Bishop Media Sports Network
Diamond Dawgs
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
As I sat at the campsite on beautiful Lake Oconee last Sunday evening, I got on my phone and watched UGA fall to a hot hitting FSU squad in the finals of the Athens regional and it was obvious that this UGA baseball program is on the right track. Even Captain Obvious would be in agreement with me on the subject of UGA baseball.
The 2019 Bulldogs finished the season with a 46-17 record after reaching the NCAA Athens Regional final.
The 46 wins is top 5 in school history and the 21 SEC wins is the most ever in a season for the baseball Dawgs. Georgia earned a National Seed two straight years and played host to an NCAA Regional in back-to-back seasons.
Yeah, The Dawgs lost to Duke and FSU at home over the last two seasons as a regional host, but baseball may be the greatest game on the planet. If a team gets hot at the right time and just goes on a tear, they are tough. That is what has happened to UGA over the last two baseball seasons.
I laugh at people who say this team choked without doing the research on how this baseball program has evolved.
As a fan of the program you hate to see your favorite team lose to anyone, but realize that prior to hiring of Scott Stricklin the Bulldogs had gone 42-72 the previous 4 years in SEC play and had conference records of 5-23 in 2011, and 7-20 in 2013. When Stricklin was hired the program was a dumpster fire.
It takes time to build a quality baseball program and when Strickin was hired in 2014 the rebuild was put into motion.
It took four tough years to start seeing results, and those results came in 2018 when UGA went 39-21 and 18-12 in the SEC. Anyone who follows UGA athletics can see that the program is rising to being one of the elite baseball programs in the conference.
The 21 SEC wins this season show that the program is on a solid foundation. I personally believe that a baseball rebuild is much harder than a football or basketball rebuild job.
Give credit to Greg McGarity, the UGA AD, for giving Stricklin the opportunity to put his stamp on the program. The results are starting to come in. Look at the Dawgs drafted in this week’s MLB draft.
Georgia’s draft picks were junior third baseman Aaron Schunk (2nd Round, Colorado), junior pitcher Tony Locey (3rd Round, St. Louis), junior pitcher Tim Elliott (4th Round, Seattle), senior second baseman LJ Talley (7th Round, Toronto), junior pitcher Zac Kristofak (14th Round, L.A. Angels), junior shortstop Cam Shepherd (20th Round, Tampa Bay), junior outfielder Tucker Maxwell (22nd Round, Philadelphia) and redshirt sophomore outfielder/infielder Riley King (26th Round, Atlanta).
When you have 8 players drafted from your current program things are clicking. Georgia has great pitching coming back in 2020, young talents like Randon Jernigan, and 12-13 new players coming in the 2020 recruiting class.
This team isn’t going anywhere folks except a Super Regional or a College World Series in the near future.
Scott Stricklin deserves a raise for the job he is doing in Athens. 85-38 overall and 39-21 in the SEC over the past two seasons. The rebuild has turned into reload mode now.
Georgia baseball is firmly on the right track.
Golden Award From Golden Bear
By: Rich Styles
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Mark David Johnson Jr, lives on St. Simons Island, Ga. He decided to go to school at Western Carolina in NC.
After a couple of years, he decided that he wanted to come home and go to college. He called Coastal Georgia’s golf coach, Mike Cook, and told him he wanted to come home and play golf on the school’s team. Coach Cook said, “of course….come on.”
That was two years ago. Since then, Johnson’s golf game has exploded.
After transferring, his golf game reached new heights. He won several tournaments and earned individual honors including Player of the Year for NAIA, Coastal Georgia’s Men’s Student-Athlete of the Year and most recently, The Jack Nicklaus Award for NAIA Division. Quite a senior year.
Coastal Georgia went to a tournament in Mesa, AZ at the Las Sendas Golf Club. A course, Johnson and the other team members had not played.
They studied the course on the internet. Johnson knew the conditions of the course would be different than others he played throughout his young career.
So, he practiced on similar grass. He chipped and putted for hours. He would also play on various courses but he practiced his short game more than most. It payed off in a big way. His senior year was marked by several wins and a couple of second places until AZ.
At Las Sendas Golf Club, his team was behind by 15 strokes going into the final round. He and his team mates knew they had to have a great day to catch up.
They caught up but fell short of the team title. Johnson finished tied for first individual honors and entered into a playoff for the title.
