Section 435 An Atlanta Braves blog. From the upper deck at Turner Field.

Fear the Socks

Atlanta 7, Miami Marlins of Miami 5 (10 innings.) Smoltz returned tonight to more fanfare than I have ever heard at Turner Field. This coming from a crowd of only 20,000. In his first relief appearance in three and half years, Smoltz gave up 2 runs, blowing a 4-3 lead, and getting his first blown save since giving up 5 in 0.1IP to the Reds on 9/22/04.

A walkoff home run by Yunel Escobar that bounced off the top of the center field fence saved Smoltz from an L and ended the night on a huge upswing after the crushing anticlimax of Smoltz’s relief appearance.

The old school socks were in full effect tonight. After working with Terry Pendleton for weeks, Jeff Francoeur decided that the key to turning around his slumping bat was wearing his socks up. He knocked one out in his first AB, but ended up going 1-4 with a walk.

Will Ohman got the W with his old school socks, after the pitching a scoreless 10th. KJ and Josh Anderson also rocked the high socks

Your goat of the game was Greg “F7″ Norton, showing us why he was DFAed by Seattle and making TD at Rain Delay look like a freaking genius. Norton went 0-4 (F7, F7, F7, K), leaving the bases loaded in the third. [Ed. - So, I wanted to attribute Infante's 9th inning miscue to Norton. Norton did make some shoddy plays, none that made the gamewrap, though, mostly looking like a lost little boy every time he had to make a throw into the infield. Infante's gaffe, though, also props up the campaign for a solid Blanco, Anderson, Francoeur outfield until Kotsay and Diaz return.]

By the end of the night, we’d all but forgotten about Jo-Jo Reyes, who had another decent outing. He was due for a bad game after last week in Milwaukee when he got the L in the best start of his young career. Yet, he went 6+, giving up only 3. A QS is not too shabby for his down start. Young Jo-Jo is getting better with every start.

Hello, Baseball Fans! Welcome to Turner Field!

Tonight we return home after our most dismal road trip yet. Not only did we get swept by the lowly Reds, to add injury to insult, Tim Hudson and Blaine Boyer both came out of the game in the 7th yesterday with pain in their legs. No word yet on how serious their injuries are.

This is a huge homestand, with the Fish and the Phils. We’ve got a chance to make up the ground we lost in the NL East. But with the way we’re playing on the road, the pressure is on to continue to tear it up at home.

Quick hits for Monday:

• I think we’re setting ourselves up for a letdown with Smoltz’s return.  Yes, Smoltz is one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Yes, I hope to see him tonight. Yes, it will be good to have him back, but he’s going to have less of an impact from the bullpen. And frankly, the bullpen has been doing well. Smoltz has said that he doesn’t plan on closing and he’s not going to offer us the durability of a younger arm. Of course, I expect him to be as dominant as he always is in whatever role he takes. I just don’t expect it to be any sort of salve for our various woes.
• Nice piece on the Braves’ announcer at the AJC. He does a really great job. I love when he comes on 20 minutes before the first pitch and welcomes you to the stadium with, “Hello, Baseball Fans!”
• Speaking of the AJC, they’re cribbing my signature piece for story ideas. I’m sure my sources deep inside the AJC are tracking down the responsible parties and bringing them to justice.

Inexplicable

What’s so frustrating about this one-run-road futility is that it really defies explanation. Obviously, there are things that you can point to, and we’ve been hearing hitting and bullpen. Getting Soriano, Smoltz, and Gonzales back was supposed to be a big help in the late and close games. That didn’t work out so well yesterday.

The truth is, though, the bullpen hasn’t been letting us down. We have only two blown saves on the road this year: Soriano yesterday and Blaine Boyer in Colorado on April 7.

So, bolstering the pen with the big guns isn’t going to help us.

The hitting aspect is spot on. We’re not hitting. And that’s exactly why it’s so bizarre. This shouldn’t be a club with hitting problems. The lineup is stacked.

You can run the statistics any way you want and they’ll show you the same thing. But they don’t tell you why why we’re not hitting. I think we should be more patient and get better at bats, but we made Edinson Volquez throw 102 in six innings on Friday night and managed to score only 1.

Is it bad luck or some kind of mental block. Is it all of the above. I just don’t know. No one else seems to either. How do you go about fixing a problem when you don’t even know what the cause is?

More on Jorge Campillo

Yes, the ERA under 1.00 is not going to last all season, and one of these days he’s actually going to look mortal. The advance scouts are going to start paying a little more attention and guys are going to get a little better grip on what he’s doing the more they see him. How much he can make adjustments as the other teams adjust to him will determine how well he fares this season.

