Braves: New Season, New Identity
Pitching, pitching, pitching. The Braves have mounds of pitching. Pun intended.
Forget the 2020 baseball season. It was a distraction from Covid and Trump, the twin calamities of our time. It was a 60-game freak and it was abnormal.
It is time for 2021, real baseball, and the inevitability of pitching.
Pitching is cash. Pitching is turning on the water spigot and getting wet. Pitching is a rooster at sun up and rabbits at dusk.
Pitching is the champion’s forte and it will be especially so this season because fly balls will find graveyards of grass and not land with so much regularity in bullpens. Major League Baseball finally decided not to wind the balls so tight, which was allowing No. 8 hitters to pop home runs…over the opposite field fence, so pitching will be king again. Tradition is back with a 162-game race where the steady cadence of pitching matters.
Braves Country is full of pitchers, which is the custom in the land of Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz, Knucksie, and Spahn. The Braves were one win away from knocking off eventual champion Los Angeles and their pitching is better.
Look at this.
Will Smith, who might be the closer, and Chris Martin, who also might be the closer, had 17 strikeouts in 8 2/3 innings in spring training while just getting loose. Charlie Morton, a starting pitcher, did not allow an earned run in 10 1/3 innings this spring, while also just getting loose.
These guys don’t even have the best arms on the team.
Nate Jones, 35, allowed three hits in 7 1/3 innings. He is a plus-arm. A.J. Minter, the lefty with the bionic arm, has 10 Ks in 7 innings in the spring, after his 0.83 ERA of 2020.
Look at Ian Anderson, the right-handed starting pitcher who had a 1.95 ERA in 2020 and dazzled in the postseason. It takes young pitchers a few seasons to command secondary pitches, but as MLB for the first time saw fastball rate slip to 49 percent, guess who was right there with the trend? Anderson. What took All-Star Justin Verlander 10 years to master—the fastball does not have to be your best pitch all the time—Anderson has learned in short order as a pro. His changeup is wicked..and he throws it in fastball counts.
Reliever Jacob Webb is a hoss—and didn’t make the roster. Are you kidding? In 2019, before arm surgery, he pitched 32 innings and had a 1.39 ERA. His arm is solid now. He does not allow home runs. His 93 mph 4-seam fastball sticks on the black, low and away, just like pitching coach Leo Mazzone taught his crew 25 years ago. He strands runners. He gets ground balls. And he wasn’t good enough to make the squad.
This is why the Braves let Mark Melancon, the 2020 closer, walk to San Diego. Mounds of pitching. They have five lefties in the bullpen, including the 6-foot-5 Sean Newcomb who is just itching to get back on the hill for real.
Max Fried, the lefty starter, is an All-Star. Drew Smyly, another southpaw, has figured out spin rate at 31. Fried/Morton/Anderson/Smyly is not the best starting rotation in the National League, but when you factor in the bullpen, only the Dodgers have a better staff.
Speaking of LA. The Braves were second to the Dodgers in all sorts of offensive categories in 2020. Atlanta won’t hit like that in 2021 because Marcell Ozuna has to play left field, Freddie Freeman will not hit .341 again, and the lineup will see many more pitcher-friendly ballparks.
That’s ok. The pitching is nasty, 1 through 13. Starter Mike Soroka, the All-Star from 2019, isn’t even available for the start of the season after a year off from Achilles surgery. Give him until June and he will look dominant again. (The Braves have 14 pitchers, but I hesitate to call Josh Tomlin nasty. Webb is going to take his spot).
Pitching will carry the Braves because when the bullpen arms get a little gassed, Atlanta can make a local call to Gwinnett for help, and the hurlers there are hungry. Touki Toussaint was finding himself before a shoulder strain. And then there is the waiting Webb.
The hitters? After some injuries in 2020, Ronald Acuna, Jr., and Ozzie Albies will be All-Stars. I’m holding out hope for third baseman Austin Riley to bust out. I think shortstop Dansby Swanson is so motivated to keep this phenom Braden Shewmake stuck in the minors that Swanson hits .280 and is an acrobat at short.
The Braves open the season a little after 3 today in Philly. When they close the season on October 3 with the Mets, Atlanta will have its fourth straight NL East Division championship. Pitching makes me sure of it.
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