But what about Mets fans? If anything, they’re even MORE deserving a collective toast from Braves faithful and baseball fans everywhere. Their longsuffering loyalty and a devotion that defies all logic is something about which we should all stand in awe. I can think of no fan more deserving of the following homage. Enjoy!

Matthew Falkenbury: What has been the opinion of the Braves fans out there about the Ryan Church for Jeff Francoeur deal?

Colin Ake: Francoeur came up to unbelievable hype two years ago and has not been able to meet the (admittedly unrealistic) expecations put on him by a Sports Illustrated cover calling him “The Natural.” He’s since had two subpar seasons and hasn’t been able to get back on track. The Braves coaches have been frustrated by him seemingly not being willing to learn and decided it was time to trade for someone more productive. Church will hit for more average than Francoeur but has less long-term upside, which is not an issue with the crop of outfielders (including Jason Heyward) that the Braves have coming up. It’s about a fair trade – we get for the short term someone who can hit for higher average and platoon with Matt Diaz, and the Mets get someone with larger long-term upside, IF Francoeur can turn it around. I think we all hope he turns it around – he’s a nice guy – we’d just rather not see the Mets benefit from it.

MF: Who was the Braves best player in the 1st half and who needs to step it up in the 2nd half?

CA: Best player in the first half? Brian McCann offensively, and probably Jair Jurrjens or Javier Vazquez on the mound. I’d say that the bullpen needs to be more consistent in the second half of the season, and the offense HAS to step it up. Yunel Escobar has to stop making mental errors – he’s talented but gets cocky sometimes. The collective offense just has to step it up – that’s the final answer here.

Head on over to The Daily Stache to read the rest of the article.

After starting his career in Atlanta in 2005, many expected Francoeur to be in Atlanta for quite some time, but in the past two seasons, he has failed to live up to expectations of the fans and the club.  Since the start of the 2008 seasons, he has compiled a .243 average while only slugging .357.

Ryan Church has hit .280 with two home runs so far this season while Francoeur has hit. 250 with five home runs.  Church never has really hit for power, but in 2007, finished up with 15 home runs.  He can consistently hit for average, but we’ll just have to wait and see how this trade works out in the long run.  There’s always the chance that Frank Wren will move Church back out of Atlanta in the not so distant future.

I think fans will be pretty divided on this one.  There will be the group that is happy to see Francoeur go and will say good riddance.  Then there is the group that will cry about it and call for Frank Wren to be fired.  Good decision or not, it will take some time to tell.  Where do you stand on the issue?

While the Braves’ offense faced Johan Santana, Lowe went to the mound in the brand new Citi Field to ensure the Mets continued the trend of offering Santana little or no run support. Santana, for his part, was very good – he held the Braves to seven hits and two unearned runs in 6 1/3 innings. But the Braves’ offense backed Lowe’s great start with enough productivity to take advantage of the Mets’ errors. What was a tie game turned into an 8-3 win for the Braves – and Lowe improved to 5-1 on the year.

Santana has had some bad luck against the Braves. Despite being arguably the best pitcher in baseball, he’s 0-4 against the Braves in six starts (Braves have won 5 out of 6). The Mets are paying Santana a LOT of money and though he’s been effective, he’s not walking off with the win against the Bravos. After yesterday’s outing, Santana’s ERA is a ridiculous 0.78, by the way. Interesting tidbit: The Braves are the only team in baseball Santana has faced without winning.

This is why Derek Lowe is the ace of the staff – he’s a big game pitcher. “I love facing guys like that – especially Santana,” Lowe said, “He’s going to beat you more than you beat him. But it’s fun to pitch in those games, when every pitch could be the game.”

Interestingly enough, Lowe offered some high praise after the game for Jair Jurrjens. “We have our best pitcher going tomorrow,” Lowe said – referring to the young Curacao native. I’ll also point out that New York’s beloved “Larrrry” was sitting out of last night’s game.

