The 1995 Atlanta Braves: National League Division Series

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The 1995 season marked the beginning of three divisions in both the National and American Leagues.  The division winners and a Wild Card team, the team with the best record outside of the division victors, comprised the playoff pool.  For the first time in the history of baseball, a team had to win two playoff series to reach the World Series, and the first series was only a best-of-five format. The Colorado Rockies presented the first test for Atlanta.  The Braves entered the playoffs with the best record in the National League but fearful of the Rockies in a short series.  Also, the Braves had to play the first two games in Coors Field in Denver where no lead was safe.  None of the Braves management or coaches believed a short series a true test.  Braves Pitching Coach Leo Mazzone believed a short series detracted from everything a team accomplished over the course of a regular season and negated a team’s depth, which proved a large factor in the Braves’ securing the division title.  He further argued that anything could happen in a short series and the lesser team could win.  Mazzone also knew that the Rockies had hit 134 of their league-leading 200 home runs at Coors Field.  However, the Braves traveled to Denver for the first two games knowing they had Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and an unlimited supply of antacid tablets.

The Braves had beaten the Rockies 30 out of 36 times in Colorado’s short history.  However, the mood in the clubhouse was one of high anxiety.  John Smoltz stated that everyone on the team feared the Rockies in a short series and that Colorado reminded him of the 1991 Braves.  Mazzone‘s goal for the pitching staff was to hold the Rockies to under four runs because the thin Denver air ballooned a pitcher’s Earned Run Average.  With all of this in mind, Maddux toed the rubber for Game 1.  Marquis Grissom’s solo home run gave the Braves a short lived 1-0 lead.  Maddux surrendered three runs in the fourth inning and the team’s concerns began to appear very valid.  With Braves coaches popping antacid pills before, during and after innings, the Braves players began a comeback.  In the top of the sixth, Chipper Jones led off with a long home run over the right field wall to cut the deficit to one.  After a walk to David Justice and a single from Ryan Klesko, recently-acquired Luis Polonia beat out a potential double play that allowed Justice to score from third to tie the game at 3-3.

The game remained tied until the eighth inning.  With two outs, Klesko and Javy Lopez hit back-to-back singles. Cox then pinch hit left-handed hitter Dwight Smith for right-handed hitter Jeff Blauser in order to counteract Colorado pitcher Darren Holmes, a righty.  The move worked as Smith singled up the middle driving in Klesko with the go ahead run.  However, in the bottom of the inning Braves reliever Alejandro Pena gave up a Run Batted In double to Ellis Burks that tied the game at 4-4.

With two outs in the ninth, Jones drilled another home run to give the Braves a 5-4 lead.  The drama was just beginning, however.  Mark Wohlers entered the game to close out the victory.  With one out, Wohlers allowed two singles and a walk to load the bases.  He secured the second out with a strike out of Andres Galarraga and up to the plate came Lance Painter, a pitcher.  Colorado manager Don Baylor gambled and used all of his position players during the game.  Painter was his next best option, but Wohlers struck him out to enable the Braves to escape with a 5-4 win.

Game 2 provided more unsettled stomachs for the Braves.  Marquis Grissom led off the contest with a drive over the fence in right center field to stake the Braves to a 1-0 lead. Lopez drove in Mark Lemke with a sacrifice fly in the third inning, Grissom hit another solo home run in the fourth and the Braves led 3-0.  Just as the Braves began to feel good about their situation, Larry Walker prompted the opening of a new box of antacids with a three-run blast off of Braves’ starter Tom Glavine to knot the score at 3-3 in the sixth inning.  The scored remained tied until the bottom of the eighth.  With Pena on the mound again the Rockies took a 4-3 lead on a Galarraga double.  Heavy breathing ensued from the Braves’ dugout.  With the Braves trailing by one in their last at bat, they showed why they had the best record in the National League.  Jones led off with a double.  Fred McGriff singled him home to tie the game.  Justice then flied out and Lopez struck out.   Mike Devereaux then singled and Cox called on Mike Mordecai to pinch hit for Pena.  Mordecai promptly singled to give the Braves the lead.  Two more runs came home when Colorado second basemen Eric Young committed a two-base throwing error on a ground ball from Rafael Belliard.  Wohlers kept the Rockies off of the scoreboard in the ninth for the victory and a 2-0 series lead for the Braves.  No one from the Atlanta dugout needed medical treatment, but a new order for antacid pills was made as the series shifted to Atlanta.

