reason Glavine doesn't have a job, if your unfamilar with what I'm talking about, refer to this link. The AFL MVP award might as well be icing on the cake for Hanson. He is projected to be the #1 starter for the Braves next year. Tommy does have more than hype though, he leads both Randy and Happ in K/9, opposing batting average, and P/IP. Talk about Ace material.

Winner -

We'll it depends, Wells can throw a perfect game, Happ can throw a no hitter, Hanson can "strike out his age." Its to early to tell.


Congrats Warner Robins, GA Little League team! Best of luck to "y'all."


Braves need a win tonight! Here's to hoping Braves take the series!


Thats all for me folks!



 

This week Carrol Rogers called up the former Atlanta home town hero to hear how his life is going in NY. His answers may shock you, or not.

Francoeur

Jurrjens4NLCY

You know the game. But before I go into this, I'd like to say like I have nothing personal against Jeff, he is a nice guy and a devoted christian. However, this is my problem against him.

Moving on...


We got a nice little three-bedroom apartment out in Long Island City, and [his wife, Catie] has done a good job making it feel like home.

Thats good to hear. Seriously.

I feel great at the plate. I've worked on a few things that have helped a little bit. Hitting in the fifth hole and being able to come up with some guys with a chance to score has been nice.

Really?? Your going to play this card? Blaming others for your failures? My youngest cousin does the same thing... and he's 9.

Every other article written seemed to be something negative. ...

You don't think its because of the bases loaded 1 out GIDP?

I wasn't holding up my part of the job. I'll be the first to admit that,

That is good.

but at the same time, there are other guys on the team, too.

Ah, the high road.

A lot of the media here asked me about playing in New York, and I said, "This is going to sound weird, but I feel like I'm going to have less pressure playing up here than I did in Atlanta."

Why though? Seriously, its not like we said, "Stop sucking or we'll murder you!" You had the support from every Braves fan to turn it around. That and time and support, Bobby gave you 2 1/2 years and the famous Bobby support. You hit yourself the hardest for going 0 - 4.

[On his return to Atlanta] There were going to be a couple yelling boo, but the nice thing was I never left Atlanta on bad terms. It's not like I didn't play hard. I played every day and did the best I could.

True. Very true.

For some reason it wasn't working out.

*Slaps face with palm*

[After asked if the Braves lost confidence in him after demotion] Yeah. It was never the same after that. I'm sure I wasn't giving them the best reason to be [confident], but after that happened, it just was different.

Really? You are the worst outfielder in MLB in the past 2 years and you have the balls to complain and say the Braves and Bobby Cox (who is ridiculed for over-confidence in players) lost faith in you?

Listen, I'm not going to go up there and walk 70 times a year.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So you can either accept me for the player I am or go get somebody else.

Check.

I had two or three walks last week because I'm taking what they're giving me, but if it's a 2-0 count, there's a guy on base and I can drive him in, I'm going to drive him in.

That's funny because on a 2 - 0 count you only have 5 RBIs

[The Mets] are not there for my on-base percentage. It was great to hear [manager] Jerry Manuel in a team meeting say, "I don't care about average. I care about scoring runs, driving in runs and preventing runs."

Well that's worked out wonderfully for the Mets and their 512 runs that they've scored (Thats 23rd in the Majors) (And there is only 30 teams in baseball).

[Brian McCann] talked about how I need to get back to what I used to do and that's attacking the fastball. If I swing at the slider low and away, so be it, don't let that fastball beat you.

Not "so be it." When you swing at a pitch that ended up in the 1st base dugout, you can't rationalize with "so be it." Your not going to drive in many runs on wild pitches.


I am really tired, so I'll stop it right here. Jeff, I wish you the best of luck, you'll need it. Here is the full article. And if you have the 45 minutes, this is a good watch. 

I'm really sick of people complaining about Bobby Cox. Seriously! When is it going to stop? If anyone of you whiners knew anything about baseball, you would know that deciding when to take out a pitcher and when to leave him in is the hardest thing for a manager. They stress about this all the time, its what keeps Pinella, LaRussa, Cox, Torre, etc. up all night. Furthermore, I believe its wrong for people to critic (although thats putting it lightly, you people are b*tching) something, if they can not to better themselves.



Bobby's uniqueness entails building up players' confidence. Do you think taking a pitcher out as soon as he gets in a jam is going to bode well in the long run? No. That player is going to get pissed. You also CAN NOT overuse an already tired bullpen by taking out a pitcher to early. Managers judge whether to let a pitcher get through a jam based on how good his pitches are, not the result of his pitches. If 4 men in a row get 4 cheap singles in the 2 inning, are you going to take him out? Well, you should say no.

If you want to root for a manager that is the anti-Bobby, then become a White Soxs fan and stop making Braves fans look stupid.

I would also like to add that I really like the White Soxs and have nothing against them expect for Ozzie Guillen.   

Thats all for me folks!