With one half of the AAA International league season complete, the Gwinnett Braves are playing good baseball, but have room for improvement. At least that’s how G-Braves manager Dave Brundage would sum up the first half. The team is 51-40 at the All-Star break, a half game back in the south division and tied for first in the wild card race.
Brundage takes a measure of satisfaction in the play of his team, and also recognizes the G-Braves are an ongoing improvement project, a team with a to do list ahead of them, “Our pitching has been outstanding. Pitching is one of the reasons we are where we are today, but we’ve let some ball games get away. We’re starting to take advantage of the good pitching we’ve had all season long.”
The good pitching literally begins with the starting rotation. All-world prospect Julio Teheran carries a 9-1 record and started the Major League Futures game for the international team Sunday. Todd Redmond (6-8, 3.25 ERA), the AAA veteran on the staff, has pitched two complete games and leads the team in innings pitched. Like Teheran, lefty Mike Minor (3-4, 3.21 ERA) has bounced between Lawrenceville and Atlanta and garnered IL pitching awards. Yohan Flande seems to have successfully transitioned from the bullpen to a starting role and is third on the team with 78.1 innings pitched.
While not on the level of the stellar pitching, the offense is improving thanks to outfielders Stefan Gartrell and Jose Constanza. Constanza provides the spark. The lefty hitter is has a .322 batting average and 20 stolen bases. Gartrell is the flame. Acquired, after playing only seven games for Charlotte, the White Sox AAA affiliate in mid-April, he has hit 17 home runs, 21 doubles, driven in 56 runs while slugging .553 for the G-Braves. On Monday, he won the AAA version of the Home Run Derby.
The G-Braves have been improving despite a roster that is constant flux. While it should be understood that minor league rosters are about as liquid as a Lindsay Lohan “diet,” the 2011 G-Braves roster has been ridiculously transient. In 2010, the team weathered 51 player transactions before the break. This year, they listed 68 player moves in the just the months April and May alone. All that personnel shifting could explain some inconsistent play by the team, but leadership is not for making excuses for uneven performances. Looking forward to playoff push in July and August, Brundage is focused and optimistic, “While we’ve shown we can be a good team, we’ve shown we can play in the bottom half of the league [standings]. When we put it all together, we’re a pretty good team. [We will work] to maintain that consistency on a regular basis.”
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