It's almost absurd to be asking this question about a team that has
been in the playoffs eight times in a row. It's truly ridiculous to be asking
this question about a team that has played in five of the last eight World
Series. But here goes, anyway:
|  | | Javy Lopez is hitting .272 with 14 RBI in his return from knee surgery. |
As the Atlanta Braves rumble ever onward, heading for a record of about
150-12, could this be the best Braves team yet?
"I can only answer that question one way," says GM John Schuerholz. "Of
all the teams we've put together -- one of which was a world-championship
team, five of which were National League championship teams -- none of them
ever won 15 games in a row."
And that fact is 100 percent true. This time, somehow, the
Atlanta Braves have even topped themselves. In all those years of winning all
those titles, the most games in a row they ever won was 13, back in
1992.
But if you're taking that answer as a yes, you don't know the mindset of
a Braves team that experienced it all in '90s -- from ecstasy to heartbreak.
They have lived through enough October agony to understand that 15 wins in a
row now doesn't guarantee they'll even win one game against some wild-card
team in the fall.
"To me," Schuerholz says, "the measurement of how good a team is, is made
retrospectively. It's not done in the first week of May. It's done in the
first week of November. So in November, I can answer that. Right now, I
can't."
No, he can't. And he shouldn't. But we can answer it for him.
Yes.
They've never been deeper. They've never been better-rounded offensively.
They've never been less dependent on their rotation to pitch them through
their troubles.
So yes.
|
TOTAL DOMINANCE
|
|
The Braves by the numbers over the last 10 years:
|
|
Year
|
W-L
|
Runs
|
ERA
|
|
1991
|
94-68
|
749
|
3.49
|
|
1992
|
98-64*
|
682
|
3.14#
|
|
1993
|
104-58*
|
767
|
3.14#
|
|
1994^
|
68-46
|
542
|
3.57
|
|
1995
|
90-54*
|
645
|
3.44#
|
|
1996
|
96-66*
|
773
|
3.52
|
|
1997
|
101-61*
|
791
|
3.18#
|
|
1998
|
106-56*
|
826
|
3.25#
|
|
1999
|
103-59*
|
840
|
3.65#
|
|
2000
|
20-6*
|
127
|
3.00#
|
|
* best record in NL
# best ERA in NL
^ strike shortened season
|
They lost John Smoltz for the year before playing one inning. They
had that John Rocker land mine awaiting them two weeks into the season. And
they're treating the rest of the National League as if it's the Alpharetta,
Ga., Babe Ruth League.
So yes.
They ripped off more wins just in one winning streak than 23 teams had
all season at the time. They ripped off a streak that has been topped by
exactly two teams in the last 49 years ('77 Royals, '53 Yankees). They ripped off a streak that has been bettered by only eight National League teams in the last 100 years.
So yes.
The Yankees and Indians, the Cardinals and Diamondbacks can all argue the
point. They have five months, in fact, and 130 games to argue the point.
But for now, try to find a team with fewer holes than the Braves. You might
need the Hubble Telescope.
The irony, though, is that the reason these Braves are constructed this
way is that they were worried they wouldn't look this way at all.
As they laid out their blueprint last winter, Schuerholz says, "We had
fair and honest skepticism about the health and well-being of Andres
Galarraga." And they had similar concerns about the health of Javy Lopez, who
was coming off a tricky ACL surgery from which no catcher had ever recovered.
"So we put together our team offensively, planning to have those guys
absent to one degree or another," Schuerholz says.
That led to the stunning deal with San Diego that brought in Quilvio
Veras, Reggie Sanders and Galarraga's insurance policy, Wally Joyner. And it
led to the eye-opening signing of Mets castoff Bobby Bonilla.
Who knew?
How could they ever have imagined that Galarraga would be challenging for
the league lead in homers and turning himself into not just the comeback
player of the year but, in Schuerholz's words, "the comeback human of the
year?"
How could they ever have imagined, Schuerholz says, that Lopez would
"pick up right where he left off?"
And how could they ever have imagined that 19-year-old Rafael Furcal
would be a multi-purpose jolt of adrenaline who "runs and fields and hits and
throws and adds an element (of raw speed) we haven't had
here?"
None of that was part of the master plan. But constantly tweaking their
championship mix, which this time led to the lopping of 10 members of last
year's postseason roster, is always part of the Braves' master plan. And it
has served them well.
That plan also led them to retool the top of their order by bringing in
Veras and Sanders. The Braves ranked 15th in the league last year in on-base
percentage from the top two spots in the order. This year, even though
Sanders (1 for his last 36 through Tuesday) eventually played himself out of
the two-hole, the aggregate on-base percentage from those top two spots was
.401.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty over the futures of Galarraga and Lopez
inspired a conscious attempt to add speed to an offense that had grown
increasingly dependent on the home run. So enter Veras, Sanders and Furcal.
And voila, the Braves were leading the league in steals until the Padres
passed them Tuesday night.
Oh. And by the way, they can still pitch a little.
The rotation was 15-2 through Tuesday (11-0 during the winning streak).
The staff had eight pitchers with ERAs under 3.00. The batting average of the
poor hitters that had to face these guys was .235. And that dropped to .223
with men in scoring position -- and .171 in the late innings of tight games.
So just imagine if they still had Smoltz. They might have won 25 in
a row.
"In all honesty," Schuerholz says, "as good as John Smoltz is, I don't
know how much better he could have pitched than Terry Mulholland has in three
of his last four starts. I would say that to have our rotation be 15-2, that
number is surprising. But what is not surprising is how Tom Glavine and Greg
Maddux have responded to what they characterized -- for them -- as a
disappointing year."
Yeah, remember those tales of Maddux and Glavine being on the slide?
Never mind.
Glavine is 5-0, 1.80, and the league is hitting .173 against him. Maddux
is 4-0, 2.49, and he has a 2.57 ERA in the two starts he didn't win.
And finally, there is Rocker. He was supposed to be a distraction
bigger than Mount Kilimanjaro. Not for this team.
Granted, Rocker has been slightly more high-profile than Trenidad
Hubbard. But these are the Braves. So naturally, they've been so distracted
by Rocker that they promptly went 14-0 after he showed up.
"I wish we didn't have these distractions that no doubt will be with us
the rest of the year," Schuerholz says. "But this is one of the best
environments that exist in our sport in which this could all take place. I
know there are a couple of other teams where this could work. But this is
certainly one of the few clubs where it could."
This is the Braves in the year 2000 -- a deep, versatile, professional
machine that mows down everything in its past. Logic says their window of
opportunity should be closing. The standings say they're only getting better.
They think they're the Lakers. Except this is baseball. So now comes the hard
part.
"One of the greatest tests of baseball is the test of time," Schuerholz
says. "It's not well you hold up over a month. It's how well you hold up over
six months."
So is this their best team ever? We shouldn't be answering that question
now. But what the heck.
Yes.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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