The pills arrived before the start of Game 3.  John Smoltz then proceeded to allow five runs, but the Braves battled back to the tie the game in the bottom of the ninth when Klesko scored on a Polonia single.  However, Wohlers proceeded to give up two runs in the top of the 10th inning and the Braves could not counter in the bottom half.  The series now stood at two games to one, while nearby Grady Hospital began to prepare rooms for Braves coaches, just in case.

When Game 4 starter Greg Maddux gave up three runs in the third inning, ambulance sirens could be heard in the distance, but before they arrived the Braves countered in their half of the third.  Jones doubled home Grissom and Lemke to cut the deficit to one then the Crime Dog, McGriff, homered to give the Braves the lead and close the door on any Colorado upset plans.  Atlanta added two runs in the fourth, one in the fifth and three more in the sixth to clinch the Division series with a 10-4 victory.  The ambulances returned to Grady with no occupants.

The Braves had survived.  Smoltz believed the Braves were lucky to win the series and noted the Rockies could have swept the Braves in three games.  With blood pressures slowly inching down to normal, the Braves turned their focus to the National League Championship Series against the Central Division champion Cincinnati Reds.  At least this series would be a best-of-seven format, and the Braves’ depth should provide the difference, or so Cox, Mazzone and the other coaches believed.  To be safe, more antacid pills were ordered.

1995 Atlanta Braves: The Second Half of the Regular Season

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After Fred McGriff and Greg Maddux returned from the All-Star game in Arlington, Texas, the second half of the magical 1995 season took off.  The Braves were hotter than an Atlanta summer during the last few months of the season, winning almost two-thirds of their final 84 games. They posted a 20-8 record in July, 19-9 record in August, and cruised into the post season with a 16-12 record in September and October.   Trades in August for Mike Devereaux and Luis Polonia strengthened the bench for the stretch run and the playoffs.

The Braves clinched the division title on September 13 with a 9-7 victory over the Colorado Rockies in Denver.  Atlanta jumped out to a three-run lead in the second inning and never looked back.  The Rockies scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth off of Mark Wohlers to give the Braves a scare and make the game seem closer than it really was.  Jeff Blauser and Fred McGriff were two of the hitting stars.  Blauser launched his 12th home run of the season into the left field seats in the fourth inning.  McGriff had three hits, including his 26th home run of the season, and collected three RBIs.

During the Braves’ torrid second half, the team as a whole played well.  However, David Justice and Chipper Jones, in particular, hit the cover off of the baseball.  Justice hit most of his 24 home runs for the season after the All-Star break, including two in a game in August against Houston.  Rookie Chipper Jones played beyond his years in the second half.  He batted .282, hit 10 home runs and drove in 39 runs.  Jones certainly benefitted hitting third in the batting order before Fred McGriff and Justice.  Jones saw more fastballs from pitchers eager to keep him off the base paths before facing the veteran sluggers.

Javier Lopez, McGriff and Marquis Grissom also played key roles for the Braves.  Lopez, in only his second season in Atlanta, handled most of the catching duties and swung a consistent bat.  He hit .315, becoming the first Braves catcher to hit over .300 since Joe Torre in 1966. Six of his 14 home runs came from the seventh inning on.  Lopez also batted .359 with runners in scoring position.  McGriff led the Braves with 27 home runs, eight of those from the seventh inning on, and 93 RBIs.  Grissom played center field and did not make an error the last 91 games of the season.  He led Atlanta with 29 stolen bases; had a 14-game hitting streak, the longest streak by a Brave in 1995; and twice led off games with a home run.