Star of the road trip: The Braves are 5-1 on this 8 game road trip so far, and you have to pin a lot of it on Casey Kotchman, who has 10 RBI in the past 5 games. Kotchman is hitting the ball well and showing us why the Braves thought he’d be a good fit at first base.

If you think the Braves are done this offseason, it looks like they’re finally ready to play ball with the biggest pitcher left on the market and have a pretty decent rotation by the time September rolls around. Imagine Lowe, Jurrjens, Kawakami, Vazquez, and Hudson. We’d have Morton and Hanson, in the wings. I’d think that maybe Campillo goes back to the ‘pen this year as our long reliever. The Braves still need to add a bat to replace the hole left by Mark Teixeira. I pray to heaven it doesn’t involve Andruw Jones, as some suggest. If we can muster enough offense to make it to the postseason, we’ll have a mean rotation IF we land Lowe.

The Braves also signed Omar Infante to a two-year deal, with a team option for a third year. Omar was pretty good for us as a utility player last year. He hit .293 with 24 doubles and 40 RBIs.

Remaining shopping list:

• Big bat
• Sign Will Ohman
• Extend Chipper’s Contract

C’mon Braves, sign Lowe so we can be somewhat optimistic about the upcoming season. Mets fans, you can go sit on a tack.

Anyway, let’s move on to talking about a much worse, more dysfunctional team: The New York Mets. What can I say about them, has there been a worse underachiever in the majors this year? In the top three in team payroll and still cannot even seem competitive. The reality of it is they’re lingering around and have the pieces in place to make a run if they can put it together mentally. New York is only 3.5 games behind the Phillies, one game under .500 and they get to play them this weekend. It’ll be good timing for them as long as the Phils have not severely beaten up the Braves by then.

According to Coolstandings, the Mets have an 11.3 % chance of making the playoffs as the division winner (believe it or not, their chance is less than the Braves’ 13.0 % chance at the 4 spot). They have even less of a chance of winning the wildcard with both Milwaukee and St. Louis sitting at better records than the best team in our division.

The problems with the Mets run pretty deep. Two seasons ago (2006), the Mets built up a HUGE lead by the All-Star break and coasted to the division title, the lead was so big that they were able to withstand a pretty good rally by the Phillies towards the end of that season, who at 85-77 were still 12 games out.

But last year something awesome happened, not necessarily a good awesome, but awesome. The Mets became the first team to blow a lead as much as 7.5 games in September. Yes, they blew a 7.5 game lead in just ONE MONTH! That’s not even 30 games but around 25 or 26 depending on the team.

The Mets really have little to no excuse. They have had less players and less important players injured than any of the other teams in the East. And by important players I mean players that have had a huge impact on the team when they have been in the lineup or on the field. And I’ve narrowed that list down to Ryan Church, Angel Pagan and Pedro Martinez in his first and third start. In fact their projected starter behind the plate didn’t even make it back to the starter’s role after he came off the DL, Ramon Castro is now backing up Brian Schneider.

The Mets’ mediocrity goes beyond injuries though, they’re just flat out not hitting well. They’re sixth in the league in runs (386), ninth in hits (736), 11 in home runs (75), 10 in average (.257) and 11 in OPS (.726). With the exception of runs scored, all of the other values are well  below the league averages.

Individually, they are not doing much better. Carlos Beltran has a similar average to his career, but his slugging percentage at .471 is 123 points below his 2006 percentage and about 54 points below his slugging average last year. In fact, his numbers this year are closer to his down year in 2005 than his good years of 2006 and 2007. His ESPN projected end of the year averages show 23 home runs and 107 RBIs. Those are pretty good numbers, but I’m sure Mets fans would love to see more home runs out of their star player than they are seeing now.

Other players that are struggling include David Wright, their other star. Wright is hitting 20 points below his career average at .288 and is slugging 20 points below that average as well at .508. Wright’s struggles are coming with runners in scoring position. With runners in scoring position (RISP), Wright is hitting .273 and .267 with RISP and 2 outs. Pretty low for a guy that’s supposed to be clutch. Jose Reyes is their only player doing better than his career averages. He is hitting .291 and slugging .471, both higher than his career averages. Reyes, though, just does not have the same stolen base numbers that he did in the past and is outwardly having trouble getting along with new manager Jerry Manuel.

