…as the Mets return home to host the Braves for the first time this season, I caught up with Matt Foreman, who blogs about the Braves at Talking Chop…

D.J. Short:

First, tell us a little about tonight’s starter Jair Jurrjens.

Matt Foreman:

Well he meets our team requirement of always carrying one player native to Curacao. A lot of people say he will be no better than a #3 or #4 starter which I think is complete bollux. His stuff is better than most people think with his fastball topping out at 95 or so and he can locate all of his pitches exceptionally well. Just look for him to work both sides of the plate and not give away any pitches.

D.J. Short:

Past all the nostalgia, were you happy to see the Braves sign Tom Glavine?

Matt Foreman:

Obviously this was a hot topic all off season with us here and I personally wasn’t a huge fan of it. Our only real options (financially at least) were take Glavine back at the discount he was offering or rely on Jo-Jo Reyes or another young starter to fill the void. I was all for bringing in Reyes and letting him pitch his way out of the job, but I guess the front office didn’t really see it that way. In the end I really couldn’t get past the fact that Glavine put up 23 quality starts on the season, and if we had that last year we might have been playing in October again.

D.J. Short:

Are you concerned about Mark Teixeira’s slow start? Does he have any chance of staying a Brave long-term?

Matt Foreman:

Not really. He has started slow in the past and he has been hitting better lately. His plate discipline has been solid as well so I don’t really think there is much there to worry about. Do we have a chance to sign him? Sure there’s a chance for everything. We are paying Mike Hampton $15 million this year and can finally be rid of him by exercising his buyout so we will have a little money to play with. Also, Liberty appears to be a little more willing to open up the purse strings. We’re all baseball fans here so that means we like numbers. I say we have a 40-60 shot of resigning him. He comes off as too much of a merc. for my tastes and with Boras behind him I don’t know that we can afford him.

D.J. Short:

So I’m guessing the Braves aren’t missing Edgar Renteria at shortstop?

Matt Foreman:

No. I was a huge detractor of Yunel Escobar and was all for Brent Lillibridge being our starting shortstop this season. I didn’t like Escobar’s power production or his lack of speed or the fact that he doesn’t walk much. His only real asset is the ability to hit for high average which is so subjective that it just scared me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to keep Renteria, but I didn’t like Escobar. Well I’m an idiot and Escobar is the second best shortstop in the division behind Han-Ram.

D.J. Short:

The bullpen appears to be held together with scotch tape at the moment. How confident are you with this bunch?

Matt Foreman:

I honestly don’t know. They have held together fairly well this week and have been helped by our starters going deeper into games. They really were overtaxed in the first couple of weeks of the season but none of these guys are bullpen stars. I don’t know when Soriano will be back and his shoulder has always been a bit balky, Moylan is most likely done and he was our best reliever and I have about as much confidence in Mike Gonzalez return as I do in Mike Hampton’s. We do have some decent depth at Richmond and even Mississippi if we need it and 50% of bullpen work ends up being finding the hot hand anyways.

D.J. Short:

Lastly, does it bother you that the Braves are often overlooked in the NL East race?

Matt Foreman:

I don’t know how overlooked we were this year with ESPN’s front page spread picking us to win it all. But I know what you are saying. It doesn’t bother me much, we have been the underdog for a couple of years now and I think the Phillies and Marlins know we are coming for them.

…ha…nice touch at the end there, Matt…thanks for pinch-hitting for Martin on such short notice…