While Justice, Jones, Lopez, McGriff and Grissom provided the run support, the Brave pitching staff shut down the opposition.  Tom Glavine and Maddux provided a potent one-two, righty- lefty combination, while Mark Wohlers thrived in the closer role.  Maddux posted a 19-2 record with an ERA of 1.63.  He became the first major league pitcher since Walter Johnson in 1918-1919 to have an ERA of less than 1.70 in two consecutive seasons.  Glavine won 16 games and notched his 1,000th strike out in an August game against Houston.  From June to the end of the season, Wohlers converted 19 straight save opportunities and tallied 25 total saves.  He pitched a team-high 22.1 consecutive scoreless innings; struck out a career-best 90 batters; walked just 24; and held opponents to a .211 batting average, right-handed batters hit only .191.

With a potent offense and over-powering pitching, Atlanta finished the regular season 90-54.  Over 2.5 million fans entered the turnstiles of Atlanta-Fulton County stadium and the Braves finished 21 games ahead of the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East Division.  Millions more watched the Braves on television or listened on the radio as broadcasters Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton, and Joe Simpson detailed every one of the dozens of highlights the Braves generated during that magical season.  The fans, for the most part, had forgiven Braves players and management for the strike.  Those fans still harboring ill feelings would soon find their anger replaced with utter euphoria as the Braves would win 11 playoff games to bring home a championship.  Up next, the National League Division Series against the feisty Rockies.

1995 Braves: The First Half of the Regular Season

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After the strike’s official end on April 2, Braves’ players and coaches rushed down to West Palm Beach for three weeks of spring training before the start of the shortened 144-game regular season. The coaches focused on getting the players into shape and avoiding injuries.  Both the coaches and the players seemed relieved that the game they loved was back.

As the Braves began spring training in April, general manager John Schuerholz solidified the roster with the addition of Marquis Grissom and Jeff Blauser.  Grissom, an Atlanta native, came via trade with the Montreal Expos.  He brought the element of speed to the Braves that they had not had since Otis Nixon.  A natural leadoff hitter, Grissom either led the National League in stolen bases  or finished in the top three from 1991-1994 and won the Gold Glove in center field the previous two years before joining the Braves.  Schuerholz signed Blauser to a three-year deal.  Blauser had been the Braves’s starting shortstop before his contract ended after the 1994 season and was a key part of the team chemistry developed in the early 1990s.

Before the season began, Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox decided that young, home-grown Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, and Javier Lopez would be in the everyday lineup. Schuerholz also called up relief pitcher Brad Clontz from the minors.

While the Braves players and management prepared for the upcoming season, Braves fans struggled with their emotions.  The strike prompted feelings of anger, resentment and betrayal from fans across the country.  Attendance at Braves spring training games dropped about eighty percent from pre-strike figures.  During spring training and early in the regular season, fans demonstrated their displeasure by boycotting games or coming to games with home-made signs and other forms of expression. While all Braves’ players and coaches wanted to re-establish fan rapport, Tom Glavine especially felt the need to mend fences.  He knew that fans resented him more than others because of his role as the union representative for the Braves.  Atlantans have generally looked unfavorably on unions of all types.  With that in mind, Glavine signed copious autographs and went out of his way to re-engage with Braves fans.

The Braves opened the 1995 season on April 26 versus the San Francisco Giants.  Just over 24,000 fans, less than half of Atlanta-Fulton County stadium’s capacity, saw the Braves defeat the Giants, 12-5.  Greg Maddux pitched five innings giving up one earned run on one hit while striking out five.  He also had two hits and scored a run.   Brad Woodall allowed the rest of the San Francisco tallies.  Fred McGriff paced the 17-hit attack with four hits, including two home runs and four RBIs. David Justice contributed three hits, including a home run and two RBIs.    Chipper Jones had two hits, two RBIs, and scored three times while Jeff Blauser provided two hits and scored two runs.