Where would they be if Carlos Delgado would hit anything though? Delgado is hitting .236, about 50 points lower than his career and .432 slugging, about 100 points lower than his average. Delgado has similar halfway stats to his career stats, but was really struggling at the beginning of the season in pressure situations. He drew several boos and has only recently started to come out of his slump at the plate.

The Mets are equally average in the pitching department. They are eighth in ERA (4.17), 12 in walks (309) and 5 in batting average against (.255). Of course, much of their success is because of new acquisition Johan Santana. Of qualifying pitchers, only Santana (6) and John Maine (T-19) are in the top 20 and no more in the top 40, though Oliver Perez is 41 with a 4.98 ERA. Compare that to the Phillies who have four starters in the top 40.

Santana is 7-7 with a 3.01 ERA and 103 strikeouts. Santana came over from the Twins in the off-season and signed a 6 year $150 million contract. Of course, for a pitcher, that’s pretty ridiculous money. The Mets haven’t exactly won all of his starts, in fact they are 4-6 in his last 10 and are 9-8 in his starts this year overall, not worth the $16 million he’s making this year.

So what do the Mets have to do to get better? Simple, find a source of motivation, increase their club chemistry and band together to try and save the job of their general manager and (maybe) manager if they decide to keep him. They have too many players who speak out negatively. Billy Wagner really takes it upon himself to call out other players in a passive aggressive way and there just isn’t the same clubhouse chemistry there was two seasons ago when they won 97 games.

As of right now, the Mets are 41-42 in 83 games and are probably going to end up with a similar record at the end of the season as they do now. Without a change in attitude and chemistry, the Mets will not do much better than they are doing now.

Prediction: 80-82, 4 NL East

-Akshay

Up in Queens, the Queens have fired longtime sucky manager Willie Randolph.  I don’t mean that in he was their manager for long, but that he has sucked for most of his time as Mets manager.

Jerry Manuel will replace him as interim head coach.  The Mets also cleaned out some of their other manager positions.  For more info, check out our buddy Andrew’s site over at TheRopolitans.

The Braves are finally up to 10 road wins, taking three out of the last four on the road.  Do you think they’ve turned a corner?  With the starting pitching looking great its last time around, will they continue their improvement?

And as Mike Hampton heads down to the Gulf Coast League for a couple rehab starts, will he ever pitch in Atlanta this season?

Florida Marlins: Can they hold it together? Nobody expected to see these guys in first this far into the season.  I think even the Marlins are surprised.  That hasn’t kept them from acting like they belong in first.  Anchored offensively by Uggla, Hermida, and Ramirez, the Marlins have come out to score this year – currently ranked 10th in the league with runs scored.  The rotation has been solid as well – only six different pitchers have started games this year.  The Marlins recently picked up Jacque Jones to shore up their outfield after he was released by the Tigers.  But if the Tigers can afford to release him, will he help?  The biggest question remains: can the Marlins keep it up?

Atlanta Braves: Sure, the Braves can win at home, but they have to be able to win on the road or nothing will come of it. The Braves have a rock solid offense led by the mighty Chipper Jones, but they’ve had some injury issues on their pitching staff – Smoltz is moving to the bullpen, Rafael Soriano has spent significant time on the DL, but they’ll get those two plus Mike Gonzalez back from the DL here soon. The question – will they trade for another starter? Not if Jorge Campillo can keep up his Greg Maddux impression (and get rid of some pesky blisters).

Philadelphia Phillies:  The Phillies are shadowing the Braves as they both stalk the Marlins.  Their offense has been good but hasn’t been firing on all cylinders for more than a game or two at a time, and past Cole Hamels their other starters have ERAs at or above 4.37.  Brett Myers has dropped his last four starts, and Adam Eaton is still winless.  If the Phillies’ starters can get their acts together, this is a much more dangerous team – already they’re fourth in the NL with 26 quality starts – but they have potential for much more.  On the other hand, their bullpen has been great – lowing the team ERA to a 5th best 3.98.  The Phillies could come together to be a very dangerous team.

