CPA says: As good as the hitting has been (as it was last year), and as good as the bullpen has been, the lack of Quality Starts by anyone other than Smoltz or Hudson is an area of concern.  Bold prediction ahead:  This team is a strong #3 starter away from winning a World Series.  If Smoltz and Hudson keep pitching as well as they have, they are as strong 1-2 as anyone in the league.  This bullpen is one of the best we have ever seen here – and it will probably be better with Gonzalez/Soriano sharing closer duties instead of Wickman.  Yates and Pronto have also been very effective, though overshadowed.

We know how good the offense has been, and some guys might cool off, but Andruw will eventually get into a groove where he carries the team for a few weeks and Frenchy seems to have turned the corner to be the kind of player everyone thought.  With this team set up as it is, a decent # 3 starter will be the difference between making the playoffs and playing all month in October.

I believe that this team is actually set-up for BC to manage well in the postseason.  For whatever reason, BC has wanted to use a 3-man staff the last few years in the postseason.  On 3-days rest, it is hard to get more than 6-7 innings from your starter.  With Atlanta’s deep, quality bullpen, they will be setup to win those games, as long as you don’t have a #3 starter going out there, getting knocked out early and overworking  your pen that day.

If the Rainbow/PUSH coalition knew ANYTHING about JS, they would not have had to meet with him.  But now that they have had that meeting, JS may be inclined to offer Scott Thorman to the Phillies in an even swap for Ryan Howard.  Or maybe a package of Kevin Barry and Pete Orr to the Marlins for Dontrelle Willis.

My reply:  The results of the AJC poll on what the Braves should do were funny…overwhelmingly in favor of bringing in the best players possible.  JS couldn’t say how much cheaper it is to develop players in the Dominican than here.  Baseball in the USA appears to becoming a rich man’s game.  If you don’t pay thousands to play travel ball you’ll never make the high school team.  MLB is making token efforts to bring baseball to the inner city, but those leagues will produce few, if any, big leaguers.  The one black kid on Will’s travel team may be a good football player, but is way too mechanical in baseball…at the plate, on the mound, and in the field.  But he definitely has the family support.

SI.com ranked the Braves third in their power rankings this week.  Not bad, considering our starting pitching:  Hampton and Cormier out, Davies and James struggling.

Everyone is panicking about Chuck James, except Dave O’Brien.  Hopefully/probably this slump is just a bump along the way.  Yes, this appears to be a down year for many in the NL.  Since Andruw doesn’t like talk of moving him from the cleanup position, Cox will probably leave him there, considering it’s early May and we’re high in the standings.

Back in the mid 80’s even I was going to the Omni so much that I was beginning to recognize the ushers myself.