The opening game win belied the Braves’ play from late April to early July.  The team struggled at times with different phases of the game—pitching, hitting, and fielding.  By the end of the first week of May, the Braves trailed the Philadelphia Phillies for the division lead.  At the end of a five-game losing streak in early June, the Braves were four and a half games out of first.  Bobby Cox knew that if the Braves did not play better baseball soon the division title would belong to the Phillies.  The players also felt the time had come to step up their collective game.  After a team meeting and an abandoned flight to Montreal because of a fire in the cabin, the Braves went on a seven-game winning streak.  By July 4, the Braves had regained first place from the Phillies.

Independence Day provided just enough fireworks for Atlanta.  The Braves took over the top spot in the division with a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Dodgers scored two runs in the second inning off of Kent Mercker but a David Justice solo home run in the bottom of the inning cut the deficit to one.  The game stayed that way until the bottom of the eighth when an opposite field blast from Ryan Klesko tied the game and a Jeff Blauser single drove in Dwight Smith with the go-ahead run.  Mark Wohlers, recently installed as the closer, pitched a perfect ninth inning to garner his seventh save of the season.

 

By the July 11th All-Star game, the Braves had opened a 4.5 game lead over Philadelphia.  The fun had only begun!

 

 

For the Braves: 1988 and 2016, Brothers From a Different Mother?

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The 2016 Atlanta Braves are off to a 0-8 start as of April 14 and the projection for the rest of the season does not look promising.  Offensively, the Braves have averaged 2.75 runs per game, second worst in the National League behind the Mets’ 2.50; their team batting average is a paltry .199, again second worst behind the Mets’ .194; and team has managed to send three balls out of the ball park, which ties them for second worst with Pittsburgh and ahead of the Mets’ by one.  I know what you are thinking at this point, “Well, Pittsburgh and the Mets were playoff teams last year and the Mets went to the World Series.”  True.  However, I believe Pittsburgh and the Mets will improve their offensive numbers.  As for the Braves…here are some more statistics.  The team Earned Run Average is 5.79, second worst behind Colorado’s 7.61.  The Braves have zero saves, tied with Cincinnati for last.  However, Cincinnati is 5-3.  So, I believe we can say that the 2016 Braves can’t hit, score runs or pitch.  Of course, these statistics could improve as the season progresses, but don’t hold your breath.  Rarely does a team lose less than 54 games, but these Braves just may accomplish that ignominious feat.  Also, the bells may be tolling for manager Fredi Gonzalez.

The 2016 version of the Braves compares very nicely with the 1988 team.  That squad started the season 0-10 and finished in last place in the National League West 39.5 games behind first place Los Angeles and 27 games behind next to last Houston. These Braves could not hit, score runs or pitch either.  The 1988 team finished last in the National League in ERA and Saves.  It finished last in runs per games, next to last in batting average, and tied for third to last in home runs hit.  Oh, and these Braves finished with a 54-106 record.  About 40 games into the season, general manager Bobby Cox fired manager Chuck Tanner and replaced him with Russ Nixon, whom Cox replaced as manager in June 1990.

These two Braves teams may have some very positive similarities, though.  The 1988 team witnessed two future Hall of Famers take the mound:  Tom Glavine and John Smoltz.  Glavine compiled a 7-17 record in his first full season with the Braves, while Smoltz debuted in July.  Young infielders Jeff Blauser and Mark Lemke made the team but did not play much.  These four young Braves would form the nucleus of the 1990s dynasty teams along with 1988 first round pick Steve Avery.

For the 2016 Braves, young pitcher Matt Wisler will be throwing in his first full season, while young prospects Tyrell Jenkins and Mike Foltynewicz are ready at any time to be called up from the minor leagues. Middle infielders Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies, while probably a season away, could make it to the big leagues before season’s end.  These young players may form the core of what Braves officials hope will be a second dynasty.

The 1988 and 2016 Atlanta Braves have many similarities.  Certainly, the 1988 squad had young players that would form the foundation of the 1990s World Series teams, but it took three more years before playoffs and World Series would be the norm.  Assuming that the 2016 team sees more of the organization’s young talent grabbing spots on the major league roster, maybe we can point to 2019 as the beginning of the second Braves dynasty.  Therein lies the hope for Atlanta Braves fans. As for the 2016 team:   0-8 and counting!  Oh, brother!