Braves Hope Relief Is in Sight for October Run

Another division title is assured, but the Atlanta Braves have been there, done that.

Their reputation as the team of the ‘90s continues to hinge on what they do in October--and what they do in October may hinge on what they are able to do before Friday’s non-waiver trade deadline.

In a week in which Manager Bobby Cox yanked center fielder Andruw Jones from a game for loafing after a fly ball, General Manager John Schuerholz continued to hustle after a closer amid continuing concern over Mark Wohlers’ ability to regain his dominance.

“I’ve made every call a rotisserie league general manager would be expected to make,” Schuerholz said in his Turner Field office.

“The reality is that if we intend to fix the closer situation, we have to do it by the 31st. That’s not to say it would be impossible to do something after that, but it would be improbable . . . at least to the extent of the depth and quality we feel we need to meet our [postseason] expectations.”

The Atlanta decade includes six division titles, four National League pennants and a World Series championship.

The Braves now have an 11-game winner (Kevin Millwood) as the fifth starter in the world’s best rotation and a right-handed slugger (Andres Galarraga) in the middle of their most balanced lineup. They are running away with the NL East, generating a win total overshadowed only by the New York Yankees and rivaled only by the San Diego Padres, with whom they are battling for the best record and home-field advantage should they meet in the league’s championship series.

It could be the best Atlanta team yet, but the Braves previously have tried to negotiate the playoff minefield without a reliable closer and failed, and Schuerholz--if he can’t count on Wohlers--seems hesitant to leave it with the basically inexperienced committee of Kerry Ligtenberg, John Rocker, Russ Springer and Rudy Seanez.

Of course, if he isn’t able to land a Randy Myers or Roberto Hernandez or Rick Aguilera or Mark Leiter, then. . . .

“We circle the wagons and do as well as we can with the guys who are here now and performing very well,” Schuerholz said.

“The job that Ligtenberg, Springer, Rocker and Seanez have done is more than acceptable. But as we know, when we get into those [short] series at the end of the year, each of them could turn dramatically on one inning of one game, so the highest quality and most experience you can have in that role, the better off you are.”

Wohlers had saved 97 games the last three years and was seven for seven this year before going on the disabled list May 3 because of a muscle tear on the side of his rib cage. He came back May 24, which may have been too soon. It is suspected he still was favoring the injury, throwing the mechanics of the 6-foot-4 pitcher out of sync.

Now the Braves worry his ongoing struggle to throw strikes and to throw them with his familiar 90 mph-plus heat is more mental than mechanical. Wohlers has been to the club’s Florida training base and to triple-A in a futile effort to work it out. He has been with the Braves for a week, being used in non-save roles while consulting with sports psychologist Jack Llewellyn.

In the best effort since his walk-and-run-riddled return, he got three ground-ball outs in a perfect inning at Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

Two days earlier, sitting in his office, Schuerholz had said: “I remain somewhat hopeful he’ll get it fixed before the end of the year.”

The Braves, with their postseason expectations, can’t wait until the end of the year to learn if Wohlers gets it fixed. Most closers go through this at some point, and pitching coach Leo Mazzone said of the hard reality: “If the closer is in a slump, you lose.”

Rookie Ligtenberg, 27, has 12 saves, but Schuerholz isn’t inclined to risk their October survival without a more experienced pitcher in the role. October, as the Braves know, is a different season, and the Chicago Cubs, their possible wild-card adversary in the first round, have left a calling card, winning six of their nine meetings, including Kerry Woods’ 3-0 victory over Greg Maddux on Tuesday night.

In praise from Caesar, Maddux said of his 21-year-old rival: “I think he has a chance to be the next Nolan Ryan, but with more wins. He can tell you what’s coming, and he’s still going to be hard to hit.”

As for the decision by Cox to promptly pull Jones from that same game, the manager received unanimous clubhouse support, with Latin American players taking the lack of hustle personally.

“If he looks bad, we look bad,” reserve catcher Eddie Perez said.

Remembering his 1996 World Series heroics, it is possible to forget that Jones is only 21 and came out of a sandlot environment on the Caribbean island of Curacao.

Cox has coaxed and paddled him through a series of misdemeanors in his bid to become the franchise player the Braves think is possible, but this was more of a felony, the manager said.

“It’s not like he’s a real bad guy or anything like that,” Cox said. “It’s just that there are certain ways you play the game, and that’s the way it is.”

Cox returned Jones to the lineup Wednesday in Philadelphia (“my job is to get him going, not sit him down”), and Jones made a key catch in a 3-2 victory Thursday.

Much is expected of Jones, of course, as it is of his team.

“You’d have to be brain dead not to be made aware on an almost daily basis, as we all are, of the view that anything less than a world championship is less than acceptable,” Schuerholz said.

“Despite the kind of success we’ve had, there are some who would judge us by the one world championship we’ve won and would dismiss our winningest record in baseball this decade. We don’t dismiss it, but the players hear those things, read those things. Therefore, the internalized pressures and expectations are created to the very highest standards.”

Meaning a World Series victory. No relief without it, and no victory without relief.