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 April showers Braves' Glavine not making much of early woes
Posted: Tuesday April 27, 1999 10:47 PM
ATLANTA (AP) -- Almost a month into the season, Tom Glavine hardly looks like the 20-game winner who captured the Cy Young Award a year ago. The Atlanta Braves left-hander is still seeking his first victory after four starts, his ERA a most un-Glavine-like 5.61. He's 0-3 for the first time since his rookie season in 1988, and he's given up a staggering 33 hits in 25 2-3 innings. This from the pitcher who has averaged more than 16 victories a year since '89, including four 20-win seasons. Last year, he won his second Cy Young after going 20-6 with a 2.47 ERA. "It's just four out of 35 or 36 starts," said Glavine, who pitches again Wednesday night against Pittsburgh. "There's a lot of time to turn it around and get better." Some observers have speculated that Glavine's problems can be traced to baseball's attempts to better define the strike zone. In recent years, the biggest disputes have involved the outside strike, most notably Eric Gregg's trampoline-size plate when Livan Hernandez had 15 strikeouts against the Braves in a 1997 NL Championship Series game. Glavine, who works most effectively when his changeup is an inch or two off the plate, insists that a narrower strike zone is not his problem. "My location is, at best, inconsistent," he said. "But I'm not far off." The Braves don't seem too concerned about Glavine's early woes, even though he always has been a fast starter in the past. Prior to this season, he was 24-13 with a 2.66 ERA in the first month of the season. "It's just a slump," catcher Javy Lopez said. "It's just like a hitter who goes a few games without getting a hit. Same thing for a pitcher. They go through slumps, too." If there was ever a pitcher who could handle the fickleness of the game, it's Glavine. He's been there for all of Atlanta's good times during this decade, including his eight-inning, one-hit performance in the deciding game of the '95 World Series. But he's also been the losing pitcher in the final game of the NLCS the past two years. In every case, his poker-faced expression never changed. "He's real mature," Lopez said. "He's know how to handle it. It's just a matter of trying a little harder." Glavine looks like his old self when throwing the slider and fastball on the outside corner of the plate. But he's struggled with his best pitch, the changeup, and he's been hammered when he tries to come inside to right-handed hitters with the fastball. "When he throws the changeup, it's not slow and sinking like it was last year," Lopez said. "And he's leaving his fastball over the plate." Unlike Mark Wohlers, who was finally dumped by the Braves because of control problems, Glavine's command of the strike zone may be a little too precise. He's only had four unintentional walks through his first four starts, an average of 1.4 per nine innings. His career average is three walks per nine innings. "I'm looking at a lot of guys and sometimes they've struggled because they're not throwing strikes and walking people," Glavine said. "That's not my problem. My problem is too many strikes that are good. I'm catching too much of the plate."
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