While the first game of the Mariners’ series looked like it was going to result in a sweep by the worst team in baseball, we came back and won the last two in great fashion. Teixshy seems like he’s gaining confidence at the plate and all us fans really hope he is coming out of his long slump. We knew he started off slow, but we weren’t thinking it was going to end up being this slow. If he heats up, maybe he can make up for the absence of Chipper in the lineup and keep us going in a good direction.

Tonight we start a six game homestand against the Seattle Mariners, who seemingly have it worse than we do right now, as they are 8.5 games back in the AL West. They just recently took the Mets lead and fired their manager, John McLaren, this week. Erik Bedard, who was supposedly the trade of the off season, behind the Johan Santana deal, hasn’t quite panned out to be the ace that the Mariners thought he might be for their club with a 4.15 ERA and 4-4 record. But while they’re in the midst of their own troubles, we have our own to worry about…still.

While I won’t do this a lot, I kinda got the idea for this from Lauren at Braves Love, since she’s known for her frequent photo analysis and gay lumberjack posts. My photo analysis posts will probably not be half as entertaining and funny as Lauren’s, but I thought I’d try something different on here. I thought I’d post this anyway because it seemed somewhat funny to me when I saw it last night.

I wasn’t planning on posting today, but DOB’s blog changed my mind. First, we’ll look at some quotes that I’m referring to:

I feel like we’re watching those Now What? commercials about insurance, where something is always going great then something bad happens in the end. While those are just commercials and made up segments of companies trying to sell insurance, we keep living in this Now What? funk that we have been in for a while. Will it get better? Who knows? If this is how we keep playing, then I think we should come up with a new motto for the remainder of the season. See the video below.

So, now we have Glavine back on the DL with a left elbow strain, which is what caused his early exit in last night’s terrible excuse of a game. But to add to that, Jurrjens might be headed to the same M*A*S*H unit that is known as the Braves DL. Apparently, Jurrjens twisted his ankle while walking down the Cubs’ dugout steps after the game on his way to the clubhouse. I swear this team is cursed. Like KJ said before in his shirtless interview, it’s like they all have voodoo dolls or something. That’s the only thing I caught that he said the entire interview, so if he didn’t say that, then he should have. Now who is the one sticking the pins in the players? We should really find out and soon.

This is a short post because I have to get to class a little early to study for finals. But can we please just do well tonight and this series? And on this whole roadtrip? We’re not asking for much. A few wins here and there wouldn’t hurt. We’re facing the best team in baseball record-wise, so we have to be playing smart baseball tonight. Can we please score more than a total of five runs? Please. Us fans will appreciate it very much. Glavine vs. Ted Lilly at 8:00 pm EST. Let’s get a win tonight…for once.

Well, this past weekend was horrendous and we were at home nonetheless. But that’s what happens when you have to overuse the bullpen early in just about every game and the season overall. Something has to be done. I don’t know what, but something has to be done. I know the Phillies are red hot right now, but they didn’t over-match us really. We gave the games up by not being able to capitalize when guys were on base or in key situations, like the latter innings of all three games. Can we please just do well on this roadtrip? I know we hate June, well I think it’s the other way around, but still. Can we still not suck on this roadtrip?

I didn’t get to see the entire game last night because I was dog sitting and the people didn’t have the channel out at their house. My friend and my mom were telling me what was happening, though, but I still didn’t get the full effect of it. I didn’t see the botched play by KJ, and I know everyone wants to blame the loss on him, but he’s not the only one that should take the blame.

Smoltz will undergo season-ending surgery on his right shoulder. A press conference was held at 11:30 am today and he has said that while he hopes this isn’t the end of his career, he’s not really sure what will happen in the future. This is the last year on his contract and after this season he will be a free agent. I’m sure the Braves will renew his contract for another year if he thinks he is able to pitch again, but who really knows at this point? Smoltz says that he would love to be able to come back and pitch again, but he realizes this could be it. Let’s all hope the best for Smoltzie and hope that the surgery goes well with a successful recovery.

