ATLANTA - In the fifth inning of each home game this season at Turner Field, a celebrity, or a former Braves player, or a fan, will tear down a 10-foot tall plastic sheet with a red number written on it signifying the number of home games remaining. It is a countdown from 81 as the Braves play their final season at the 20-year old stadium on the south side of downtown.
There is some dread now that the season-long countdown - currently at 76 - could become a morbid six-month march.
In the house of Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Andruw Jones, and Bobby Cox, the Braves have started 0-5.
It is the first time since 1988 the team has dropped its first five games at home.
Center fielder and leadoff hitter Ender Inciarte is already on the disabled list with a strained hamstring. The most effective set-up reliever, Dan Winkler, suffered a fractured elbow delivering a pitch on Sunday in a 12-7 loss to St. Louis. Shortstop Erick Aybar, among others, has struggled defensively, and the team’s star hitter, Freddie Freeman, is batting .125.
The organization traded away a core of stars the last two seasons because the minor league system had to be replenished, but the Braves have risked a piercing of their brand by setting themselves up for a miserable season.
“You let a Major League team kind of hang around, or make a mistake, or don’t make a play, it will come back and haunt us and that’s what we did a lot of this series, this homestand,” manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “This is a big boy’s game, we have to round them up, huddle them up, coach them up, and continue.”
In an era where bullpens have become such a vital part of the game, the Braves blew leads in the seventh inning or later in four of the five losses.
There was an Opening Day throng of 48,282. Parking at independent lots around the stadium cost $60 as fans turned out for the final Opening Day before the move to a new ballpark in Cobb County in 2017.
But the enthusiasm waned quickly at Turner Field in a chilly week. Crowds for the next four games averaged 25,010.
Inciarte's injury could prompt hte club to rush in one of their top prospects, center fielder Mallex Smith, from Class AAA Gwinnett. He is expected to be their centerfielder and leadoff man of the future, and the Braves may rush him in.
The Braves already shipped out reliever John Gant and replaced him with Chris Withrow, a former first-round draft pick of the Dodgers who's less than two years removed from his own Tommy John surgery. Withrow, who inherited a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning Sunday, walked two batters and hit another as the Cardinals tied the game, 5-5.
More pressing is the play of Aybar, who has misplayed routine ground balls. The Braves dealt Andrelton Simmons, arguably the game’s best defensive shortstop, to the Angels for two pitching prospects and Aybar.
“I feel comfortable, things just happen, it’s baseball,” Aybar said through an interpreter.
Aybar is hardly the only player who has made mistakes defensively. Catcher A.J. Pierzynski could not handle a throw from the outfield in the ninth inning of the opener against Washington that would have ended the game with a Braves win. Freeman made a throwing error in the second game that opened the door for a Washington rally.
Inciarte’s replacement, Drew Stubbs, misplayed a fly ball in eighth here Sunday that could have been the third out with a 6-5 lead, and instead the Cardinals scored two runs and went on to win.
“We haven’t been playing the prettiest of baseball these first five games,” Freeman said.
“We’ve been giving the other team a lot of outs, a lot more outs than they should be getting. We scored some runs today, now we have to clean up all aspects of the game.”
The Braves built their brand with 14 consecutive division titles, five National League pennants, and a 1995 World Series championship between 1991 and 2005. The luster certainly will not erode overnight, but it could take a hit with a 100-loss season.
Larry Miller, 67, a street vendor who has worked the sidewalks around Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Turner Field for almost 40 years, does not want a regression his last season here.
“I remember back, maybe it was the '70s, and it took me four months to sell two dozen T-shirts, that’s how bad they were playing,” Miller said. He shook his head from side to side, as if to say nobody around the Braves wants the old days to return.
