Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves Doesn’t Hustle
I’m not sure why someone as talented as Chipper Jones doesn’t hustle, but it has really been hurting the team lately. So many of the younger Braves players look up to Chipper and he is setting a bad example for the kids that is suppose to follow in his shoes. I have noticed that all the recent player call ups in the last few years or so, that the guys from the minors are over hustling. It appears the minor league coaches for the Braves see that Bobby Cox isn’t teaching his players to hustle, so they are correcting this glitch at the minor league level.
Chipper thinks when he hits one off the wall and gets a double, that his job is done and its up to his teammates to bat him in. He never tries to get to 2nd base as fast as he can, and round the bag like a professional/millionaire baseball player should be doing. In today or yesterday’s game, Taveras for Colorado fumbled the ball and Chipper almost went to 3rd base. Now if he would have been hustling and rounded the bag, he could have went to 3rd standing up. So he really needs to hustle more on these doubles he is hitting.
Now when he hits the hard, infield ground ball directly to someone, he never really runs them out either. He just gallops to first and when the infielder makes a bad throw or the first basemen has to come off the bag to catch the throw, they still have plenty of time to still get Chipper out, because he doesn’t hustle.
He struggled in yesterday’s game and didn’t have a single hit and struck out 3 times. Now right after the game, I have inside information that said he went directly to the batting cages. I guess he got the kinks worked out some, because he came out today and reached base safely on 4 out of 5 trips with a homerun. Now the 3 hits he had in the game was needed, but when we needed him the most, he struck out on 3 or 4 pitches. He was trying to guess the pitch and drive it somewhere hard. At the time, we only needed a base hit slapped somewhere and didn’t need for him to clear the wall with anything. He has struggled the most in the pressure situations this year. Chipper Jones is not and I repeat NOT the man you want to be at-bat with the last at-bat of the game. He just doesn’t have it right now, and there just isn’t enough heart from this veteran player. Chipper Jones is only going through the motions of being a big league baseball player and while he is in his mid 30’s, he’s decided his work is done!
If it sounds like I am calling Chipper Jones out, then that’s great, because that is exactly what I am doing. I hold Bobby Cox responsible for giving Chipper Jones the 3rd spot in the lineup, when Chipper hasn’t had a clutch hit this year! I hate the way Cox shows favortism, but Chipper Jones has to shoulder some of the blame too. He has said in the past that he prefers the 3rd spot in the lineup. Duh! What player wouldn’t? I’m glad to see Willie Harris leading off and playing centerfield. Hopefully he’s in centerfield when we play the biggest series of the year comming up this Tuesday Night against the New York Mets.