He had birdied the 18th hole during the first three rounds, then in the final round, a bogey. The three stepped to the tee on the playoff hole and he knew that he needed to hit quality shots. He did. The others did not.
Johnson birdied the first playoff hole to win the NAIA Individual title and became the first player in the history of Coastal Georgia’s men’s golf program to do so. Coach Cook said, “he is the best player in NAIA this year and it has been sweet to coach him.”
When I interviewed both Coach Cook and Johnson, they both smiled talking about their relationship since his transfer from Western Carolina.
Johnson’s game exploded with winning title after title and then winning the Jack Nicklaus Award for NAIA. He was one of five winners of the award, one for each college division. What does that do for him? Just an opportunity to play one of the hardest golf courses, with a slope rating of 76, for an exemption into a PGA Tour event in July.
He did not win but he did get his chance to meet and talk with 18 Major winner, Jack Nicklaus in Ohio.
As I talked with Johnson on the range at Retreat, he said he didn’t play well against the other division winners, he just could not get his game going. You have to drive the ball well and the rough was…..well let’s say very rough.
On Sunday in a crowded room, he and the others were to receive the award from Jack Nicklaus. Johnson said Jack’s wife Barbara came into the room first and greeted them.
Then the room became silent waiting for the PGA Tour legend.
In he came with his gray jacket and tie, he greeted and took photos with each winner. Johnson said he stayed and talked for over an hour. What a treat and a once in a lifetime experience that will go into his memory bank forever.
One final note, the winner of the Memorial, Patrick Cantley, was a Jack Nicklaus award winner and now a PGA Tour winner. Johnson knows that and looks forward to the challenges ahead of him after graduation.
Congratulations, Mark David Johnson. Well done and well deserved.
The Super Mario Of The SEC
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
When I was a kid, I remember I wanted to attend the college that had the best overall athletic program when it came to the three major sports- football, basketball, and baseball.
This way, no matter the season I would always be rooting for a winning team, not understanding at age 7 how those things fluctuate from year to year. (I actually asked my Dad, who told me Oklahoma at the time, and so for a brief period I was a Sooners fan. Don’t worry, it didn’t last long.)
Keeping that in mind I thought I’d take a look and see which SEC school had the most successful athletic season in those three sports- men’s and women’s, when applicable.
The most objective thing to do would be to assign a point system revolving around standings, post season appearances, and championships.
But, I would end up spending 80% of this article explaining the criteria and who wants to read that. Plus, it’s a lot more fun to just randomly pick a school and then argue it’s merit, right?
After much deliberation, (the amount of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee while listening to Side A of Aerosmith’s “Get A Grip”) I decided it was between three programs: Georgia, Kentucky, and LSU.
Georgia: If you take away the men’s basketball season then Georgia wins this by a landslide. Top 2 conference finishes in both football and baseball, as well as finishing in the upper half of the conference standings in both women’s basketball and softball.
Unfortunately, much to the dismay of some SEC fans, the next to last finish the men’s basketball team suffered this season does count. It’s hard to be the outright winner when you have a year like that in a major sport, even if you have the best finish of the three in the most popular one.
Kentucky: The Wildcats finished in the Top 4 in football, men’s and women’s basketball, and softball; a claim no other program in the SEC can come close to. Come to think, maybe they would win in a landslide??
Oh, that’s right, Kentucky’s baseball team was so abysmal this year the only logical conclusion is Drake owns at least three of their baseball jerseys. If I’m going to hold Georgia’s basketball season against them, I guess I’ve got to do the same with Kentucky’s baseball.
LSU: As for the Tigers, their best and worst finishes came within the same sport- first place finish for the men’s team, ninth place for the women’s. Everything else fell in between.
LSU is kind of like that band with one great hit and a bunch of decent songs nobody really remembers; the “Candlebox of the SEC” if you will.
Out of all three programs though, LSU is the only one to have a team to win a regular season conference title (neither of the three programs had a conference tournament champion among them), so there’s that.
When all is said and done there is really only one thing you need to take away from this article- If my son were to ask me the same question I asked my father over 30 years ago I’m not sure I could tell him which school he should go to, but I could tell him which one not to go to; Vanderbilt. I think we’re all in agreement that outside of their baseball team, they should just go ahead and shut the rest of them down.
Young Guns
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Going into Spring Training, the Atlanta Braves felt like they had two strong anchors in their starting rotation in Mike Foltynewicz and Kevin Gausman.
