What in the world compels a team to be 30 games worse on the road than at home? Can anyone honestly answer this question for me? I mean, I understand that Zach Duke and Paul Maholm are better suited for PNC, that our outfield shift works particularly well with the big left-center gap in PNC, and other sorts of things that play to a homefield advantage, but 30 games? And why are we so bad against the division on the road? You’d think if we could adjust to PNC, we’d take time to find ways to do it in the five other parks that we play almost half of our road games in. It’s almost certainly one of those things that can only be chalked up to “bad luck,” which is a maddeningly incomplete explanation for something that probably is mostly bad luck but feels so damn real it’s driving me nuts.
Also, tonight’s game was painful to watch. There’s a reason that Chris Bootcheck and Virgil Vasquez started the year out in Triple-A and why the Braves were willing to trade Charlie Morton.
