Atlanta Braves

Rick Ankiel was never supposed to be an outfielder.

Troy Glaus was not supposed to be a third baseman.

Brian Wilson was not supposed to be human.

The National League Division Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Atlanta Braves is not supposed to be tied—but it is.

In my Atlanta Braves-San Francisco Giants NLDS preview, I thought the Giants bullpen would be the difference in this series. For the Giants, their bullpen was the difference in Game 2 of this series, but not in a good way.

The game was over. There was no chance the Braves come back in this one. Matt Cain was cruising along. When Cain was replaced by Javier Lopez, who promptly made Jason Heyward look like a statue, again, I had seen enough.

You see, I’ve been down this road before with the Atlanta Braves. I’ve watched thousands of Braves games over the past 23 years. 

As a six-year-old child in 1988, I watched the Braves finish with 106 losses. I saw them lose 90-plus in ’87, ’89, and ’90.

Rick Ankiel knew it was gone off the crack of the bat, a blast that made his career.

They say things come in threes right?

Well, things certainly came in threes on Thursday. We saw three divisional round games with three bad umpire calls that lead to three victories.

Atlanta Braves outfielder Eric Hinske is a career .254 hitter who never batted .280, never slugged 25 home runs, never scored 100 runs, and never drove in 85 runs.

Making matters worse, all of his career highs in those categories came in his rookie season, possibly showing he peaked too early.

Stats aside, he couldn’t be more valuable to teams hoping to contend.

On the surface, it sounds like a silly question: Does Derek Lowe or Tim Lincecum have the edge in Game 1 of the NLDS Series between the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants?

On one hand, you have the two-time NL Cy Young Award winner in Lincecum, and on the other, is the Braves “15 million dollar mistake” in Lowe. Yet when you look deeper, Lowe might be better suited to pitch in this game than you would think. 

For almost three years now, I have had to listen to Braves fans complain over and over again about Mark Teixeira and what his trade in 2007 did to Atlanta’s future. When one looks at what Atlanta gave up to acquire Tex for two half seasons of non-playoff baseball, it’s kind of hard not to be upset if you are a Braves fan.