A recap and a rant

Its been quite a week for the Braves. The week started with the news that Smoltz was coming back and returning to the bullpen. We had a 1 run lead headed into the 9th, and the doors swung open and out comes Smoltz ready to lock it down. I got goosebumps seeing that again. Unfortunately, it wasn't a happy ending at all. Smoltz blew the save thanks in part to some shaky outfield play, but Escobar saved the day. Tuesday was impressive, we came from behind and picked up the first win when trailing after 7 innings all year.

Wednesday word leaked out the Braves scheduled a press conference with Smoltz and Bobby. This is never good. I went at lunch to watch the press conference and got the stomach punch we were fearing. He has to have another shoulder surgery, and some speculated this would be the end. As always Smoltz was defiant and plans on rehabbing and coming back if at all possible. I hope he can, he's one of the 5 greatest Braves and he deserves a better ending to his career. What's amazing is that he was hitting 95 mph even with a bum shoulder. To add insult to injury, in the game that day Manny Acosta (more on him later) gave up 4 runs in the 9th to blow the game for the Braves.

Thursday was fantastic. Another great comeback win from the Braves. But the true highlight of the night was Chipper Jones. 4/5 with this:
Career homerun 400. He hit the ball 1 section over from us. The reaction he got from the fans was fantastic and it was great to see him come out for a curtain call. Watching him right now is just an absolute treat.

And this brings me to my rant. We are far too talented to be a .500 team and struggling with runners on base. Last night was the perfect example of this. Yes, the game should have ended with an easy pop fly catch. It shouldn't have even gotten to that point where 1 run made a difference. Twice we had the bases loaded, and twice we came out of it with no runs. We had 3 runners thrown out at home, including a botched suicide squeeze, a botched sac fly and then a close play at the plate in the bottom of the 10th. It shouldn't be blamed on any one person, but Francoeur has drawn my ire, as he was the man that came up both times with the bases loaded, and both times he failed to drive in any runs.

I hate to question Bobby Cox, because he's great at what he does, but for the life of me, I do not understand why Frenchy continues to hit in the 5 spot. Chipper is getting on base 50% of the time. And Brian McCann his hitting over .300 and leading the league in doubles. Why not hit McCann behind Chipper, its going to increase the chances for McCann to drive in runners. Tex is going to have to start making more of his chances as well. Teams are starting to intentionally walk Chipper, and he's got to be more productive so teams will think twice about that.

Hopefully the team won't let last night affect them for the rest of the weekend, these close losses are so frustrating and in a tight race I really hope they don't come back to bite us in the ass.