New York Mets: The Mets’ manager Willie Randolph is under fire for his team’s poor play. And the Mets have had poor play as of late. They’re now in fourth place struggling to beat decent teams. The team is oft-injured. Ryan Church likes concussions, Moises Alou caught Mike Hampton syndrome, and Marlon Anderson pulled up lame. And that’s just the last series in Atlanta. Pedro comes back soon, but will he really help? Johan Santana hasn’t been the savior he was billed as, either. This team has got to start playing ball if they want to hang it at the top of the division.

Washington Nationals:  The Nationals are just chilling out in the NL East basement, 7.5 games out of first with a .420 winning percentage.  Their offense is one of the worst in the NL, ranking third to last in runs scored, second to last in OBP and OPS, and last in batting average, slugging percentage, and stolen bases.  Their pitching staff is better, but not by much, ranked 12/16 in ERA and 13/16 in Batting Average Against.  This is likely something we see continued for most of the season.

What do you see happening?  Can the Marlins hold it together?  Will the Braves start winning on the road?  Can the Phillies fire on all cylinders?  Are the Mets and Willie Randolph doomed to oblivion?

4 Wins, 27 Innings Pitched, 18 Hits, 4 Earned Runs, 3 Walks, 16 Strikeouts, 3 Home Runs Allowed 

Compare that to the Mets and their starters’ combined lines:

4 Losses, 20 Innings Pitched, 33 Hits, 17 Earned Runs, 8 Walks, 6 Strikeouts, 1 Home Runs Allowed

For the record, our best start came from Jorge Campillo.  And wasn’t it great to watch Santana implode tonight?  We can deduce a few things here from these lines – firstly, the Braves played a lot of fundamental ball – only one homer off of Mets starters.  And we didn’t rely on our ‘pen much – an average of just over 2 innings per game.  This is the kind of baseball we need to be playing.  Strong starters are the best foundation for a solid game.

Next up are the Diamondbacks – we can beat them since we’re at home, I’m sure.  We need to learn how to translate this play on the road.  And the Marlins need to start losing.  They’re NOT that good.

The Mets, on the other hand, aren’t that good.  And everybody knows it.  Especially them.  By the way, Jair Jurrjens has the same record as Johan Santana.  Ouch.

Go Braves!  Let’s sweep the Diamondbacks too.

Dear Ryan Church,

When you’re trying to break up a double play, I have some advice for you: Don’t use your head.

I know you were wearing a helmet and all, but c’mon. Slide a little sooner. It’s not the first time you’ve run from first base to second base. It’s 90 feet. And you know that Yunel Escobar is going to be coming across the bag from the shortstop position towards first base. It’s not like this is new information. It’s the exact same on every single 1-6-3 or 4-6-3 double play you have tried to break up.

AP Photo

This isn’t your first concussion of the year, either. Do you just like going to the hospital? You should know by now you have a penchant for running into people – that should have probably played into your decision of when to slide. Multiple concussions are bad, Ryan, they’re not good for you at all. And it’s not good when your manager defines you as “pretty glazed” – that’s a description that should be saved for doughnuts.

So don’t use your head next time, Ryan. When you use your head you’re just asking for another trip to the hospital. Ryan Church, you deserved that.

Anyways, enough of that rant.  The division-rival Mets are in town today to start a 4-game series, including the makeup game for the April 4th rainout.  About a quarter of the way through the season, the Braves and Mets both find themselves within striking distance of the top of the NL East (the Mets are 1 game behind the Marlins while the Braves are 2).

Game 1 – 1pm
In the first game today, Tom Glavine (1-1, 4.41) will face his former team for the first time.  It’s been an up-and-down season for Glavine so far so we need him to come up big this afternoon against John Maine.

