Troy Glaus has done this to me in the past and I just
have to hope it isn’t happening again. Glaus was once a very good third basemen for the Anaheim Angels. The type that could lead the AL in homers on year and take his whole team on his broad back to a World Series in another.
He was one of the power hitting guys who could be called “The Slugger” you know the type of power that hit balls onto picnic tables, the kind that could drive in 100-plus yearly, the kind of guy you wanted on your team.
Oh but what havoc a bunch of injuries will do to your career. He’s been bounced around both the NL and AL since the time he was thought of that highly and while the results have been very good when he’s healthy the time on the DL has also been so large that you can only begin to think of the stats he could have had on the back of his baseball cards.
A new season, a new team and yet Glaus is still giving me good vibes. He’s always seemed to get off to reasonable starts and if Sunday is any indication of things I think he’s again set the bar high for my expectations. Glaus was 3-for-3 with a double and an RBI on Sunday as the Braves middle of the order was in full check and they were clicking.
Glaus is without question the Braves go-to guy at the cleanup spot with the hope that Nate McLouth, Martin Prado, and Chipper Jones are on base for him to drive in. If he struggles he’ll move down the order which ultimately means the Braves are going to again turn to McCann/Escobar as the four-five combo which isn’t the worst thing in the world but something everyone hoped would be updated by the acquisition of a big bat this winter: Troy Glaus’ big bat this winter.
Ideally Glaus remains in the four spot much of the year which puts a very couple of very good hitters behind him in McCann and Escobar which would only elevate the number of runs the Braves score this year. Exactly what we need to go along with a stellar rotation.
Despite the fact the Braves finished sixth in the NL in runs scored last season they struggled for good portions of the year to give their starting pitching any wiggle room and found themselves in tenth in home runs and slugging percentage.
Glaus will need to put an end to that power outage or this team isn’t going any further then it did last year. I hate to say it but it’s true. As much as we can write about Jason Heyward it’s the free agent first basemen that will play the biggest role for the Braves in 2010.
Heyward at best puts up number that could be replicated by Melky Cabrera. That’s fine.
But for the Braves to be a serious playoff team Glaus needs to put up numbers that read 30 homers, 100 RBI, 70 runs scored.
Can he do it? I’ve always believed he could but he’s sometimes left me disappointed. Will he do it? For the Braves sake I sure hope so.