But I really like Jorge Campillo, and I think he’s going to have a strong year.

I know, I know. He’s 29 and hasn’t had any success in the majors before but:

• You can throw out the limited experience he’s had in Seattle as a harbinger of future performance because it’s so limited and it’s the time surrounding Tommy John surgery.
• As Tommy John becomes more and more common, we’re going to start seeing more guys like Campillo and Jeff Bennett who don’t end up breaking into the bigs until their late 20’s. If you make it to the high minors or get a few games in the majors by your mid 20’s and then you blow out your elbow, you’re going to be coming back a little bit later.
• He led the PCL in ERA last year. He was also one of the top pitchers in Mexico prior to signing with the M’s. I especially liked this part:
  

  He led his league in ERA in 2004, with a 2.07 ERA that was achieved at an altitude of – wait for it – 7,000 feet.

I like Campillo because he pitches a smart game. He does so much. He throws everywhere. He changes speeds, and he doesn’t just have two speeds. Against the Mets, he was throwing his fastball mid 80’s, curveball mid 70’s, and changeup upper 60’s. He also throws strikes, likes to stay ahead in the count, and doesn’t walk very many guys (5BB in 36.1IP this year.)

More than anything, though, I like Campillo because it’s just fun to watch him pitch. So far, he’s had everybody guessing. He’s made some good hitters look really bad. Let’s hope he can keep it up.

Also, props to Jorge for getting his first major league and helping himself to 2 RBIs against the Brew Crew today.

Jo-Jo Brings Mojo; Offense a No-Go

How does a team that knocked out the best pitcher in baseball, scoring 7 runs in 4.1 innings on Monday, turn around and make Jeff Suppan look like, well, Brandon Webb?

On a day when Jo-Jo Reyes looked not just like a passable stopgap solution but like a legitimate major league pitcher, 7IP, 2H, 1R, 3BB, he gets the L.

Here’s your key stat:

Left on Base: Teixeira 3, McCann 5, Braves 8.

I think after tonight I might start looking into whether there’s a section 435 at the Trop.

Your Daily Kotsay

Mark Kotsay finally got wind that someone ordered custom Braves t-shirt with Kotsay #11 on the back and that was all the inspiration he needed to tough it out for the time being.

Asked about what would happen to Kotsay, shortstop Yunel Escobar responded, “No DL, no DL!”

Cold on the Road

Wishing I had not turned the radio on tonight. Say what you will about one-run games, you’re not going to win a whole lot of games when you only score two. Sounds like some pretty fluky stuff went down the last two innings. It’s amazing how deflating one of these games can be after coming off another hot homestand.

Fortunately, Jo-Jo Reyes is due for a good start tomorrow. You know you’re stretching when you’re relying on Jo-Jo Reyes for optimism.

Your Daily Kotsay

Likely due to the fact that I ordered my Kotsay #11 t-shirt today, it looks like the man himself will be joining the Braves Disabled List All Stars. As I mentioned yesterday, Mark Kotsay had been absent a little more than usual (well, if you don’t mean Oakland usual) over the homestand, and he sat again tonight in Milwaukee.

This will give us the opportunity to watch some more of Gregor Blanco’s plummet back to normalcy. Since peaking at .462 on April 25, Blanco has hit a middling .239. Omar Infante’s hitting .222 after a hot first two games.

Somebody get Mr. Kotsay some Icy/Hot. We need him in the lineup.

Matt Diaz Felt Left Out

We lost Matt Diaz tonight to a strained PCL in his leg. He probaby didn’t warm up enough after touching his knee with his cold bat (.135 since May 5).

Long, Hot Baseball Weekend

This turned out to be a pretty fantastic homestand. It’s one thing to sweep a pair of bottom-dwellers in six games like the last stand. It’s quite another to go 8-3 against three contenders. So, kudos. Maybe this time we’ll carry some of that mojo on the road.

Sunday’s Game

Arizona 9, Braves 3. The Braves marred their perfect record in the red, Sunday alternate home jersey (now 4-1). It looked like Tom Glavine was having a typical outing. Troubles in the first and shut-it-down the rest of the way. But things got out of hand in the 5th, and a grand slam put this one out of reach.

You know Bobby Cox has given up when Chris Resop comes in. I was actually sad to see that Resop got DFAed because I was working on an idea about a new stat I was going to call the Resop Delta. It would tell you in any situation how many runs down we’d need to be to bring Resop in. Oh well.

Monday’s Game

Atlanta 7, Arizona 3. I don’t know who this Brandon Webb kid Arizona had throwing was, but he wasn’t very good. He gave up 7 in 4.1. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of him.