I’ve already mentioned the All-Star game one time, but Mac really deserves to go this year with the way his first half is going. I know that Chicago fans are voting like mad for their catcher Soto, who is also having a great year as well, but Mac has been to the past two All-Star games as a reserve and he deserves to be rewarded per se for his major improvement from last year, which was plagued by injuries but he won’t use those injuries as an excuse because he’s good like that. Mac is only down by 202,717, which isn’t not a low margin, but not unreachable either. With his All-Star thing, you can vote 25 times with one e-mail and then when that runs out, use another e-mail or make a free one solely for this. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, wherever, just vote for Mac; he deserves it and fans shouldbust their butts to get him there. This fansite has the right idea: McCann YOU Dig It? I plan on making a bigger All-Star banner for this, so expect to see that soon and vote for Mac however many times you can.

Normally, I don’t make girl-y posts on here, and I’m sure this one won’t be the last since I am, in fact, a girl and do have my moments at times. I’ll be honest and admit it. Today we have a video of KJ being interviewed on Braves Live after the game yesterday. With my girl-y, fan girl intuition kicking in, I really have no clue what he’s even saying or the questions being asked, nor do I really and truly care. The deer-caught-in-headlights look in his eyes, his breathy expressions of disappointment, and his shirtless, freshly showered self has me completely unfocused on the topic at hand. I’ll be honest and admit it.

Yesterday was a horrible loss and a one-run loss at that, making that 20-straight one-run losses on the road. We haven’t won a game in extra-innings this year either. Hopefully Huddy can go out today and get a win against rookie Johnny Cueto and stop our road woes from deepening even further.

I’m actually writing this post the previous night before the first game of the series with the Reds since it’s my day to sleep in, but I did want to get a post in at least since I wasn’t able to post today. Maybe I shouldn’t make a post, though, because they actually figured out how to win again. Good thing that I’m not superstitious.

We really need to figure out what we’re doing on the road, because whatever it is, we need to remedy it now. You can’t stay in the race with the road woes we currently and continue to have. It’s obvious Bobby didn’t want to send anyone but Huddy out last night in the late innings, but of course, the Brewers found some way to overcome our lowly two runs. It’s going to catch up with us sooner or later in the season. I hope we find out a way to overcome these road woes or we might as well kiss October goodbye for the third straight year. You can’t win the division playing this badly on every single road trip. It just won’t happen. Let’s hope with Oh-no, Jo-Jo pitching tonight that we can pull out a win.

The title is kind of dumb, but whatever works. I’m making this post short because I have a test in my next class. I need to study and work on the chapter work as well.

Last night was not a very good outing by Jo-Jo, which further seems to prove he needs more time in the minors… or something. Not only did we have terrible pitching, our offense only had six hits and left six men on base, which is why we only scored one run. I think after the first inning everyone could have gone home because it was fairly pointless to keep playing, but I don’t make the rules.

Tonight we go for the sweep of the Mets. Tim Hudson will face Johan Santana in the last game of the series in what looks like to be a good game. I hope we keep hitting like we have been and knock Santana out of the game like we have the rest of the Mets starters. I’m sure it won’t be as easy as it sounds, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do it with the way we’re playing right now. Infante wasn’t that bad of a fill-in for Escobar, but we would have a better chance of winning with Escobar back in the lineup. Chipper is questionable as well, but more likely to play than Escobar. Who knows if either will actually play tonight or not. Either way, let’s keep it going.

Yesterday couldn’t have gone more swimmingly. We beat the Mets twice in one day. How sweet is that? It’s nice we cut down our lead in the standings, but we still have two more games to play before this series ends. As we saw yesterday, Braves hitters acted like they actually had a clue at the plate with the timely hitting and smart baseball that they played. Where has this team been all year long? Patience is key at the plate. Yesterday proves that we are a much better hitting team when we don’t resort to flailing at every first pitch and are patient enough to work the count to tire the opposing pitcher. Plus it seems Teixshy and KJ have figured something out, which can only mean good things to come if they keep at it.

