Welcome to Atlanta where the players lay...

On the second opening night of the baseball season that featured the Braves vs the Nationals, three ESPN talking heads predicted the Braves to go to the World Series. Up until that night, I had heard nary a word about the Braves upcoming season on ESPN or anywhere around Atlanta. All of the sudden they're World Series bound? There's something wrong with this picture. Let's take a look at this Braves team...

First, the injuries and question marks that this team had entering the season. Chuck James entered the season on the DL. One starter down. Mike Hampton had not pitched in two years and is about as durable as a wet tissue. John Smoltz at age 40 entered the season on the DL as well, though he did beat Santana in his first start. He looks to be the easy ace on this staff. Tom Glavine returns to Turner Field after performing terribly there almost every appearance while he was with the Mets. He will perform well, but there is almost a guarantee that the bullpen will have to shore up the last 3 or 4 innings of his starts, as he cannot go 7 innings anymore. Jair Jurrjens will have his ups and downs, as any rookie pitcher does in his first full season. Hudson will perform well for the rotation as he did last year.

Suffice to say, this rotation has some major problems. Hampton is already hurt again. James claimed to feel fine before his start yesterday, but was very wild in his season debut and got knocked around. Fact is, even if this rotation gets its act together, they will be passing their potential win on to what may prove to be the worst bullpen in the majors right now. Things are not good when the best option for closer after Rafael Soriano is Manny Acosta.

This bullpen is built with a bunch of relievers who are all basically making the league minimum. There is no big stopper for the middle innings or the 8th inning. In fact, if you can name 3 relievers from this bullpen other than Soriano and Acosta (I already gave you that one), I'll crown you.

Couldn't do it?

I'll help.

Will Ohman
Peter Moylan
Jeff Bennett
Blaine Boyer
Royce Ring (GREAT porno name)
Chris Resop


This is what Smoltz hands his games off to. It will improve when/if Mike Gonzalez returns to the field and returns to form, but until then, trouble lies ahead. Soriano just hit the DL with "elbow tendenitis." Sounds OK, right? NO! Lest we forget, Soriano had Tommy John surgery a few years back, and this injury sounds very, very ominous. This is the kind of thing that starts out as the 15 day DL and then turns into a season shutdown (Mike Gonzalez last season). So Bobby Cox is going to hand the ball to Manny Acosta in the 9th. I wonder what Bob Wickman is doing right now... I have no idea what Wickman is doing, but I do know what Acosta is not doing: Finding the strikezone.

Acosta has given up 4 ER in 4 IP as well as 3 BB and 2 HR. He gave up 2 HR in 23.1 innings all of last season. What that means is that the inevitable for Cox and the Braves is going to be a closer by committee, '03 Red Sox style. I think everyone remembers how that worked out (Aaron F'n Boone). Geez, this is sounding like a lot of doom and gloom, isn't it? Well, there is hope. But it is not on the playing field. It's in the front office.

The Braves front office got Mark Teixeira for the now struggling Jarrod Saltalamacchia and four minor leaguers. That's looking like one hell of a deal at this point, as Teixeira sits in the middle of the Braves lineup and Salty can't couldn't catch a ball behind the plate this spring landing him in the minors. Frank Wren will make a move for the bullpen. But no matter what he does, this team was overrated on opening night.