29
2011
Braves Suffer Record September Collapse
An article by Hojo's Mojo
Nothing better than seeing Chipper and the Braves licking their wounds after their playoff hopes vanished into nothingness on Wednesday night.
After closer Craig Kimbrel blew his second save of the series in the ninth inning, the Philadelphia Phillies scored on Hunter Pence’s two-out single in the 13th inning for a 4-3 win that ended the Braves’ season and completed their record September collapse.
The Braves lost their final five games and 13 of their last 18 to finish with an 89-73 record, a game behind St. Louis for the National League wild card. The Cardinals trailed the Braves by 10 1/2 games on Aug. 25 and 8 1/2 games on Sept. 5.
With loss the Braves became the first team in major league history to squander a lead of at least eight games for a playoff spot in September. It is the largest September collapse ever by a NL wild-card leader.
Turn out the lights boys, the party’s over.
About the Author: Rob Johnson
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Now if the Phillies get swept to start things (or blow a 2-0 lead) and the Yanks do the same, this season won’t seem as awful…
It was an amazing day of baseball yesterday and now two teams had epic late season collapses to join the more recent ones of the Mets and Tigers. Hopefully this helps some Mets fans stuck on 2008, to let go.
It also yet again demonstrates that a large deficit in September should never be considered the end of postseason hopes.
hajahajahajahajahajahaja!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ohhhhhhhh haaaappppppyyyyyy Ddddddddaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
F*** the BRAVES AND THEIR YOUNG “STUDS”!!!!!!! LMAO!!!! HEY BRAVES STUDS, SOME IDIOT HERE HAD YOU PEGGED AS A 95 WIN TEAM, AS THE 2ND BEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE, BUT GUESS WHAT. THE CHOKE
S ON YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOSERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Braves have a lot of really young players that came up here well developed and contributed right away. Doesn’t mean they can’t choke away their lead but it does mean its going to be difficult for us to get past them.
I’m as happy they choked as anyone, I’ll enjoy it for the moment but if you think that’s going to help us compete against them your wrong. It’s not going to help us against them at all. Kimbrel, as a rookie blew his 7th and 8th save of the year in the last couple of days but we develop or acquire guys all the time that blow up at least that often and they sure aren’t saving 46 games either. Even when we bought a guy who did nail down a lot of saves he blew that many too and was never around when you really need him. Even had a 13.50 ERA in the NLCS. The kid that blew the save for Atlanta is a rookie. A rookie that any team in MLB would love to have. Which doesn’t mean he can’t choke it up. Some of the best have been surprisingly bad in the most crucial situations. Hoffman, Wagner, Benetiz and plenty of others. We will probably facing this kid 8-12 timers a year for the next 5 years. He did close 46 games this year, his rookie year. Parnell has 7 saves in four years. Acosta 8 in five. We have to do a better job of getting guys up and running before they get up here. I just don’t see how anyone can disagree with that.
We have to go out a pick up 3, 4, or 5 new guys for the pen every year, with no guarantees we’ll get anything better than than we’ve had from 2007-2011 while they pull three guys out of the farm, another off waivers and everyone in MLB would have room for any one of those guys in their pen. Any one.
Seeing them choke away a playoff spot may be fun for the moment but we are behind the Braves in scouting, drafting and developing players and that’s a problem because their a team that we have to pass in order to make the post season. In a couple of years Philly could be on the way down, but Washington is clearly a team on the way up.
If we don’t start doing better in the scouting, drafting and developing areas we’re going to be so far behind we can never catch up.
Having the better young players is no guarantee your going to win but it’s a pretty good start and it’s not exactly like older, expensive players don’t choke it away either. Just look at Lowe the other night or Glavine in ’07, Wagner in ’06 or Schowenweiss in ’08.
I’m glad they choked, I just wish they did against us.
You really overated the Braves this year. They really aren’t as good as you made them out to be.
