Hitting The Cutoff Man

Although I've been wrapped up in baseball season for almost a month now, it never quite feels like baseball season until I actually get out to a game. Unfortunately, for the first time in my life I'm not living anywhere near a major league stadium, but on Saturday I made the roughly four-hour trek down to Atlanta for the Braves-Astros game.

Here are some thoughts from my first game of the season and my first experience at Turner Field, a 10-1 win by the Braves.

-- I've now been to 14 active MLB stadiums (and three defunct ones). Although Turner Field certainly wouldn't be at the top of my list -- that's reserved for Fenway, Wrigley, Dodger Stadium, Camden Yards and whatever they're calling the place the Giants play -- I thought it was a very pleasant place to watch a game. My only real complaints were the huge Cartoon Network attraction behind center field that made you wonder if you were at a baseball stadium or an amusement park and the annoying sound effects they played on foul balls into the stands. Oh, and that damn Tomahawk Chop. No offense to the Braves fans out there, but I hate that thing.

-- I still have 16 stadiums I haven't visited yet. Places at the top of my list: Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Kansas City.

-- The highlight of the game for me was Jason Heyward stroking a home run to left-center field. Just a thing of beauty. If you're a fan of the game, no matter what team you root for, you have to just love what this kid is doing. The fact that he is two years younger than me is really giving me some psychological problems, though.

In a related note, I was amazed at how many Heyward jerseys I saw at Turner Field. The guy was playing in his 23rd big league game, and already there were as many of his jerseys as there of Chipper Jones, a guy who's played in Atlanta for 15 years and been the face of the franchise.

-- They have slipped back under the radar since righting the ship after their 0-8 start, but good lord, the Astros are just a terrible baseball team. You can start with the fact that Pedro Feliz, a guy with a career .713 OPS was batting third for them (and yes, the No. 3 spot has been shown to not be as important as many believe, but is that really what Brad Mills was thinking?) They got six hits in the game, none for extra bases. They got thrown out stealing twice, including once when Michael Bourn only got halfway to second when Jeff Keppinger didn't swing the bat on a hit and run play. Their Nos. 3-6 hitters, none of whom are batting above .250, went a combined 1-for-12. They committed two errors in the fifth inning as Atlanta scored three to take a 5-1 lead. It was just one game, sure, but it was a truly ugly performance that certainly couldn't be considered an anomaly.

-- It was nice to see Tim Hudson pitching well, even if he didn't really have command early in the game. It's been kind of a bizarre road for Oakland's old "Big 3" of Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder. Mulder is done and has been for a while, but it appears Hudson and Zito might be back on the right track after a period of injuries and ineffectiveness.

-- Are we coming to the end of the line for Chipper Jones? He's said he'll retire at the end of this season if he doesn't improve on his 2009, and so far, he hasn't. The problem might be bad-luck fueled, and ZiPS still projects him to finish the year with a .377 wOBA, but it's clear the injuries and age have taken their toll. If this is Larry's final season, I think he's clearly done enough to get to Cooperstown as one of the best offensive third basemen and one of the best switch hitters of all time.

-- David Ross had a good game in this one, filling in at catcher for Brian McCann. He also manged to drive in a run without hitting a homer, which is a relatively rare feat for him. I've always sort of liked Ross since he played for the Dodgers early in his career and had a season in 2003 when he managed to hit 10 home runs with only 18 RBI. That tied him with Wayne Gross of the 1985 Orioles for fewest RBI in a season with 10 or more home runs, although Toronto's Randy Ruiz broke that record last season when he drove in 17 runs on 10 homers. Ross also had back-to-back seasons with Cincinnati in 2006-07 when he drove in a total of 91 runs while hitting 38 long balls.

For the record, Ross currently has 67 career home runs and 178 RBI. Nobody else with that many career homers has fewer than 200 RBI. It's sort of a bizarre record.

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