Being Humble

Ok this will be a quick update since this is Sunday. And this is supposed to be the day of rest.

Atlanta Braves

This week has been a bunch of ups and downs this week. They opened the week up in Colorado and lost 3 games straight. Most of them by one run. Jair had a bad outing and the Braves spoiled Glavine's 2 hit outing. After Colorado (which had one game SNOWED out) the Braves visited the nations' capital. And they won one close game, and just smashed the Nationals in yesterday's game. Frenchy had a 3-for-5 day with 2 HR and a career high 7 RBIs. While Tim Hudson had a fantastic night allowing only 2 hits no runs 5 Ks. John Smoltz had a similar line. The Braves are 5-6 overall and look good pitching wise and lineup wise.

Detroit Tigers


I will only say 1 phrase/sentence for the Tigers. Aweful, Pathetic Disappointing $135 million Team. God aweful performances. I don't know they just are really sucking right now. And I don't see this team turning any corner until they start hitting consistently. Only bright spot has been JV with his great outings except for last sunday night. But being left out to dry yesterday. Edgar Renteria and Brandon Inge have been hitting pretty good. Inge with a team high 7 RBIs. And of course the rookie phenom Clete Thomas and his nice lead off batting. Walks, singles couple of doubles and sac. bunts he's our man. Otherwise this whole team sucks and will stay that way until we got some solid pitching outings and a lot more hitting.


AL CENTRAL
Tigers: 2-10 Last place
NL EAST
Braves 5-6 3rd place

WOW What a Saturday Up and Down!

The Title says it all. The Braves had a fantastic day and won over the NL East favorites NY Mets, 11-5. While the Favorites to win the WS or at least the AL Central the Detroit Tigers, lost to the Chi White Sox 5-3 in a heart breaker. First off the disappointment, the Tigers.


The Tigers entered the Game, 3 back of the Royals and Indians. And they stayed there as the Chicago W. Sox won and switched with the Indians for first place. The Tigers scored first with a double from Brandon Inge scoring Jaques Jones. After that, next time around Jones drew a walk and Inge again launched a bomber for a 2 run Home Run. After that Willis just kept on going with the wildness. 7 walks and 1 hit with 3ER through 6IP. That will not win ball games. The Bullpen once again gave up 2 ER and didn't help the Tigers cause. The Tigers 2 through 7 hitters were only 3-for 28 which is again insane for what our payroll and lineup potential is. The Tigers hitting has got to get started, the Tigers are on the verge of starting out 0-9 if we go into Boston without a win. Boston has far more superior pitching then KC and CHW combined. The Tigers need to wake up and get motivated because right now, it looks like they are just there to collect their paychecks. It's like the swings are lazy, wild, and just overall a don't care attitude.

The Braves on the other hand had a excellent game going before the blow out in the 7th inning. The Braves' Tim Hudson threw 6 innings and only gave up 3 ER which against the lineup packed Mets is pretty darn good. It was very good small ball playing today as the Braves got 5 Runs scored on 5 different singles or sac flies. Then the 7th came. The bases were loaded after a McCann double and walk from Prado with a single from Frenchy. And Kelly Johnson who is injured takes a full count out of the ball park for Grand Slam Home Run. Kelly smacked the ball deep the right hand corner. After that some more small ball was added as the Mets added 2 in the 8th and the Braves answered right back with Tex and McCann and a double by Frenchy. Frenchy scored once but drove in 3 runs today. I think the Mets are in trouble without Pedro they only have one proven vet of Santana and maybe Maine with two rooks. It'll be tough in the NL East but it should be between the Mets and the Braves all season. And the Braves will win the NL East in the last week of the season.






NL East
Atlanta Braves record: 2-3 Tied 3rd place

AL Central
Detroit Tigers record: 0-5 5th place

(Pictures credited to MLB.com)

Tigers 0-4 and Braves 1-3

Well this is avery very bad start for both of these VERY talented teams. I guess I'll tackle the Braves first.

The Braves had a very good first 4 games losing all 3 games by 1 and winning a game by 7 lol.

First off Jair Jurrjens was just great. The Tigers traded him and Gorkys for Renteria this off season. And boy with his spring and his first start he is looking just awesome. His 5 Ks in 5.2 IP was a very nice start. The Braves bullpen has been sketchy at best, Bennett Moylan and Soriano have been pretty stellar except for Moylan's walk off homerun to the Nationals on opening night. But Others in the bullpen such as Acosta, Ohman, and Resop have been pretty bad. Acosta's bad first night and mediocre second and third nights doesn't help his cause. The rookie Resop is for some strange reason being used a lot and has 2 of the Braves 3 loses.

Going to the Braves offense a slow start has disappeared. Scoring 11,10 and then 3 runs a piece in games 1 and 4 aren't too bad. Texiera has been on a slow start with a Homer and only a couple of hits. Escobar, Diaz, Chipper have been carrying the offense these first 4 games. Diaz is 5-for-17 with a HR and 4 RBIs. That is outstanding considering he was supposed to platoon this year with Brandon Jones. Escobar is 6-for-16 with a HR and 6 RBIs. Yunel is filling in Renteria's shoes just fine as he has added some pop to his offense. Chipper is 8-for-18 and a HR and 6 RBIs as well. Chipper will be close to the MVP for the NL if he keeps this up. And he will be a great asset if he stays healthy.

Hampton being scratched from the start is also not surprising but it hurt. With Hampton out the Braves loss one of their strong veterans. With James being activated for Hampton with Mike going on 15-day DL the Braves rotation becomes weaker. Glavine did great with a 5 IP, 3Ks, and only 2ER. Along with Hudson pitching 7 IP, 3Ks, 2ER. Both of these pitchers did great. Hudson pitched like a CY Young award winner. Glavine pitched just smoothly. And proved he still has some fuel in his tank.

Now on to the winless Tigers. Several sites have picked the Tigers to win it all. Well with a $100 million lineup the Tigers very VERY surprisingly have started out with being swept by the Royals and losing today to the White Sox to open up at 0-4 record. There are many reasons why this has happened.

The Offense and their $100 million lineup is really starting to scare us. In the first four games the Tigers have scored only 10 runs. Most of the heart of the lineup is only 4 for 28 with 7 walks.
The rest of the Tigers are not very good. The leadoff position shared between Clete Thomas and Edgar Renteria, have gone 8-for-17 with 2 RBIs. And Brandon Inge has gone 4-for-12, which has been a great surprise. While Carlos Guillen has gone 5-for-13 with 3 walks and a HR.

The Rotation has arguably been the best part of the team excluding Nate's performance today. Bondo, Verlander, and Rogers have combined for 8 runs total from all of them. All of them have gone a total of 18.2 IP and have at least 3Ks except for Bondo who only has struckout 1 batter.

The Bullpen is the worst thing next to last years bullpen. It was and still is ablaze. Grilli let the lead go in the first game with 1ER and on three day rest, gave up 3 runs today. Seay, Lopez and Bautista along with Jones have been great. The have combined for 1ER. Miner has allowed 2 runs but still is throwing pretty nicely.

Things really need to shape and start up for both of these teams. There still a ton of games left in teh season but right now the Tigers need all the luck in the world otherwise we might be waiting for the 2009 season sooner rather then after October. As for the Braves they are in better shape besides going 1-3. The bullpen and rotation look pretty good and the offense should click almost every game for at least 4-5 runs.

2008 Standings through 4/4

0-4 Detroit Tigers- 5th place AL Central
1-3 Atlanta Braves- 5th place NL East


(Pictures credited to MLB.com)