But seriously, folks. I was expecting a pitcher’s duel with Webb and Jurrjens (who had a lower ERA going into the game than Webb.) Yet, neither pitcher made it out of the 5th. It would have been nice if Jair could have gotten a decision in this one, but an ND is better than an L.

Your Daily Kotsay

Kotsay’s back finally caught up with him and he was scratched from Monday’s game. It was the 8th start he’s missed this year, though he’s appeared in 47 games. Four of the missed starts have been on this homestand, though this is the first game he hasn’t appeared in.

Et Cetera

• A little research on my Chipper walk theory from the other day: Chipper had 6 walks in 36 appearances on the homestand (0.167), up from 19BB/167PA/0.113 for the rest of season.
• Tex made them pay for the walks on Monday. He hit .324 for the homestand, with 6 RBIs, though 4 were on Monday.
• Why is it that on the two hottest days of the year so far, the Braves and D-Backs seemed to go out of their way to drag these games on and on and on and… some of us were frickin’ roasting in the stands, yo! Let’s run it full on every batter. Let’s have a conference on the mound with 2 outs, top of the ninth, up by 4. Just throw it over the plate and trust the boys behind you.

So Long, Brayan Pena

Yesterday, the Braves activated catcher Brayan Pena from the need-room-for-pitchers 15-day disabled list and promptly designated him for assignment, meaning the end of Pena’s career in any sort of Braves jersey. I’ve got to say that this absolutely blows my mind. Not because I think Brayan Pena is so great, but because Corky Miller is so bad. Obviously, with Brian McCann cockblocking the starting catcher’s job for years to come, there’s little room for up-and-comers to find anything but a backup backstop job.

But, I just don’t understand what Bobby Cox sees in Corky Miller. Is it his 0.087 batting average? His four-A resume?

Or is it because Corky Miller is a dead-ringer for Seinfeld’s David Puddy?

Jeff Francoeur Walk-Off

Atlanta 3, Arizona 1. There are few plays in all of sports more exciting that the walk-off home run. Today Braves fans were treated to just such an occurence as Jeff Francoeur knocked one over the left field fence in the bottom of the ninth to win today’s game.

Jorge Campillo matched up against Randy Johnson. Campillo two-hit the Diamondbacks through four but came out of the game due to a blister. Jeff Bennett gave up 1 in three very, very long innings. He only gave up one hit but walked three. Yunel Escobar saved Bennett by turning a double play in the 6th. Bennett did get his first career major league hit, though, so mad props for that.

Interesting Play of the Game

In the 8th inning, with Mark Kotsay on first base, Yunel Escobar laid down a bunt. Escobar appeared to make it to first due to an errant throw. Kotsay advanced to third on the throw.

The umpires ruled Escobar out (and we’ll see what Escobar gets fined for his reaction to that) for interfering with the throw by being inside the baseline. That appeared to be the correct call; however, they also brought Kotsay back to first.

Obviously, if the errant throw was caused by Escobar’s interference, Kotsay shouldn’t be entitled to third. But, after researching the rules tonight, I found nothing that said Kotsay shouldn’t be entitled to second, being forced there by Escobar’s advance towards first.

In the end, it was made moot by Francoeur’s shot in the ninth, but still seemed from the stands like this was a blown call.

A Tale of Two Pitchers

Arizona 11, Atlanta 1. On the mound today the Diamondbacks had Doug Davis, an inspirational story waiting to happen in his first return since losing his thyroid to cancer. (After Davis, Jon Lester, et. al., baseball might be adding cancer to the list of PEDs.)

The home team countered with Jo-Jo Reyes. Jo-Jo Reyes took the mound tonight like a needle to the balloon of our momentum. Five Diamondbacks crossed the plate before we even came to bat. We were never in this one.

A couple of notes (though, honestly I was drifting off after the 5th):

• I think opposing pitchers have finally gotten the memo about Chipper. It seems like he’s been seeing a lot fewer strikes lately. It’s a testament to Chipper that he’s been able to continue on his pace with teams starting to try to pitch around him. And, of course, the more walks, the fewer ABs; the fewer ABs, the greater the chance that he might pull off .400.
• Phil Stockman looked good again. Maybe some day we’ll get to see him in a game that counts.

Bobby Cox Re-Ups for 2009

I’ll be interested to see what folks think about Bobby’s contract extension. Strategy-wise, I’ve been having more qualms with Bobby in recent years. (Though, it’s easier to have strategy qualms when you’re not winning divisions.) However, there’s no question that Bobby’s one-of-a-kind in the way he runs the clubhouse, and we’d be hard-pressed to find someone who can handle that aspect as well or better than Bobby.