Why Do I Put Myself Through This?

So one of the interesting things about being at camp (by the way, I had a very good, if very tiring week) is that while I’m there, I’m pretty much out of touch with civilization.

Since camp is in late June, that means that I basically go for an entire week without hearing an Atlanta Braves update, which always makes me extremely nervous.

I got to see a newspaper early in the week and discovered that Atlanta beat up on the BoSox 9-4, but hadn’t heard anything since. Then I got home yesterday, and apparently, over the last five days, everything has fallen apart. Consider the following:

• The Braves have lost five games in a row.
• Over that five game span, they’ve been outscored 27-1; that’s right, they’ve scored 1 run in five games.
• We’ve now fallen to third place in the NL East, behind the Mets and the Phillies.
• Andruw Jones’ batting average has fallen below .200, and his on-base percentage is below .300 (this explains his facial expression in the picture above: Andruw is somewhat bemused because while he can remember a time when Major League pitches weren’t so absolutely baffling to him, he certainly has no clue how to handle them now).
• Bobby Cox got thrown out of another game to tie the all-time record for most ejections.
  
• John Smoltz and Chipper Jones, Atlanta’s longest tenured veterans and the collective bedrock of the team, are both somewhat injured and are apparently feuding with each other.

Things are bad. Atlanta is still only 4.5 games out of first place, but if they don’t make some adjustments soon, I’m afraid they’ll find themselves in serious trouble.

Still, it could be worse—we could still be trotting Mark Redmond out to the mound every five days.