
A successful series just wrapped up at the Ted today with the Braves taking 2 out of 3 from the San Diego Padres. There just isn’t a lot of confidence or much hope for a Braves win when Tommy Hanson takes to the mound for the Atlanta Braves. He is by far one of the more over rated young pitchers in the game today. I use to think of him as just an average MLB pitcher. I now don’t think he’s even that good as his latest start was the one game we lost to the Padres in a 12 inning affair.
So you think Bobby Cox can manage? Well if you saw his decision in the 12th inning on Wednesday night, you would change your opinion on that. What makes it even more funny, the Braves announcer Joe Simpson agreed with Bobby Cox’s 12th inning decision. Just goes to show you how much of a home towner Simpson is and he refuses to call out Bobby Cox or Chipper Jones. Poor Chipper couldn’t even hustle on a fly ball that was dropped today and had to take a time out to get a drink after running to first base on a play he beat out with the bases loaded. So what was the decision Cox made in the 12 inning on Wednesday? Check this out….
The Padres have runners at 2nd and 3rd base with the first base bag open. The number 8 hitter is in the box ( a weak hitter) and the Padres only have their back up catcher left to pinch hit in this extra innings baseball game. The coach for the Padres decides to send his back up catcher to the on-deck circle to hit next, if his number 8th hitter can find a way to extend the inning. Now the back up catcher for the Padres is a little better of a hitter than the 8th place guy. So the Braves have the weakest of the two batters in the box ready to bat. However, Mr. Cox sees a very interesting opportunity and he has a chance to force the Padres hand and make them use their last position player, if he will walk the guy in the batter’s box now and pitch to the San Diego Padres back up catcher. The only down side to this move, you’re putting a guy that swings the bat a little better than the current hitter. So Cox does send the orders in to walk the 8th place hitter and pitch to the better player in the Padres line up and he rockets a double down the left field line; that plates two Padre runners in the 12th inning. The Braves fail to score in the bottom of the 12th inning and the Padres walk away with the win. Actually the Braves failed to score in 11 of the 12 innings they played in Wednesday and scored all 4 runs in one inning.
Now the obvious mistake Bobby Coxmade was he pitched to the better hitter. The part that is so troubling to me, this is the way Bobby Cox has did things in Atlanta for the last 20 years. He actually walked a guy on purpose, so the other team would be forced to use a pitcher as a pinch hitter in the 15th inning! How many baseball games do you know that ever make it to the 15th inning? Cox often manages in the future like this, when games can be won or lost on the very next pitch. He will go into a game today and make decisions based on things he will need in tomorrow’s game. He has never understood the need to use all of his bullets now and hope for a different situation in the baseball game tomorrow.
Joe Johnson & Bobby Cox

Bobby Cox made the worse coaching decision of the year and probably the 21st century, when he walked a guy for the sole purpose of using up all the position players from an opposing team. This game never had a chance to go 15 innings, because Cox gave the Padres a gift and allowed their better hitter to get his swing in when it counted. However, Braves fans can be grateful that we didn’t use all of our position players up. Cox can’t be fooled by the Padres, he used Derek Lowe to pinch hit in the extra innings and saved his back up catcher David Ross. So the Braves lost a game in which a pitcher got to pinch hit at-bat, a position player was left without an at-bat, and all while going 12 innings at home.

Troy Glaus has been a problem with Braves chemistry too. He has had one hot streak and failed a lot of times with a runner at 3rd base and less than 2 outs and couldn’t get the runner home from 3rd base in these situations. In this extra innings game, Cox brung in a pinch runner (who was a position player) for Glaus, after Troy got a base hit with 2 outs already in the inning. You don’t mind seeing this move with less than 2 outs or if Glaus would have been in scoring position, but Cox burned a position player for no reason, when he substituted for Troy Glaus.

You knew Glaus and Hanson were not good fits for the Braves, when both of them showed up Yunel Escobar on the field. Since then, Tommy Hansonhas struggled even worse and Glaus continues to drop simple balls at first base. Bobby Cox for some reason has no problems with Chipper Jones and Troy Glausnot hustling. I realize Glaus is slow, but this is still no excuse for not hustling. He gets away with slow jogs and Chipper couldn’t even advance on a drop fly ball in the outfield with 2 outs in the inning today. In that same inning, Jason Heyward went from 1st base to 3rd base on a ball that was hit to left field and less than 2 outs, so he had to make sure the ball wasn’t caught. Chipper goes from 1st base to 2nd base on a Matt Diaz fly ball, that got dropped, and there were two outs, so Chipper Jones could start running at the crack of the bat. Joe Simpson took it real easy on Chipper and only said he should have ran harder (one time). Then soon after that, he mentions Yunel Escobar is 8 for 17 with the Toronto Blue Jays and has 2 home runs. One Escobar home run is a grand slam, but no reason to tell fans about that, right Joe? If you’re keeping score at home; the Escobar/Gonzalez combination for the the Atlanta Braves and Toronto Blue Jays is 19 home runs for the Blue Jays and 0 home runs for the Braves. I guess Toronto just has better coaches with shortstops and they know how to motivate them better than the head coach for the Atlanta Braves can.

Chemistry is very important to the Atlanta ball club, since they don’t have the best National League players on their team. Hopefully the Braves can swing a deal for Roy Oswalt and move Troy Glaus and Tommy Hanson before the deadline. Keeping these two guys on the Braves team, will only come back to haunt them later. I think Freeman can step in and play first base now for the Braves. Perhaps Glaus and Hanson will be an attractive offer to a team that can get rid of a solid starting pitcher. I know fans would show up more for the games Oswalt would be pitching; than the games Tommy Hanson is toeing the rubber for the Bravos.
As a Braves fan, would you like to see a rookie first baseman who is tearing it up in the minors replace Troy Glaus, if you could get Roy Oswalt to take Tommy Hanson’s place in the rotation? We will need Oswalt’s arm in the post season, as the Braves are looking good for a wild card spot in 2010. I know they have the biggest lead in the Majors right now for any divisional leader, but let’s not forget Bobby Cox is in charge and Chipper Jones who can’t hit or run continues to anchor the 3rd spot in the line up.
Did you know the struggling Troy Glaus has over 60 runs batted in, compared to the 30 runs batted in for Chipper Jones? Did you know that Martin Prado has led the National League in hits for most of the year and Chipper gets to bat a lot with him or a runner on base? Did you know that Prado has over 40 runs batted in from the lead off position and Chipper is double digits away from him? How sad is Chipper Jones as the number 3 hitter in the order? He hit .260 last year and is currently lower than that! Folks the season is not early either. We are talking about games after the all star break here and it’s late July and our number 3 hitter has been hitting about .258 over the past season and a half? Time to move Chipper down, so our good hitters can get more at-bats. Favoritism rules in Atlanta and that’s why the Toronto Blue Jays has a great shortstop and we have downgraded at that position; even though Joe Simpson can “just watch Gonzalez making throws to 2nd base for hours and hours“. Yep, that’s the type of brain washing in the ATL, but the real fans know the deal.