Game 2 – 7pm
Tonight’s game has Jorge Campillo making his first start for the Braves.  He has been solid in a bullpen role thus far this season and has gotten the call to take the hill to start.  Campillo has said he’ll probably only make it 75-80 pitches in tonight’s game, so I expect to see Jeff Bennett picking up after him.  Hopefully the bullpen still has some left after the day game.

It’s a long day of division-rivalry baseball.  The Braves and Mets always seem to bring their best stuff when they face off with each other.  Both teams should be looking to split the 4-game series and try to irk out a third win in there somewhere.  The Braves lead the series on the season 3-2.

The Braves are still lacking the offensive and defensive prowess of Yunel Escobar and Chipper Jones today, which was visibly a problem in yesterday’s game.  The lineup today as a result is a little strange, with Francouer moving up into the three-spot ahead of Teixeira.  We’ll see how this pans out compared to yesterday’s offense, which struggled to put runs together.

A win today would move the Braves to 4-1 against the Mets this season and back above .500 (and the Mets in the division standings).  Of all pitchers to have on the mound, Smoltz is the one you want to have to close out a rivalry series.  The Mets are bringing Nelson Figueroa(1-1, 4.05) to face Smoltz.  Figueroa has struggled at times this season, giving up 9 earned runs in 20 innings of work.

The Braves’ll be missing a few key players today however.  Yunel Escobar is out with his injured hand from a bunt-gone-bad in last night’s game.  He’ll be replaced by Brent Lillibridge who was called up from Richmond last night.  Chipper Jones has also been scratched with back spasms.  He will be replaced by Martin Prado.  These could be key offensive and defensive injuries for the Braves.  We’ll see the effect it has.

The Mets are struggling right now so hopefully we can keep on them.  It’s time for Saturday afternoon baseball!

The key for the Braves in this series is the offense.  With Jurrjens, Hudson and Smoltz on the mound, we should be able to rely on some solid starts from our pitching staff.  It will come down to the offense getting on the board early and the clutch hits when we have scoring opportunities.  With those, we have a great shot at taking a series win.

#1 – The Atlanta Braves
The Braves (3-3) have come out of the gate with their offense firing on most cylinders. The scary part of that is they’re still 2nd in the NL in average (.292), runs (40), slugging percentage (.470) and OPS (.822). They’ve already shown their ability to battle back and put games into extra innings, as well as outscore the Mets 14-6 in the last two games. Their pitching staff is not working as it should yet – the bullpen is recovering from early jitters and Mike Hampton is back on the DL (Surprise? Hardly). But solid starts from both John Smoltz and Jair Jurrjens have put the Braves in a good spot to be – at the top of the division early.

#2 – Florida Marlins
How are these guys able to be 3-3? They’ve taken it to the Pirates. I don’t think they’ll be in the #2 position long, so don’t get used to it. They’ll begin climbing the ranks downward.

#3 – New York Mets
These guys would be in the two position were it not for the Marlins’ strong start. Santana is looking good, Pedro is hurt and their offense wasn’t clicking during their last series against the Braves. The Mets’ bullpen hasn’t been stellar so far either. But they’re the Mets, and they’ll surely rebound strong. Can’t discount them.

#4 – Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies may be in the cellar right now as far as standings go, but they’re not completely dead yet. However, they’ve had issues with the starting pitching and relief corps. And their highly touted offense has had a slow start – scoring only 27 runs so far – that’s fourth in the NL East.

#5 – Washington Nationals
The Nationals have issues. They just lost a series – the entire series – to Cardinals. The Nationals did eek out a win against the Braves to start the season (lucky break on that Moylan pitch), but they’re going to need to start winning the easy games against the teams that are worse than them. Thus, they’re in the basement, at least for the first week of the power rankings.

Did I mis-rank the teams? Any of the 12 Marlins fans that are young enough to own computers want to whine about them not being at the top? Leave us a comment and we’ll hash it out.