Both guys had a few years in the bigs under their belts and both had successful campaigns in 2018. Gausman’s success coming after he was traded to Dixie from the Baltimore Orioles, in particular.
It was the rest of the rotation that was covered in question marks. The loss of Anibal Sanchez to Sean Newcomb’s second half crash to the ever-changing consistency of Julio Teheran, the starting corps was less of a strength and more of a potential strength.
The talent was there. The Braves had built up a mountain of wealth in the arms department but there was no track record because a few flashes of brilliance from most of the prospects.
So, there was reasonable concern when both Folty and Gausman couldn’t make it to the finish line of Spring Training healthy. These were the guys Atlanta needed to lean on while the prospects and younger arms of the rotation were put to the test.
Flash forward to the June 1st, the season is two-thirds of the way done, and the Braves have two strong anchors in their rotation: but the twist is that the anchors are two of those same prospects the Braves weren’t sure they could count on in March.
Mike Soroka and Max Fried have been the stalwart performers of Atlanta’s starting rotation in 2019, leading the team in earned run average and wins, respectively, and each of them rank second in the category they aren’t leading in.
In fact, the question marks surround Folty and Gausman, who both returned from the Injured List and have been inconsistent at best (Gausman, for the most part) or just bad at worst (Folty, for the most part). They haven’t been able to secure wins for their team, going 3-8 collectively, and neither can boast an ERA under 5.50.
If there’s good news among the bad, it’s that both are talented enough to break out of these funks. In fact, both have had recent games that looked like a turnaround point only to have poor outings the following turn.
Soroka and Fried, on the other hand, have been consistently great. Fried has kept Atlanta in pretty much every game he’s started, as his 7 wins show. Finally, getting a chance to stick in the rotation (he made a total of 9 starts out of 23 appearances over the past two seasons), Fried is showing why the Braves coveted him so much when they traded Justin Upton to San Diego for him in December of 2014.
Soroka has been a revelation; picking up from where he left off last season before he got hurt and proving that he’s got the moxie to be a top starter even at the age of 21.
Soroka has been so good since joining the rotation that when he went eight innings in San Francisco against the Giants last month and only gave up one run, his ERA actually went up.
The kicker is that the last piece of the rotation puzzle, Julio Teheran, has actually been pretty good this year as well. He may have finally settled into the middle-of-the-rotation guy he was probably always destined to be anyway.
What this all amounts to is this: if (when?) Folty and Gausman figure it out, the Braves rotation will be among the most formidable quintet in the game today. And that’s thanks in large part to the teams two studs: Mike Soroka and Max Fried.
Jason Bishop Show with Kipp Branch June 1
Swinging For Omaha
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
College Baseball National Top Sixteen Seeds came out this week and they are listed below for the NCAA Baseball Tourney.
The top 16 seeds host a regional and then the winners of the regionals go to the Super Regionals the following week with the 8 winners advancing to the College World Series in Omaha on June 15th.
Sixty-four teams are chosen for the NCAA baseball tourney. Top 16 Seeds:
- UCLA (47-8) 2. Vanderbilt (49-10) 3. Georgia Tech (41-17) 4. Georgia (44-15) 5. Arkansas (41-17) 6. Mississippi St. (46-13) 7. Louisville (43-15) 8. Texas Tech (39-17) 9. Oklahoma St. (36-18)
- East Carolina (43-15) 11. Stanford (41-11) 12. Ole Miss (37-25) 13. LSU (37-24)
- North Carolina (42-17) 15. West Virginia (37-20) 16. Oregon St. (36-18-1)
Regional Winners:
UCLA: Top ranked Bruins look very good in 2019. Baylor could pose a problem but look for UCLA to advance to the Supers.
Vanderbilt: Vandy should coast through the Nashville regional.
Georgia Tech: The Jackets have Coastal Carolina and Auburn in the Atlanta regional. This one could get interesting. Give me GT to move on the Super Regional.
Georgia: The Dawgs have a future major league rotation playing currently in college. FSU in Mike Martin’s last year could cause some issues. Mercer playing in the Athens regional has nothing to lose. What if the UGA/Mercer game comes down to a Randon Jernigan vs Will Bowdoin matchup of former Glynn Academy Red Terrors teammates? Dawgs move on to host a Super Regional.
Arkansas: Are the Hogs on a mission in 2019? They were a foul ball catch away from being National Champs in 2018. Hogs win the Fayetteville Regional.
Miami: The Canes upset Mississippi State in the Starkville regional. State will choke at home.