The next two series coming up are against the Mets, who are still playing well, and the Diamondbacks, who have the best record in baseball thus far. The longest homestand of the season continues with a doubleheader tomorrow against another of our division rivals in the Mets. We shall see what happens as anything is possible in this game.

Tonight kicks off Interleague play with three games against some of the current Braves’ former team, the A’s. I really don’t know much about them because I don’t really watch any other baseball besides the Braves, but I’ve read some things about them in this Talking with the Enemy over at Talking Chop. And with my curiosity, I’ve looked at what Yahoo! has to say about the team, well, from a statistical perspective anyway. (It sounded good anyway.)

Last night was how you really win ballgames, even though Boyer decided to make it interesting in the 9th. But still, a win is a win. Tonight we wrap the series up with Chuckie going against Cole Hammels. While we have a few guys that haven’t seen Hammels, and even though his ERA against the Braves is over 4, there are some guys in the lineup that haven’t done anything against him. But the two people I see as keys tonight are Mac and Chipper. Mac has a .444 BA with 4 hits, 2 doubles, and three RBIs against Hamels and Chipper has a .333 BA with 3 hits, 1 double, 2 HR, and 3 RBIs against Hammels. So, Mac and Chipper are my two key people for tonight’s game.  

This morning I thought of this title and it still sounds good, so I’ll use it. The title says it all. Need I explain myself? Didn’t think so. Braves need to win these next two games against the Phillies to take the series at least. That’s one thing about the Phillies I will give them credit for, they do not roll over and die, at least not against us, even when things look bad; they keep fighting until the end and we should, too.

The Pirates series definitely could have gone better, but at least we didn’t get swept as it looked like there for a minute. Hopefully the offense gained some sense of confidence from the second game going into Philadelphia. While we always seem to take the toughest teams to beat more seriously than the rest, for whatever reason, last year we still had problems with the Phillies; they seemed to always prove to be a thorn in the Braves’ sides.

With yesterday’s rainout, we’re going to try to fit in a twin bill today with Pittsburgh since we do not see them again this year. From 12 pm to 7 pm, there’s a 50-60% chance of rain in Pittsburgh, so we might be lucky to get in one game today. Hopefully we can manage two and won’t have to sacrifice a much-needed off day later in the year.

Normally I wouldn’t post a video unless it were baseball related (with exception of the previous End of Ze World video), but I always seemed to think the Mother’s Day episode from Full House, and yes, I watched the show growing up and still watch reruns of the show on ABCFamily, was so cute! Especially the part with the Mother’s Day song. Observe below:

With the team on a six-game win streak, I say let’s do our best to keep it going. Today we start a four-game series against the Pirates in Pittsburgh and I’m sure it hasn’t been quite long enough to forget the first time we saw them at home. We have Glavine on the mound tonight for us facing Ian Snell. Glavine still has yet to pick up a win and his last outing wasn’t that great considering it was a Reds massacre or there about. Let’s hope he has his stuff tonight and can notch his first win of the season.

Everyone is dropping like flies and getting injured. What are they drinking/eating in that clubhouse? Whatever it is, they need to find it and get rid of it before the whole team catches on. According to Yahoo’s injury list, these are the following on the DL:

Like my title says, if yesterday is an indication of what’s to come with this team, then it will surely be welcomed with open arms. The offense finally woke up and let’s hope they keep it that way against the up- and-coming mediocre series ahead with San Diego and Pittsburgh. It’s really nice to finally see this lineup clicking on all cylinders and showing off how much of a threat and dangerous offense they can be. It’s really nice to see Mark T. and KJ heating up as well, even though Mark was hit-less in yesterday’s offense awakening. Mark T. and KJ seem to make things flow better when they are on. Mac keeps hitting and will only improve with runners on base, as he showed yesterday that he can and will produce in key situations. Kotsay is exceeding expectations and that’s a good thing.

While many people are already panicking and it’s just May 1st, I’ve been thinking of some possibilities that might help out the team. Of course, not all of these are my ideas, so I won’t take credit for them. These are just possibilities that the team could think about doing over the course of this season. Some of these suggestions are not meant to be taken seriousily, by the way.