Sports Page Atlanta

Three races will change dates starting in next year’s races.

The 2nd Atlanta race will now be raced on the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend.

The 2nd race at the Auto Club Speedway will now be raced the second weekend of October.

The 2nd race in Talladega will now be where the Atlanta race is currently either the last weekend in October or the first weekend in November.

There is also an off week the week before that 2nd Atlanta race as well.

Saturday night proved a coming-out party for new RB Michael Turner, who had a 52 yard rush on his first carry and started Atlanta’s 2nd drive with a 63 yard run, and he wound up with 113 yards on just 4 carries.  Elsewhere on offense, rookie Matt Ryan’s solid play was marred by a terrible decision that resulted in an interception returned for a touchdown.  Chris Redman also looked good, but failed to put a lot of distance between him and Ryan.

Defensively, the Falcons were solid if unspectacular.  The linebacker crew stood out, as Keith Brooking, Michael Boley, and rookie Curtis Lofton all looked impressive.  Rookie DE Kroy Biermann picked up a sack and is starting to warrant more playing time.  In the secondary, training camp mini-star cornerback Brent Grimes continued to push for a starting job as his coverage remained stellar, including a pass defended in the end zone.

Though the Falcons lost 16-9, there were many encouraging contributions from young players, and hopefully the rest of this preseason will be used to continue to hone the considerable talents of the youth of the roster.

The Braves lost once again, and once again they were shut out.  They lost 5-0 to the Giants.  This is the 13th time they have been shut out this season.  For San Francisco it didn’t take long for them to score.  The team from the bay scored 3 times in the first inning. 

Since the all-star break many teams have been scoring early on the Braves.  Here is how many times the Braves and their opponents have scored in the 30 games since the all-star game…

                              Braves                 opponents

1st inning              9 runs                      20 runs

2nd inning              13                            14

3rd inning               14                            25

Overall the Braves have been outscored 183-145 since the all-star game.

Here is what the Falcons quarterbacks did in the 16-9 loss to the Colts.

Matt Ryan: 8-16, 62 yards, 0 TD, 1 Int - 1 rush, 5 yards (Int was returned for TD)

Chris Redman: 3-4, 56 yards, 0 TD, 1 Int

Joey Harrington: 2-3, 17 yards, 0 TD, 0 Int

D.J. Shockley: 2-5, 24 yards, 0 TD, 1 Int

Tom Glavine may have started his last game in the majors went he went on the disabled list.

He is currently 12th all-time with the most career games started by a pitcher with 682.  He is also 3rd on the list by pitchers that are left-handed.  The ironic thing is the pitcher that is one ahead of him is Tommy John, the man whose surgery Glavine is trying to avoid. 

Here is the top 5 list of left-handed pitchers in career games started…

Steve Carlton - 709

Tommy John - 700

Tom Glavine - 682

Warren Spahn - 665

Jim Kaat - 625

By the way, the pitcher with the most was Cy Young.  He ended up with 815, but he won 0 Cy Young Awards.

Tom Glavine will miss the remainder of the season.  The 42-year old was placed on the DL on Friday with a torn flexor tendon in his left elbow. 

If he needs ligament replacement surgery it might be the end of his hall of fame career.

In his return to Atlanta, the southpaw has struggled going 2-4 on the season with a 5.54 era.  Over his career he won 305 career games and won 2 Cy Young Awards.

A few weeks ago, we talked about Georgia being the preseason number one in the Coaches poll, well now they are number one in the preseason AP poll.

Here is how Georgia has been preseason ranked and how they finished in the final AP poll in the Mark Richt era.

2001 - preseason:  not ranked         final: 22nd

2002 - preseason: 8th                       final: 3rd

2003 - preseason: 11th                     final: 7th

2004 - preseason: 3rd                      final: 7th

2005 - preseason: 13th                    final: 10th

2006 - preseason: 15th                    final: 23rd

2007 - preseason: 13th                    final: 2nd

2008 - preseason: 1st                      final: ??? 

Mark Kotsay is the talk of the town after hitting for the cycle last night, as he should be. But, all the Kotsay conversations aren’t revolving around last night’s historic hitting display. Dave Cameron just posted an article, this morning, over at FanGraphs where he talks about Kotsay’s reemergence at the plate this season. He also mentions a bit about the trade where the Braves sent Joey Devine to Oakland for Kotsay. I have a few comments to add.

• Remember back to Spring Training when all the talk wasn’t about Kotsay becoming a fixture in center field for the Braves, but how long it would take Jordan Schafer to take over. After Schafer’s bonehead bout with PED’s and his inability to return to the level of play expected from him after 2007, Kotsay’s reemergence is a wonderful thing.
• When this trade occurred I felt that the Braves would surely miss Devine. And with the way he’s pitched in Oakland this season (sub 1.00 ERA and more strikeouts than innings pitched), he’s proving me correct. The question remains which would have been more valuable to the Braves, Devine’s 27.2 innings of sub 1.00 ERA or Kotsay’s almost 300 at-bats of .300 hitting? If Schafer’s development hadn’t been halted by stupidity, and he was ready to take over center field in 2008, I might have been inclined to say Devine would have been more valuable to the Braves. But, now that Schafer probably won’t even be ready for the 2009 season in Atlanta, having Kotsay around is reassuring.

The Braves lost again, but the story of the game for Atlanta was Mark Kotsay (I know Jeff Francoeur hit a home run), but Kotsay hit for the cycle.

In the history of the Atlanta Braves, Kotsay is one of two players in the history to have hit for the cycle.  Albert Hall on September 23, 1987 was the other.  4 other Braves did it, but the franchise was playing in Boston at the time.

Hall was the leadoff hitter that game when they defeated the Astros 5-4.

That season Hall only hit 3 home runs, 4 triples, 20 doubles and 56 singles.

Mark Richt apparently “leaked” some positional information today at a post practice media session that has some pretty huge special team and offensive depth chart implications.

1. Knowshon Moreno is returning punts.

One could certainly see the merits to putting Moreno back deep in the open field. He rushed for more than 1,300 yards as a freshman tailback last season.

But would it be worth the injury risk to one of the nation’s best running backs and the key to your offense.

“I think he could be pretty good at it,” said Richt as a big grin broke out upon his face. “I’m not sure if we’ll pull the trigger or not but he’s working there. …

“Knowshon will do anything you ask him to do,” he said. “We’re trying to get out best players out there, including on special teams, and he has an aptitude for it.”

2. Quarterback Logan Gray is returning punts.

Just as surprising is putting your third-string quarterback back to field punts. But Richt said the speedy Gray is desperate to get onto the football field.

“Logan wants to help us win,” said Richt, who added that freshman Carlton Thomas also is returning punts. “He’s the gunner on the punt team, and he’s working on being a punt-return man. He might have some other roles. He’s been working as a safety on the kickoff team. He just wants to play.

“A guy in those positions could get banged up where he couldn’t play QB. That’d be scary, but I think we just need him to play right now.”