North Carolina State: The Wolfpack beat East Carolina on their home turf to win the regional. This is a sleeper team folks and not a huge upset in the Greenville Regional.
Stanford: The Cardinal get a scare from UC Santa Barbara but move on.
Clemson: The Tigers win the Oxford regional over Ole Miss who have no business hosting a regional with 25 regular season losses.
Arizona State: Call me crazy but I think ASU beats LSU in the Baton Rouge regional.
Tennessee: The Vols shock the Tar Heels in the Chapel Hill regional and move to the Supers.
Louisville: The Cardinals coast through the regional they host.
Oklahoma State: Solid baseball program that will win their home regional and move on.
Oregon State: The Beavers have a great baseball program and will have no problem at home.
Texas Tech: The Red Raiders are solid, but the committee sent Florida to Lubbock. Texas Tech advances.
Texas A&M: The Aggies win the Morgantown Regional and send West Virginia packing. Solid pitching for A&M
Super Regionals Best 2 of 3:
Vanderbilt hosts Texas A&M: SEC Matchup. The Commodores are thinking Omaha and National Championship. Vandy in 2
NC State at Louisville: Wolfpack wins in 3
Miami at Stanford: Canes have to travel too far and get swept in 2.
Tennessee at GT: Going to be a great Super. Give me the Jackets in 3.
Oregon State at UCLA: Pac-12 matchup. UCLA in 2.
Oklahoma State at Texas Tech: Big-12 matchup. Give me Oklahoma State in 3 in an upset.
Clemson at Arkansas: The Hogs beat Clemson in 2, and roll into Omaha.
Arizona State at Georgia: Dawgs pitching gets by the Sun Devils in 2.
College World Series Teams:
Vanderbilt
NC State
Stanford
Georgia Tech
UCLA
Oklahoma State
Arkansas
Georgia
Your 2019 National Champions: Vanderbilt. College baseball is a great game to watch.
Swing For The Fence
By: Mike Anthony
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Despite a division title defense that hasn’t quite gone as expected so far and a few glaring issues that cause fans stress on a nightly basis, the Atlanta Braves are still in a great spot to build off of last year’s surprise playoff appearance.
In fact, the Braves and their fans should buckle up right now and take their best shot at the ultimate goal of winning a World Series.
While the Braves have a lot of pieces in place at the major league level and figure to have more coming up the pipeline in the near future, it’s important for the franchise to realize that this isn’t the same game that allowed it to win division titles for the better part of two decades.
Major League Baseball is now a game of windows when it comes to competing for a world title, and although the Braves aren’t even two years removed from wallowing at the bottom of their division, right now is the right time to strike while the iron is hot.
Atlanta already has a lineup that consists of a guy on track for Cooperstown in Freddie Freeman. Ronald Acuna has gone from runaway Rookie of the Year winner to serious MVP candidate and Dansby Swanson is starting to look more and more like a former overall No. 1 draft pick with each passing day. And now the last two weeks have seen the rise of Austin Riley.
Of course, it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses for Atlanta. The Braves’ bullpen was a huge question mark entering the season and has done little to make any fan comfortable with any late lead.
The starting rotation has also been in flux as Sean Newcomb is nothing like his 2018 self and Mike Foltynewicz isn’t putting up anything close to the ‘ace’ numbers that had him at the top of the rotation in the spring.
A couple of decades ago, this would have been the recipe that called for the Braves to hold tight, continuing to develop all of the currently excelling talent while trusting that other proven commodities would either return to form or eventually be replaced by guys in the minors.
That’s not how things are done anymore. The Braves have a lineup that can do damage against the current MLB pitching staffs that can roll out one flamethrower after the next. And – on the right day – the squad also has enough arms to shut down the better teams in the league.
This is where the front office has to believe in itself and let loose all of its power to make the Braves a World Series contender. The should make a few deals to solidify the pitching staff. Fast-track a prospect or two in order to make sure that the end of the bench and bullpen is good enough to steal a win here and there.
Like it or not, there is no place in the current state of MLB for crafting a model that results in over a decade of division championships. In the current league setup, you’re either contending for a World Series title, or you’re bottoming out at the major league level while stocking up in the minors.
The teams that win 70-80 games are getting nothing in terms of postseason action and are put behind the 8-ball in terms of gaining new prospects by picking later in the draft.
The Braves are in danger of falling into that unproductive middle if the status quo continues. They’re far too talented and young to be a team that is undergoing a rebuild. So, it’s time to lean on the strategy that has produced so much success from Riley over the last couple of weeks.
