When it comes to curing irrational exuberance, Atlanta’s Braves are among the best. They can kill more rallies than Alan Greenspan.
Much of South Florida began another shiny weekend on a baseball buzz. At golf courses, beaches and tattoo parlors, in any language, only one subject mattered.
The Florida Marlins. Let’s Go Fish!!
Then the Braves showed up and put everybody to sleep. They are very adept at this. They are cool, some would say too much so for their own good. But when critics wonder whether the Braves have enough passion, the Braves stick with what’s made them the team of the ’90s: pitching.
Denny Neagle finally cracked the Atlanta rotation Saturday night, and all he did was some serious sawing on the Marlins’ bat rack. He won with a minimum degree of difficulty by 4-0, and if it is unfair, it is probably safe to say that Florida trails this National League Championship Series 2-2.
The Braves not only will play two of the last three games at home, if necessary. They have Cy Young winners lined up from here to Wednesday, from here to Peachtree Street, from Greg Maddux to Tom Glavine to John Smoltz. If they get in trouble, you might find Neagle in the bullpen. If.
“Has that ever happened?” wondered Marlins manager Jim Leyland, whose staff is down to wounded wings and lots of prayers. “Where every night in a playoff, a team has to face a guy with a trophy? And the one guy who doesn’t have one wins more games than the other three?”
Last October was close. The Braves were down 3-1 in games to the Cardinals, and the city of St. Louis brought out the party hats. Then the Braves summoned Smoltz, Maddux and Glavine and all that ice-cold Budweiser went to waste.
When the Braves, who shamelessly hoard pitchers, acquired Neagle in August of 1996, it might have been the last straw for Leyland in Pittsburgh. Neagle was Leyland’s ace there, but the Pirates went into a fire-sale mode, and a month later, Leyland announced that he, too, would find a new zip code.
In Atlanta, of course, Neagle is the even man out. Despite being the league’s only 20-game winner this season, Neagle couldn’t get arrested during the division series against Houston, which the Braves swept. If Neagle won 20 in Chicago, he would not only have a place in either loser’s rotation, he’d have his own statue, or a bridge or street in his name.
Neagle is a perfect fit for the Braves, because they don’t operate from the “I” formation. He led this great staff in victories, yet gladly defers to the three thoroughbreds there before him. It’s his honor to be their fourth.
Saturday night, all Neagle asked was moderate help from his mates. Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones, Atlanta’s twin disasters of Game 3, led the hit parade, though the latter again went into another trance on the bases. As a group, though, the Braves welcomed the sight of Al Leiter.
Pity poor Leyland, who is famous for fiddling with lineups and enjoying the task. But this is ridiculous. He had a nice, orderly procession of scheduled starting pitchers for this best-of-seven series, only to have it plundered.
Kevin Brown, Miami’s best, was to have worked Saturday night and logged his third start in Game 7, if required. But now he will work Game 5, provided he can shake a virus. If not, it’s Livan Hernandez, a local hero from Miami’s Little Havana section.
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“They’d have to shoot me to keep me from pitching Sunday,” said Brown, who declined to provide details of his illness. Nor could he determine the source. It was suggested that Brown had been felled by bad food, but at no time during this series has he been seen in the press cafeteria.