|
| |
|
|
 Clock ticking for 'Team of the '90s'
Posted: Sunday October 11, 1998 05:52 PM
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Time is running out on baseball's "Team of the '90s." With only one more summer left before calendars flip to a new century, the Atlanta Braves are stumbling against San Diego in the National League championship series and again looking more like October underachievers. Despite their Cy Young-studded pitching staff, their seven straight division championships and four NL pennants during the decade, the Braves' lone World Series ring is vintage 1995. It carries the inscription declaring them the team of the '90s. This year could wind up as the worst of their many disappointing postseason flops. After winning a major league-high 101 games in 1997 only to be bounced out of the playoffs by the wild-card Florida Marlins, Atlanta came back to win a club record 106 games this year, second only to the New York Yankees' AL record 114. Four-time Cy Young winner Greg Maddux said 1998 could be remembered as the Braves' finest season, but only if they win the World Series. That appears a real longshot, considering the deep hole they've tumbled into against the NL West champion Padres, aiming for only their second World Series appearance in their 30-year history. Atlanta catcher Eddie Perez was left shaking his head in disbelief as the Braves were in danger of being swept in the playoffs for the first time in 16 years after losing a 4-1 decision Saturday. "Last year we got beaten by the Marlins, but they had beaten us in the regular season, too," Perez said. The Braves went 5-4 against the Padres this year. "We have a better team than them, but now we've lost three in a row," Perez said. "It's hard to believe." Peaking at the right time perhaps is the most important ingredient in playoff action in every sport, and the Braves instead have been slumping at the wrong time.
Helping keep their bats silent, of course, is the fact that they've run into a buzzsaw of a San Diego pitching staff, one that definitely is peaking a the right time. After ranking third in the NL by averaging over five runs a game during the regular season and hitting a league-high 215 home runs, Atlanta managed a meager total of three runs -- and one homer -- in losing the first three games of the league championship series. In Saturday's game, the Braves left the bases loaded three times. Symptomatic of their struggles, cleanup hitter Andres Galarraga, who hit .305 with 44 homers in the regular season, had just one hit in 11 at-bats. Galarraga said he has no clue why he and his teammates aren't hitting, except to say he believed the Braves have hit in bad luck -- hard-hit balls right at people, and potential extra-base hits barely going foul. The Houston Astros were also left wondering about their lack of hitting after San Diego shut them down in the Padres' four-game victory in the divisional series. The Padres had a 1.42 ERA through seven games against the Astros and Braves, and large chunk of the runs they allowed came in their only loss so far, a 5-4 setback at Houston. "They've shut it down completely," Atlanta manager Bobby Cox said of the San Diego pitchers. "We've had good matchups going into situations and can't smell a base hit." Atlanta shortstop Walt Weiss theorized that, even though the Braves thrived on homers during the regular season, that doesn't translate into success in the playoffs. "You don't get many homers against that kind of pitching," Weiss said.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