Hit the gas pedal. Do whatever is necessary to find all of those extra wins over the next four months. The iron is hot, but you still have to strike it.
Best Of SEC
By: Kipp Branch
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The 2019 College Football Magazines have landed in the book stores.
I get most of my sports information on the internet nowadays but I still like to pick up a magazine or two when the SEC editions hit the stores. Here are my top three’s in selected topics. What makes this fun is everyone has a different and strong opinion one way or the other.
Top Game Day Experiences:
- Baton Rouge: if you have never attended a LSU home game in Red Stick you are missing a treat.
The Cajuns know how to put on a party and carry that intensity into the stadium. It is loud in Baton Rouge and the Tigers will be a pretty good football team in 2019. Best road trip in the SEC. This place is the best tailgating experience in all of college football.
- World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party: The UGA/UF games in Jacksonville have it all drinks, food, dancing, brawling (I got spit on in 2008 and you know that got addressed) and a heated football rivalry.
I have fraternity brothers on both sides heated up about this game already this fall and it’s only May.
- Athens: Best college town in America. Weather and atmosphere are great for big fall games in The Classic City. Can you imagine what it will be like on 9/21 when Notre Dame rolls into town?
Best Student Sections:
- South Carolina: Carolina students get to the game early and they rock “Sandstorm” in Williams Brice and wave those white towels.
- Ole Miss: If you want to see former and what future Miss America’s look like head to Oxford this fall and hang out in The Grove. A feast for your eyes.
- Florida: The Gates are on the way back and when they are good the student section there rocks. It helps that you can leave the stadium and return more juiced up than before. I don’t know if they have changed that policy or not since I went there last.
Best Defense:
- Alabama: The Tide have been checking into this spot frequently. Can the Tide continue to produce first round defensive lineman?
- Auburn: The Tigers have Derrick Brown back and maybe their best defense in years. Gus needs a great season and this defense will do its part.
- Florida: The Gators will be able to rush the passer as good as anyone and the SEC is a pressure league. Can Florida hold up at cornerback is the question?
Best Offense:
- Georgia: Jake Fromm is the best QB in the SEC. Yes, I said it Alabama fans. The Dawgs have the best offensive line and best set of running backs as well.
- Alabama: Tua is injury prone, but is a big play QB when healthy. Best set of wide receivers in the SEC. Very Good offensive line.
- Texas A&M: Jimbo can coach up some offense. The Aggies will put up some points in 2019 with Kellen Mond at QB. This team is on the rise.
Best Team:
- Alabama: Best starting 22 in the country. Saban is maybe the greatest head coach in college football history.
- Georgia: Best 85 man roster in the country. Kirby has assembled a monster.
- LSU: Don’t sleep on this team. Coach O has them almost back to being the LSU we know again.
Best Head Coach:
- Nick Saban: Nick is on the Mt. Rushmore of College Football coaches.
- Jimbo Fisher: Jimbo has a Natty at FSU and will build the Aggies into a beast.
- Kirby Smart: Best recruiter in America and has turned this program into a national power in just 3 years.
College Football starts in less than 100 days.
Not Going Back
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
The Atlanta Braves are, unsurprisingly, leaning on youth to win ballgames during the first half of the season.
The young pitching that has been so highly touted for the past several years has shown up and produced, with Mike Soroka the undisputed ace of the team and Max Fried leading the squad in wins after nearly two months. That is to be expected, with the hype that surrounded those two and their fellow pitching prospects.
However, with all the focus and fanfare surround the young arms on the Braves and throughout their farm system, it’s easy to forget that there are some talented position players that have been waiting to get the call and make an impact in the big leagues.
After flat out decimating Triple A for more than a month, the Braves pulled the trigger and called up prospect Austin Riley to play left field, even though his natural position is third base.
That didn’t stop him from making an impact, homering in his debut and staying hot ever since, including a game tying bomb in the series finale against the Giants in San Francisco.
That home run was Riley’s FIFTH since his call up on May 15th. He’s also hitting for a high average and has played solid defense in left in addition to a few starts at third base to spell veteran Josh Donaldson.
It’s been less than two weeks, but even with a small sample size, there is no way the Braves are sending Riley back to the minor leagues when Ender Inciarte is ready to come off the Injured List.
