Everyone has heard about the curse on the Cubs, the White Sox, or any one of the other multitude of strings of bad luck, but how about the curse on the Atlanta Braves?
The entire pitching staff has not been able to stay healthy the entire season. In an interview last week, Chipper Jones alluded to the fact that maybe the last few years have been punishment from the baseball gods for the string of division titles the Braves put together. Whatever forces are at work no one seems to be safe, young or old.
John Smoltz has been lost for the season to have surgery on his shoulder. Mike Gonzalez had surgery on his elbow. Even Tom Glavine, who had not spent time on the DL in his career up to this point, is now making himself comfortable on that very list. Mike Hampton has box seats in that group and probably will for a while longer. Peter Moylan also joins this ever growing host of pitchers.
To top things off, the best young hurler the Braves have had in a long time, in Jair Jurrjens, tripped down a flight of stairs coming out of Wrigley Field and sprained his ankle.
The pain and misery does not stop there, though. The injury bug has rolled over into the everyday lineup. Chipper, who leads the majors with a batting average hovering around .400, has already partially torn a quad, then hit himself in the eye during batting practice. How unlucky can one possibly get to hit a ball off of a crossbar in the batting cage into one's eye.
Whether there are ghosts, goblins, poltergeists, the baseball gods, or just bad luck involved, one can't help but wonder what is going on in Atlanta and whether it will end soon.
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