Sports Daily: Seeing what sticks

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‘NO REAL SECOND CHANCES’

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

I wrote a column that went online Tuesday about the lack of depth in the Braves bullpen and the concern that it presents for the season ahead. When it’s February and general manager Alex Anthopoulos is cautioning to expect “churn” throughout the season, that’s not a good sign.

Not having signed any relievers to a major league contract after not re-signing A.J. Minter and Jesse Chavez and losing Joe Jiménez possibly for the season after knee surgery, the Braves instead signed a boatload of veteran relievers to minor-league deals and are hoping at least a few of them pan out.

I spoke with one of them last week while I was in North Port, Florida, and he typified the crew of aspirants. Nearly all of them have proven that they can get hitters out at the major league level, but they also come with their share of question marks.

Over the past four years, pitcher Chad Kuhl has been either released or allowed to walk by four teams. That includes last season’s Chicago White Sox. It must be a humbling thing for the team that set the record for most losses in modern baseball history to decide it doesn’t need you.

So why would Anthopoulos bring him in?

If you remove Kuhl’s two worst appearances (out of 31), his ERA drops from 5.06 to 3.61. And then you can also factor in that the White Sox defense was possibly the worst in baseball, which didn’t help Kuhl’s ERA. And then also consider that Kuhl had a career-high 9.1 strikeouts per nine innings and also that he’s had a number of better seasons than last year.

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It helps you understand why Anthopoulos would give Kuhl a shot.

Kuhl has no delusions about his chances. He isn’t holding out much hope he’ll make the opening day roster. But it’s entirely possible he could start the season at Triple-A Gwinnett and get a call-up.

Injuries happen and pitchers underperform. The Braves used 30 pitchers last season.

As the Braves start spring-training games — they open with Minnesota on Saturday — pitchers like Kuhl will have a lot on the line.

“You want to go out and perform,” he said. “There’s no real second chances. You go out there and you work in your bullpens and try to get better, and then you go perform. I’m 32 years old, so it’s just going out there and performing.”

ALL-STAR DREAMS

Credit: TNS

Credit: TNS

The abysmal ratings drawn by Sunday night’s NBA All-Star game (4.7 million viewers, the second-lowest TV viewership in the last 25 years) and the criticism lodged even by participants like Hawks guard Trae Young provided a clear response.

The four-team playoff format (along with its many breaks in action) is not the answer to make the event more appealing to viewers.

At the same time, the NHL hit the jackpot with its own new tournament format for its All-Star game, just one that is far more compelling. With NHL players representing the U.S., Canada, Finland and Sweden in the 4 Nations Face-Off, the league has had a ratings winner.

📺 Saturday’s U.S.-Canada matchup drew an average of 4.4 million viewers, more than triple the viewership for the 2024 All-Star game.

Hopefully this pushes the NBA (and, for that matter, Major League Baseball) to a solution for their own All-Star games that has seemed so obvious — U.S. vs. the World. The volume of regular-season games available on TV (and interleague play in baseball) has made All-Star games much less of the spectacle they once were. And in the NBA in particular, the shortage of motivation has hurt the product.

But giving the players — the international ones, in particular — something to play for would change the dynamic. And the question of who would win an NBA (or MLB) game between American and international stars is far more intriguing than a matchup of the conferences or leagues.

There are issues, the primary one being that both the NBA and MLB rosters are predominantly American, so this format would probably deny deserving U.S. players of All-Star spots (and the accompanying bonuses).

And the answer to that is, so what?

It’s an exhibition. The leagues stage these games to make money and build their audiences.

This really needs to happen.

ON TAP TONIGHT

Tyler jumping in here to add that USA takes on Canada in the “4 Nations” final tonight at 8 on ESPN. Also on tap locally:

🐝 The No. 20 Georgia Tech women’s basketball team hosts No. 13 N.C. State (7 p.m. on ACC Network Extra).

🏀 The Hawks begin post-All-Star break action by hosting the Magic (7:30 p.m. on FanDuel Sports Southeast).

Now back to Ken ...

THE END OF THE ROAD

If you read my email last week, I shared my travel adventures while covering the Georgia Tech-Louisville football game last September after I rented an electric vehicle to make the trip from Atlanta to Louisville.

I left you with a cliff-hanger — I was driving back from Louisville, making good time to be back for a Falcons-Chiefs game I was covering that night and with plenty of juice in my EV. It looked like I was home free, but then disaster struck.

😬 And now, the dramatic conclusion and further demonstration of my continuing travel-related ineptitude.

As I drove home, I was listening to a Braves-Marlins game, a must-win for the Braves in their playoff hunt. The drama was tense as I drove through Chattanooga, a junction I’ve managed without a problem at least a dozen times. And so it seemed this time, switching from I-24 to I-75 South to Atlanta.

Unfortunately, it took me a while to notice that I was actually on I-75 North, and I blame the Braves. I was so caught up in the game that it didn’t dawn on me that I was going the wrong way for at least 45 miles.

I think what did it was that, eventually, after I’d told my wife earlier in the day that I’d be home around 3, I checked my navigation app and I was very confused about why it now said 5 p.m. (Don’t ask me why I didn’t notice the app was telling me to turn around. I may have turned it off. I guess you can blame the Braves for that too.)

I’ve made that drive enough times to know the landscape and different landmarks along I-75 in North Georgia. And yet I failed to notice anything being out of the ordinary.

As I turned around and cursed myself, I was reminded of the scene from “Dumb and Dumber” when Jim Carrey’s character gets spun around on his westward drive to Colorado, ending up in Nebraska, and Jeff Bridges’ character tells him, “Huh — I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this.”

Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Amusingly (perhaps tellingly), I also recalled that my dear late mother actually did the same thing when I was maybe 12 and we were on our way from our home outside Chicago to watch my sister, Misa, swim in a meet in Wisconsin. A Cubs pitcher (Steve Trout, don’t ask me how I remember this) got in a jam and my mom was so wrapped up in his fate that we missed our exit. (I have to think she realized it far sooner than I did though.)

The problem now, though, was that the battery reserves were significantly depleted, and where I previously had enough to get home with margin to spare, I now was going to have to stop to recharge. So I had to find a fast-charging station (because a slower-charging station could prevent me from getting to the Falcons game on time) before I ran out of power.

Eventually, I found one in Kennesaw that was about 80 miles from where I was, and the dashboard informed me that I had about … 83 miles left. To save power, I turned off the air conditioner (it was about 95 degrees outside) while keeping the windows rolled up (to improve aerodynamics), turned off the radio and even unplugged the phone charger.

Naturally, I ran into traffic, which bled the car of precious power while I puttered along. I started to think that maybe I needed to stop at a slower-charging station just to get me to the faster one. I began to contemplate what I would do if the battery ran out before I got to the station. It was not a proud moment.

Thankfully, though, I made it to Kennesaw, charged the car, got home safely and arrived at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with plenty of time to spare.

🤔 Two points:

Thanks for making it this far. I hope it was worth the time spent. For better or worse, it’s only one of many misadventures I’ve encountered (“created” is probably the more honest verb) in my days at the AJC.

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you here next week!

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

The Milton High School boys topped Riverwood 70-64 in their Class 5A state playoff matchup, advancing to visit top-seeded Woodward Academy on Saturday. More photos here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Thanks for reading to the very bottom of Sports Daily. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at tyler.estep@ajc.com.

Until next time.