More than simply hitting well, Riley’s call up has reinvigorated a Braves team that had been embarrassed by Los Angeles the week before and squashed by St. Louis the night before. Atlanta has been tearing it up since the 22-year-old joined the team. The energy is high, and there’s certainly a correlation with Riley’s arrival, if not a direct causation.
While Riley’s and team’s success is an absolute good, it doesn’t bode so well for the Gold Glove centerfielder, Ender Enciarte, whose trip to the IL prompted the call up.
Inciarte has never set the world on fire with his bat and in fact is notorious for having slow starts every season before heating up during the second half; but he’s unmatched on the squad in center field.
Ronald Acuna, Jr. has slid over to man center in Ender’s absence, and while he’s faster and younger, he still hasn’t developed the defensive instincts that make Ender such an asset.
An outfield with Acuna in left, Ender in center, and stalwart Nick Markakis in right is a superior defensive outfield, no one will argue that. However, the dividends that Riley’s bat pays out may make it impossible for Brian Snitker to give Ender starts once he gets healthy.
Aside from spelling Donaldson at the hot corner, Riley is almost certainly going to be the starting left fielder for the Braves going forward, which Ender coming in as a defensive replacement late in games as long as he remains untraded.
Speaking of, that’s another feather the Braves have been able to add to their cap with Riley’s instant success. Ender will make an appealing trade piece. He’s a young veteran with a cheap contract that ends on a team option. Riley has given Atlanta the flexibility to flip Ender as part of a package for that constantly needed bullpen help.
Whatever happens, Austin Riley is leading the charge for Atlanta, and he’s here to stay.
Bull-Pen
By: Mike Anthony
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Putting together a winning team in Major League Baseball is a tall order.
In a sport where each team needs to cover so many different and individually specialized positions, a shortcoming or a rash of injuries anywhere on the diamond can be the source of an entire season’s worth of frustration and the difference between an elated or frustrated fan base.
For fans of the Atlanta Braves, it doesn’t take more than a split second to identify the area on which the 2019 season hinges.
The defending National League East champions are in position to rule the division once again and possibly do much more as their talented core of youth comes into its own, but seemingly every game gets transformed into a three-ring circus every time the bullpen gates open and the Braves’ relief pitching comes into play.
The Atlanta bullpen was one of the only weaknesses in the 2018 squad and despite high hopes for another postseason run this season, fans were a bit on edge this spring when the team did almost nothing to improve its late-inning options in 2019.
If the front office’s hope was that another year of experience would bring improved performance, that plan ran off the tracks early as closer Arodys Vizcaino was shut down for the season just after opening day.
A.J. Minter was the next man up to fill the closer role, but was sent back to the minor leagues after posting a 9.82 ERA and walking 11 over nine innings of work.
The Braves seemed to find an answer at the end of the game in Luke Jackson, who converted four consecutive saves from May 10-17, but Jackson has looked shaky since.
Even for the best teams in baseball, solidifying a bullpen is never an easy task. After all, there aren’t many guys whose lone career track has been that of a reliever.
Just about every pitcher in every bullpen in the majors began as a starter, but was moved to relief due to a lack of effective number of pitches or an inability to hold opponents scoreless for more than an inning or two.
That said, the Braves have found themselves in that dreaded position where no lead feels safe and everyone in the ballpark is on pins and needles until the final out is in the books.
The bullpen issues need to be addressed, but that is easier said than done. Braves fans have been getting louder in their constant reminders that Craig Kimbrel is still a free agent.
But Kimbrel is still demanding a salary and contract length that the notoriously stingy Atlanta front office doesn’t seem to be interested in.
On top of that, any team wanting to sign Kimbrel would have to forfeit a first-round draft pick unless they wait until after next week’s draft to sign him.
If a return to Atlanta for Kimbrel isn’t in the cards, there are plenty of other options for the Braves to manage the late innings. Any scout in baseball will tout the Braves’ young pitchers – either still in the minor leagues or called up to the majors last season – and predict big things for them in the future.
They could provide immediate help, but that would raise the question of whether it’s prudent to derail the progression of a future starting pitcher in order to put him to work in the bullpen.
The shuffling and experimenting will continue so long as the shaky relief outings continue to mount. However, the good news is that solid starting pitching and a young lineup that is hitting the ball better with each passing week should give the bullpen plenty of leads to attempt to preserve as the season continues.
There’s a long way to go, and the Braves look to be in for another playoff push. And if those bullpen questions are answered, 2019 is looking very bright for Atlanta.
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