Just look at them, they were starting a 40 yr old at 3B, a SS who can’t hit, an all or nothing 2B, who’s a terrible fielder, a very average LF, who never played LF before this year, a rookie 1B, and Nate Mcclouth was so bad that they had to trade for a CF. and Heyward is overated – Heyward hit in the .220′s this year, and his first year wasn’t as good as everyone made it out to be – Mccan is really good, but that’s really all they got on offense.
And you talk about last year about how low some of our players OBP’s were, right? Well, the Braves had FOUR starters have OBP’s below .320!!!
You even made their starters seem better than what they are – Hanson and Jurrjens are good, but it’s not like they are Halladay and Lee. You can beat them. And Hanson has went on the DL twice this year with an shoulder injury, not a good sign, and missed the final two months of the year, and Jurrjens has spent time on the DL in each of the last two years – They also have two starters who are over 35 – And their younger pitchers are have a lot of potential, sure, and are close to the majors, but are they any more talented than the pitchers we have in the minors? Like Harvey, Familia, Mejia, and now Wheeler?
Their bullpen is excellent, but you need more than an excellent bullpen to make the playoffs – Their starters are good, but aren’t great, and their lineup is awful.
They aren’t THAT good, and if you look at it like that, it’s not really a surprise that they fell apart.
Could there be another collapse like Boston – I don’t think so.
What this really says is that in the NL East there is the Phillies and evrybody else. The Mets have a long road ahead of them. My prediction: Rays and Phillies in WS and Philies in seven based on their great pitching. Why I didn’t pick the Bombers, I’M A METS FAN and that’s reason enough!
Rays??? really? that is a bold prediction my friend. i got detroit winning it all.
Don’t discount the Rays starting pitching….it can easily be as good as Philly’s. Plus, they have a better bullpen as well. Don’t hand the Phillies the NL title just yet either, Milwaukee and Arizona will have something to say about that. GO D’Backs!!! I’m pulling for Kirk Gibson and his team of overachievers to go all the way. The Mets could use a manager like Gibson whose own style and brand of baseball rubs off on his team. Too bad the Mets don’t have that.
It’s not like the Phillies went roaring into the post season.
I want St Louis and Detroit in the Series.
again??? wasn’t that like the lowest rating world series EVER?????
So what?
“Nothing better than seeing Chipper and the Braves licking their wounds after their playoff hopes vanished into nothingness on Wednesday night.”
You mean Larry and the Braves.
I hope this fact has taught everyone a lesson for the next time we are 10 games behind the Braves and someone tries to say we have no shot of beating them.
Cardinals made up 10 games on them in a month.
We were only 9 games behind the braves when we became sellers not buyers at the trade deadline!
well, assuming jesseP, the braves were world beaters, we had no chance at beating them, they had the best closer in the game, freeman was a stud, their farm system is the best and sandy alderson giving up by july was the best move.. funny, the mets blew 13 games AFTER the krod trade.. think about how many games we neeeded to win the wildcard or at least tied? yep, 13!!!
Right, and there’s no chance that if we were playing games at nutcracker time things might have been different on our end as well.
K-Rod wouldn’t have blown any and everyone else would have been exactly the same.
That’s not really how it usually goes which isn’t to say it’s impossible, just not the same.
The big difference was that the Mets weren’t playoff ready. The pitching sucked, the bullpen sucked and that made it so the Mets had no shot at the playoffs this year. The Cardinals have good pitching and that makes all the difference. The Mets need more consistent starting pitching and a much better bullpen to make a shot at the playoffs. KRod wouldn’t have made the difference. He wouldn’t have blown as many saves probably but he wouldn’t have saved the entire pitching staff.
speaking of jessep look at his post season picks. just like his opinions, awful
http://metsmerizedonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/2011-predictions.jpg
Baseball playoffs,especially in the first round are a crap shoot. If the underdog wins the first game the favorite can tighten up and sometimes never recover. Baseball unlike any other sport is a pure mumbers game and you cant muscle your way to a win like in football. I dont believe in big favorites once the playoffs begin although the Phillies pitching on paper is amazing.