Sports Page Atlanta

What happened to Chipper last night??? OK we have seen him make an error before, but not that many recently. Going 0-5 is something we haven’t seen too much this year. Here is how many times Larry Wayne Jones has done that in his career….

2008: twice (the other being on April 28th at Washington)

2007: 2 times

2006: 2 times

2005: 2 times

2004: 3 times

2003: 2 times

2002: 4 times (he was 0-6 vs the Mets on April 15th)

2001: 0 times

2000: 8 times

1999: 4 times

1998: 2 times

1997: 7 times

1996: 4 times

1995: 7 times

Good News for Georgia and Georgia Tech baseball fans.  I know Bulldog fans you are saying, why is it good news when the Dawgs lost yesterday? well…

Georgia is 11-0 in the postseason in elimination games at Foley Field.  Obviously that stat has to end sometime, but hopefully not today as they take on Louisville at 3:00 pm.  Pitching for the Bulldogs is Trevor Holder.  The 2nd-team All-SEC pitcher hasn’t pitched in 2 weeks since injuring his shoulder against Alabama.  The junior right-hander is 2-0 with a 0.87 in 10 1/3 career NCAA postseason innings.

Georgia Tech is looking a lot better right now as they defeated those Cardinals mentioned above.  Charlie Blackmon was one of the stars yesterday.  As he went 3-4 with 2 rbi and a run scored.  He also stole 2 more bases to increase his season total to 25.

The Yellow Jackets have now won 15 regional game ones.  8 of those previous 14 games they went on to win the region.  An 8-6 record doesn’t look super, but those 8 wins have all happened in their last 9 chances.  The first 5 times they have won game one of a regional they ended up not winning the region. 

Georgia and Georgia Tech begin their quest for Omaha today as the Bulldogs take on Lipscomb at 3:00 pm et and the Yellow Jackets tangle with Louisville at approximately 7:00 pm et.

Both teams have had very good seasons and have improved on two of the more standout categories such power and speed.

                                          games                 home runs              stolen bases

Georgia Tech (2007)      57                           50                              65

Georgia Tech (2008)      58                           90                              79

Georgia (2007)                 56                          42                              56

Georgia (2008)                 57                           77                              65

Today the Braves defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 8-1.  The win improved Atlanta’s road record to 7-18.

The biggest problem on the road is all these 1-run losses.  The Braves have lost 18 straight 1-run decisions on the road and are 0-11 this season.

August 9th of last season is when the Braves last won a 1-run road ball game.  The defeated the Mets 7-6.  It wouldn’t have been a 1-run game, but the bullpen gave up 3 runs in the 9th.

Before that it was July 8th vs the Padres.  The Braves won 5-4, but once again the bullpen gave up 3 in the 9th

Before that it was June 30th vs the Marlins.  The Braves won 6-5, but once again you guessed it the bullpen gave up 3 in the 9th.

Before that it was June 15th vs the Indians.  The Braves were losing in the 9th, but scored 2 runs as they defeated Cleveland 5-4.

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 marks the beginning of the Rick Sund era as General manager of the Atlanta Hawks. Sund has worked in NBA front offices for more than 30 years, including time with Milwaukee, Dallas, Detroit and most recently the Seattle SuperSonics, where he was a consultant for the Sonics after serving as the team’s GM from 2001-07. Sund is now working as co-chairman of the NBA predraft camp in Orlando, and is expected to make his first day in Atlanta next Wednesday.

Sund’s first order of business is seemingly what to do about head coach Mike Woodson, who’s contract expires at the end of June. Instead of that decision, Sund says there are more important things on his mind to consider.

“As to where we go from here, most of the basketball staff is here,” Sund said. “I met with them tonight in an introductory fashion. I told them my first step here is to be a very good listener for the next week. I need to spend some time listening to ownership, listening to the management staff and then some of the players.” “I don’t have a magic formula today,” Sund said. “What I’m going to do is come in next week and meet with the staff and obviously talk with some of the players and get a lay of the land before we proceed to do anything. Once we do that, we’ll go forward.

“Right now, my plan is to take one step back and get a good lay of the land and be a real good listener for the next week and a half.”

“An outsider looking in always has a fresh perspective,” Sund said. “You can’t go crazy with that perspective, though. What we do have, however, is tremendous growth potential. Acie Law hasn’t reached his full growth potential. Al Horford hasn’t reached his full growth potential. Josh Smith, Josh Childress and Marvin Williams, none of those guys have reached their full growth potential yet. And that is a major plus.

