Baseball Makes Me Sad

For the most part baseball season's over. Sure I've got to make it through the horrible Dane Cook commercials all the way through October. But its over. The Braves have fallen apart this year. The roster was constructed to have to have little to no injury loss for a good season. So off course we virtually lost Glavine for the year early. Have officially lost Smoltz for the year. Matt Diaz is lost for the year and was playing poorly before he got hurt. They lost bull pen ace, and awesome Aussie, Pete Moylan for the year a week in. Throw in nagging injuries like Yunel Escobar's shoulder, Brian McCann's concussion, Jeff Bennett's shoulder, Rafeal Soriano's elbow, and Mike Hampton's entire body. Then certain players like Jeff Francouer are having astronomically bad years leaving the Braves with the worst outfield in the league. Its just too much to over come. So despite playing well early the Braves are fourth in the division and on pace to finish with the seventh pick in next summer's draft.

The only thing to watch was to see if Chipper could capture the batting title because he was having an amazing season and to watch Tim Hudson pitch since he was also having a great year. Well Chipper's on the DL now and Hudson's elbow is messed up and he's likely done for the year.
The Braves big acquisition, Casey Kotchman, has managed to go 0-9 in his first two games as a Brave so that's a little uninspiring.

So instead we get a Nationalesque EVERYDAY lineup of:
Gregor Blanco (batting .267 with a home run.)
Yunel Escobar (.283 with 6 home runs)
Casey Kotchman (.280 and 12 HRs)
Mark Kotsay or Greg Norton (.290 with 4 HRs and .253 with 3 HRs respectively)
Omar Infante (.306 and 3 HRs)
Kelly Johnson (.270 with 9 HRs)
Jeff Francouer (.235 with 9 HRs)
and worst player in the majors Corky Miller (.093, yes .093 with 1 HR and 3 RBIs)

The Braves couldn't even manage to sell a lefty reliever having a good season, Will Ohman, at the trading deadline right and have now held on to him with the hope that he either continues to have a good season on a terrible team or doesn't get hurt to get the compensation pick that will likely only be a sandwich rounder since he's not a closer. They had ten interested teams and still failed to make a worthwhile trade.

Wow. Bring on some football. August 30th can not get here fast enough.