Smoltz left the game after the fifth inning with some soreness in his shoulder (the same injury for which he just came off of the DL for) and turned it over to the bullpen as a precautionary step.  He’s not expected to miss his next start against the Nationals on Friday.  The bullpen for the Braves was stellar as well, giving up only 1 run on 3 hits through the last 4 innings of the  game.  Closer Rafael Soriano looked a little flustered in the 9th, allowing one run, walking two, and almost issuing a game tying double with 2 outs.  Mark Teixeira made a diving stab to keep the ball in front of him and potentially saved the game, at least from going into extra innings.

Teixeira also put the game a little farther out of the reach of the Mets in the bottom of the 8th inning with a two-run home run to right that just snuck over the glove of Ryan Church.  The official distance on the home run was registered at 345 feet.  This gave the Braves a 3-0 lead at the time; enough to keep the game out of reach of the Mets.

The offense for the Braves always seems to put runners on the board once there are two outs, leaving us with large amounts of runners left on base.  Hopefully the offense can start getting things going earlier in the innings.  If we learned anything from this series, it’s that the Mets/Braves matchup will not disappoint once again this season.  I look forward to keeping an eye on it throughout the season.

The Braves are now tied for the NL East lead with the Florida Marlins at 3-3.  The Mets are close behind in third with a record of 2-3.  We can’t officially call this one a sweep until the first game of the day-night doubleheader on May 20th (Friday’s rainout has been rescheduled for then), so for now, great “sweep” against the Mets.  The Braves are off to Colorado to face off against the Rockies to kick off a 10-game road trip starting Monday night.

The highly anticipated matchup between these two pitchers was almost not be as a result of the rain cancellation of the game on Friday night.  This caused Bobby Cox to push back his starters by a day, slating Glavine to be the original starter to today’s game.  Soon after that was announced however, Smoltz asked Glavine to switch spots in the rotation so that Smoltz could avoid the added strain on his shoulder that would come from pitching in the cold, thin Colorado air on Monday.  Glavine will instead make this start against the Rockies.

It looks to be a great day for baseball.  The foul weather has moved out of the area and we’re looking for temperatures in the low 70s by game time.  We’ll see you on the site or at the ballpark.  Go Braves!

The Braves got on the board early by scoring in the first inning and continued to do so throughout the game.  Kelly Johnson sealed the victory in the 7th while pinch hitting for Peter Moylan with the bases loaded.  Johnson drove one deep over the right field wall for a grand slam, putting the Braves up 9-3 at the time.  The Mets and Braves both scored 2 in the 8th to bring the final score to 11-5.  Hopefully the Braves saved some offense for today’s game that surely will be a pitcher’s duel.

The strange point in the game came in the Mets’ half of the 5th inning.  The bases were loaded with 1 out for Jose Reyes, who drove a sharp line drive to center.  Mark Kotsay made a diving stab at the ball, but apparently was a trap instead of a catch.  I had to confirm with JB from BravesBlog.net as he was enjoying the game in the dry warmth of his home instead of sitting out in the cold rain with the rest of us.  Kotsay relayed the ball back to the infield into what was originally scored a 8-2-4 double play.  In one of the stranger moments I’ve seen in baseball, the call was actually reversed, the runners were sent back to the bases and the Braves were sent back out in to the field.  In the end, it proved irrelevant.

Today’s matchup is the much awaited meeting of John Smoltz and Johan Santana.  Two aces of their respective staffs, facing off against one another.  This is what baseball is really all about.

In the 18 games played between the two squads last season, the final result was a 9-9 split.  I think at this point, that is the mark that both sides will be shooting for this season; noone wants to be on the losing side of this series at the end of the season.  The Mets have bumped Mike Pelfrey from his start tomorrow to keep Santana on schedule Sunday to pitch against Glavine and the Braves.

Hudson’s looking for a little more run support from the Braves’ bats than he received in the season opener against the Nationals, in which he only issued 3 hits across 7 innings of work.  The Braves ended up falling 3-2 in that game with Hudson receiving a no decision.

We’ll see if the weather holds out for the game today.  The forecast looks as if the rain should start to taper off around the start time of the game.  Turner Field handles water pretty well, so hopefully we’ll only see a slight delay, if the game is delayed at all.  The game’s at 3:55, so we have a little bit of time to handle rain delays.