Atlanta Braves' Phil Gosselin, right, flips his bat as he strikes out while New York Mets catcher Anthony Recker, left, throws the ball to the infield in their game, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, in Atlanta.That 10-2, stink bomb of a loss the Atlanta Braves suffered against the New York Mets on Sunday? Call it a favor. A big favor.
That loss allowed sports fans throughout the Southeast to officially close the books on one of the most disappointing Braves seasons ever, given preseason expectations. If it also closes the careers on general manager Frank Wren and manager Fredi Gonzalez, all the better.
Besides, what Southern sports fan wanted the extra stress of sweating out a possible Braves wildcard spot, constantly glancing down at his iPhone 19 during the fourth quarter of the Tennessee-Georgia game on Saturday afternoon at Sanford Stadium -- or breaking away from our UT-Chattanooga Mocs' huge Southern Conference showdown against Samford at Finley Stadium -- to check on the Bravos at Philadelphia.
Now you don't have that one ... more ... thing to worry about.
The only possible suspense remaining where the Braves are concerned -- other than those possible personnel changes -- is whether or not they can collect the five wins in their final seven games that will be needed to avoid their first losing season since 2008.
At least it all came to a head on Sunday, however. No more political correctness in the Atlanta clubhouse about how they were all in this together, and how even if the offense was more likely to hit the Powerball than collect enough hits to score three runs, the pitchers weren't the least bit bitter.
"As a pitcher, we have our confidence up, but you either have to throw a complete game shutout or something like that to get a win," pitcher Ervin Santana unloaded to various media outlets. "It's very tough. From a pitching standpoint, we do our job and we don't score any runs."
Not that Santana may have been the perfect pitcher to vent this day. Not after surrendering five runs in five innings. But even if he'd held the Mets to his current ERA of 3.88, Atlanta would still have lost. So bad have the Braves been of late that they've scored two or fewer runs in 11 of their last 18 games.
After standing one-half game out of first on July 29, Atlanta has gone 18-30 since, including a pathetic 4-14 mark thus far in September.
If that sounds eerily like at least one of the three previous Septembers in which Gonzalez has managed the club, it should. In one of the worst meltdowns in major league history, the Braves went 9-18 in 2011 to blow an eight-and-a-half game lead on Sept. 6 for a wildcard berth. They failed to make the playoffs on the final night of the regular season.
A further indictment of Gonzalez, former hitting coach Larry Parrish (2011) and current hitting coaches Greg Walker and Scott Fletcher: In not a single one of their four Septembers in charge have the Braves hit more than .235 for the month. Not one. They've limped to the finish line every autumn and now missed the postseason altogether half the time.
This is not to lay all the blame at the feet of Gonzalez and his hitting coaches. The players must bear much responsibility for this collapse, as well as Wren, who assembled this team. What shouldn't be allowed is much sympathy for this season because of the preseason injuries to pitchers Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy and Rhea County product Cory Gearrin. Braves hitting, or lack thereof, not Braves pitching is what's killing this organization.
So should Gonzales be fired? On this year alone, you'd have to say yes. It's true he followed the nearly-irreplaceable Bobby Cox after Cox stepped down at the close of the 2010 season and there was certainly sound reasoning for hiring the former Cox assistant at that time, given that he basically seemed like Bobby Jr. with a ring tattoo.
And that may well have been what the club needed then. Always a players' manager, almost never criticizing his athletes in public, continually looking for the silver lining in every cloud, Gonzalez seemed to mostly get the most of his players until it mattered most. At least until this year.
As for Wren, he brought in the Upton brothers and Chris Johnson and waved goodbye to catcher and clubhouse glue Brian McCann. While Justin Upton has been crucial to the Braves' moderate successes until this month -- he's leading the club in home runs (27) and RBI (97) this season -- he's batted a major-league low .125 among every-day players for September. Brother BJ's been a disaster from the start and Johnson has begun to hit the skids.
Such miscalculations in talent have cost better men than Wren their jobs and it should end his seven-year tenure.
If Wren's gone, the logical choice to replace him is former John Schuerholz aid Dayton Moore, who currently holds the GM job for resurgent Kansas City. The roll-the-dice pick might be current assistant GM John Coppolella, who is said to embrace the "money ball" approach of signing undervalued talent cheap.
Yet whatever happens in the front office, the position players must learn how to manufacture runs in a way that will allow them to rise above their current ranking of second-to-last in the majors in runs scored and third in the NL in strikeouts.
It all looks as if a najor housecleaning might be in order other than the balance of the pitching staff, first baseman Freddie Freeman, shortstop Andrelton Simmons and right fielder Jason Heyward.
True to his protective roots, Gonzalez said of Sunday's loss, "We had a chance ... If we'd gotten a couple more runs, it might have been a different ballgame."
If they'd gotten a couple of more runs a couple of dozen more times it might have been a different season. Instead, it feels like it's time to get different leadership from the top down.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com