One Way Ticket to Schwellenbach

 

[I've done the 'extreme music pun' thing so infrequently recently that when one comes along I need to jump on it. I make no apologies.]

I do wonder if the Braves would have been a better team this year had the injury bug not hit them like mad. Acuna, Albies, Harris, Riley, Strider, they all go down. So much of the crux of this season has been defined by replacement guys, people like Jarred Kelenic, Reynaldo Lopez, Travis d'Arnaud and Whit Merrifield, people who were not meant to play large roles in this team but were thrust into the circumstances. And this season continues to move on with the knowledge that these replacements can work, that d'Arnaud is probably having a better season than Murphy, that Lopez and Sale have been the aces this year [despite...fears of the contrary]. 

This is not the Braves team that people thought they'd be getting this year, but it's been a good enough one nonetheless. Moreover, Braves fans that thought they'd be rolling with a rotation of Strider-Fried-Sale-Morton-Elder have probably been more relieved that the Lopez-Sale-Fried-Morton-Schwellenbach arrangement has been pretty successful on its own. If anything, the strikeouts are still coming without Strider. Chris Sale's gonna have a 200-K season this year and probably vy for a Cy Young, which is...odd to me. There are seasons with Boston and Chicago where I think he deserved a Cy Young more than this year, and yet because of the sparser race it does seem like it's him right now. He does deserve one, yes, and he's likely a HOF talent, but...it's weird that this is his Cy Young season and the others weren't. It's like Al Pacino getting his Oscar for Scent of a Woman. Like this is good and all, but...we've all seen Godfather II, right? He's incredible there.

I think about what Spencer Schwellenbach is doing this season, he's got 94 Ks in 14 starts and a 1.032 WHIP, and I think about what would happen in a season where he, Fried and Strider were all healthy, all got to pitch 32 games, and were all on. Would anybody be able to stop them? I'd throw Sale in there as well but I don't know if he's at the point in his career where he can pitch consecutive 32-game seasons. This may be the last taste of his peak. Fried, Strider and Schwellenbach are all very much still there, and could be a three-headed dragon that could pain NL East competitors next year. And that's just if THEY stay healthy. If the Braves get full seasons out of Acuna, Albies and Harris next year, that could rectify a lot of what made this season a disappointment.

But it's an 'if' at this point. The Braves are a talented, well-run, well-contracted organization that just cannot land upon the luck necessary to make them a dynasty. It could happen, and it should happen...but unless things change drastically, it might not even happen this year.

Coming Tonight- He may not be the family breadwinner, but he's boosted his career in a big way just this season alone.