Why I'm not worried...

I feel like there has been a lot of panic in the Braves Community. It's true, the Braves season thus far has had many disappointments, but I feel like panic time has not arrived. There are plenty of reasons why we shouldn't panic yet:

We're playig horrible. We are 13 games into the season. There is plenty of Baseball to come still.

We're fourth in the Division But we're only 3 games back. And the Marlins aren't going to continue to win games at the pace they are unless their pitching gets better (The Braves aren't helping).

The Braves have a bad bullpen, yes. But so do 10 other NL teams. But the difference with the Braves is that they don't HAVE to make a trade to improve their pen. It will get better in June when Gonzalez comes back. It will get better when Moylan and Soriano come back, assuming that "elbow tendinitis" isn't anything more serious. The Braves could make a trade to improve their pen (and I think they should), but it will improve even without a trade.

Kelly Johnson and Mark Teixeira are rally killers. Obviously there is truth to this one. I'm not the biggest fan of hitting these two in the 1 and 4 spot of our lineup while they stink it up, but I'm rarely a fan of Bobby's batting order anyways. I'm more worried about Teixeira than I am KJ. KJ has always been streaky and has had stretches like this before. Teixeira however has the burden of having higher expectations set on him (for good reason). Plus, I think most would agree that we began this season relying more on Teixeira at the plate than KJ. It's too early to say that Teixeira:2008::Andruw:2007. It is important to note that over Teixeira's career, April has always been his worst month. Although this could be one of the worst Aprils he has had, he historically has put up his worse numbers in April. Is he a slow starter? The splits say he is. But if it's mid-late May and Teix still hasn't shaken out of it, he'll have Braves fans screaming. Not to mention Scot Boras.

Look at all those injuries! Yes, the Braves have a long list of important names on their injury list (Soriano, Hampton, Glavine, Gonzalez, and now Moylan). But...look at the Mets list...Alou, Castro, Pedro Martinez, O. Hernandez, Matt Wise. They've got some key role players out as well, and many of those look to miss more time than a lot of the Braves injured players.



I see plenty of reasons not to panic. While the Braves haven't started the season firing on all cylinders, I don't think we should say the engine has totally broken down.