“Like I said, it’s an exciting time right now for the Hawks. But there is a lot of work to be done the next few years. So for me, it’s a great time to come in and be a part of what’s going on now and in the future.”

Going into yesterday’s game, Mark Kotsay had his second consecutive day off due to back spasms, and it appeared that he may have been heading to the disabled list. Three hours later, things changed immensely.

Matt Diaz, on a pop fly down the left field line, slid into the wall and banged his knee against exposed concrete underneath the padded wall. Why do ball parks not place padding from the top to the bottom of the wall? Well, lunacy for one, but that’s another entry for another time.

If the Braves were to disable Kotsay along with Diaz, that would leave Omar Infante as the presumptive starting CF. If not Infante, then who? Bring up Brandon Jones for LF and play Gregor Blanco in center? Certainly a possibility considering Blanco’s early season success. But, the bigger story in this whole situation is Jordan Schaffer. This situation is screaming for the big league debut of Wonderboy. What? A 50-game HGH suspension? Crap.

So, what now? Kotsay needs to play. We all expected him to take days off to rest the back, after all, he did only play 56 games last season. But, if he’s able, he needs to suck it up right now. We all were teased with his early season surge, and the Braves absolutely need him in the lineup, in whatever spot Bobby decides to hit him, immediately.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Georgia and Georgia Tech both made the NCAA Regionals this season, in fact they are in the same foursome.

Here is a little breakdown of how each team has done in the NCAA Postseason in their school’s history…

                                                     UGA                GT

overall record                          35-22             54-42

at home                                     15-5               21-13

regional champs                           5                    6

super regional champs                3                    2

college world series record        6-9                4-5

ncaa championships                     1                    0

The Bulldogs won their championship in 1990 by defeating Oklahoma State 2-1.  Freshman and Athens native Stan Payne got the win while future major leaguer Dave Fleming got the save.

In 1994, the state of Georgia collided again with the Sooner State.  This time Oklahoma won as they defeated Georgia Tech 13-5.  In that game future MLB stars Nomar Garciaparra and Jason Varitek belted home runs.

A collision with the left-field wall in foul territory will land outfielder Matt Diaz on the disabled list after he strained his posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Diaz will visit physicians to have an MRI today. If the strain is actually a tear, Diaz could be out for quite some time.

After two seasons of hitting in a platoon situation, and doing it quite well with a 2006 batting average of .327 and a 2007 batting average of .338, Diaz was given the full time job in left field to start 2008. He’s had a rough go at it, hitting .250 in 132 at-bats, and hitting .333 versus left-handed pitchers and only .182 against right-handed pitchers. There have been rumors around Braves camp about Diaz going back to a platoon situation (probably the right decision), but those will be put on hold until the severity of this injury is known.

It was announced that Georgia and Georgia Tech will be in the same regional in this year’s NCAA Baseball Tournament.  The other two teams will be Louisville and Lipscomb.  All the games will be played in Athens, Georgia starting on Friday.

The two in-state teams have played against each other 6 times in the NCAA Tournament, including five times this decade alone.  Five times the game has been played at Tech’s Russ Chandler Stadium and one time at Georgia’s Foley Field.  The Bulldogs have a 4-2 advantage in these games.

No matter if it was a regional or super regional the winner of the Georgia and Georgia Tech game in that tournament would eventually play in the College World Series.

1987 at Georgia Tech (Northeast Regional): Bulldogs won 5-1

2001 at Georgia (Athens Regional): Bulldogs won 13-5

2002 at Georgia Tech (Atlanta Regional): Yellow Jackets won both meetings 3-0 and 8-7

2004 at Georgia Tech (Atlanta Super Regional): Bulldogs won both meetings 7-5 and 5-3

Tom Glavine got the loss yesterday as the Atlanta Braves fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Glavine also allowed 2 home runs in the game including a grand slam. The homers is not that uncommon, Glavine has allowed 352 in his career and has allowed the 4th most by an active player. He is 22nd all-time on that list for all players.

What is surprising that it was only the 2nd grand slam he has allowed in his career. Eric Byrnes was the lucky guy this time around and Jose Vidro got the other when the southpaw pitched for the New York Mets.