Being Busy is Not An Excuse

... for not posting about how awesome the Braves are.

You will notice that I haven't posted much about the Blue Jays lately.  They're not doing poorly, you know, but they're in the toughest division in all of Major League Baseball, in my opinion.  The Jays are currently in fourth place with a win percentage of .544.  If they belonged to the NL Central, they'd be in second place, in contention for first.  It's really too bad, because they are playing better beyond anybody's expectations.

Ahem.  And now to transition abruptly back to the Braves and the NL East.  How about some love for our division, y'all?  Only the National League Eastern Division can boast that all its teams have a win percentage of over .450 in Major League Baseball*.  That's both leagues, ok?  Take that, gimpy Designated Hittin' American Leaguers.

And I just want to mention how awesome Martin Prado is, once again.  (He is awesome.)  And thus shouldst thou forthwith go and cast thy lot for Martin Prado!!*  Do it now.  Immediately.  Straightaway. This instant.  I'll even provide the link for you.  Remember, there are less than 2 weeks left to vote for him, and you can vote up to 25 times PER email address.  (I've got 8 addresses I've been using just to vote for Braves and Jays:  3 school emails, 1 personal, 1 resume-y, and 3 spam/old accounts.)  Prado is behind Chase Utley in votes.

Let us compare these two, please.
Utley's BA this season is .260, while Prado's is .338.  He has had 11 HR as opposed to Prado's 6 (BUT I maintain that grand slams should count more... just sayin').  Both players have 30 RBIs and an OBP of .378.  Utley's SLG is .468 and Prado's is .469.  So their stats are pretty similar.  But Prado's the unsung hero, here... even though he was leading the league in BA (batting average AND badassery.  Yes.  I went there), nobody, not even Braves fans seemed to sit up and take notice of who he was.  And the man is getting paid $440K this year.  What a friggin' deal for the Braves!  Utley, on the other hand, is getting paid 34x as much, and the Phillies are definitely not getting 34x Prado.  Moral of this story:  Money is not everything.  And Prado is awesome.  Vote for him.  :)

Also worth noting:  Troy Glaus.  What a beast.  Friends Ryan and Andrew from north of the border (hi boys), fellow Jays fans, tried to douse my excitement over our Glaus acquisition during the off-season.  And in April, he did appear to be... not-so-good.  But oh, then there was May 2010.  And he shut EVERYBODY up.  Since Awful April, he has had 51 RBIs.  TAKE THAT NAYSAYERS.  And then Ryan and Andrew were like, "He was a former Jay."  Yep... but he's a current Brave.  :D

Melky Cabrera.  All season, there have been all these people talking all sorts of trash about Melky (e.g. Why is Bobby still playing him?  Why did we trade Vazquez for an automatic out?, etc.).  First of all, don't question Bobby.  He's only been doing this for 25 years.  The man has got this, ok?  Trying to couch-manage the team when Bobby's still at the helm, trying to question why he didn't already retire, must be out of your damn mind. /grumble.  Secondly, the Braves front office knows exactly what they are doing, thank you very much.  Did it suck that we had to trade Javier Vazquez?  Yes.  But we got a good deal.  And Melky has been hitting up a storm, thank you.  RBIs this, singles that, doubles, this.  And he works hard.  You can tell.  Get out of here, naysayers!  Bench this!!!  ::points at butt::

Also, Kawakami.  Poor Kenshin.  Nine losses when he should have had more than 3 wins.  He's been pitching well, but if our offense AND defense would both decide to show up for work when he pitches, that'd be nice.  And yes, there are been games where he made some bad pitches.  But it is then the offense's job to bail him out.  It isn't fair to pin it all on him.  But when JJ comes back from his rehab starts at Gwinnett, will we have to move KK to the bullpen?  Or will Kris Medlen go?  Because KMeds has been kicking ass and taking names.  He has more than proven that he deserves to be a starter.

I hope Omar and Mighty Mouse and MattE are better soon.  I can't wait to see them back.  :)

*I'd like to give a shout-out to Stephen Tyndall, who has been helping me with wording in this-here blog.  Evidently, I have forgotten all grammar and vocabulary.