Let's face it - the Braves can't seem to have both at the same time.  Obviously, this year is a year of inept offense, but some good starting pitching.  Previous years, we've been privy to some Braves teams that were capable of generating a good bit of runs, but had pitching staffs that either couldn't start, or couldn't close.

FOX really loves to drive home the notion that Pitching.  Wins.  Championships.

But the rules of baseball state that one team must have more runs than the other team in order to be declared the winner of that particular game.  And the Braves haven't been very good at scoring any runs, despite how well the pitchers might be pitching.

So instead of mulling about how much the Braves stink right now, throwing in the towel, or being yet another Negative Nancy (believe me, I'm quite not enthused about the Braves right now either), I'm going to write about some numbers, and ask the subject lined question.  What is your preference - better offense, or better pitching?  Because right now, the Braves can't have the cake and expect to eat it too.

It's objective, but I'm going to throw out some numbers from the last four (wow, has it really been that long?) years, and see if that helps sway anyone reading in one direction or another.

2005 - the last year the Braves made the playoffs

Record:  90-72
Runs Scored:  769
Runs Allowed:  674
Leaned towards:  Offensive season.

A career year by Andruw Jones and his 51 homers and 128 RBI was the big story, but 13 members of the Atlanta Braves contributed with at least 20 RBI.  Eight of them had at least 40 RBI (Estrada had 39).  The pitching was wildly inconsistent all year long, but surprise emergences of guys like Horacio Ramirez and Jorge Sosa, both of whom contributed 10+ wins helped the Braves make their last playoff appearance before being exposed.  The Braves scored 95 more runs than they had allowed, but at 674 runs allowed, they did a pretty good job of keeping the opponents off the board too.  Makes sense that they'd win a division with this kind of output.

2006 - end of an era

Record:  79-83
Runs Scored:  849
Runs Allowed:  805
Leaned towards:  Offensive season.

Andruw Jones had another superb season, anchoring the offense with 41 homers and 129 RBI, but Jeff Francoeur, despite his then-considered-paltry .742 OPS helped carry the offense with 29 homers and 103 RBI of his own.  Adam LaRoche and Brian McCann exploded with 32 and 24 homers respectively while each driving in 90+ RBI.  10 Braves had at least 20 RBI (Todd Pratt, 19), and eight Braves cracked the 30+ RBI mark with Betemit and Langerhans just falling short with 29 and 28 a piece.  Anyone remember that ridiculous stretch where the Braves hung like 75 runs on the Padres, Cardinals and Phillies?  The Braves were scoring a lot and often, but the problem was that the pitching was allowing almost as many.  Aside from Smoltz and the surprising Chuck James, the starting pitching was wildly inconsistent (even Huddy), and the bullpen was a disaster.

2007 - at least we finished above .500

Record:  84-78
Runs Scored:  810
Runs Allowed:  733
Leaned towards:  Offensive season.

This was such a promising season.  The Braves were still scoring a lot of runs, but the pitching was once again, poor beyond Smoltz and Hudson.  Early on, the Braves were winning a lot of games by blowouts, but the problem was that they were getting blown out just as frequently.  At the end of the year the Braves' record in blowout games (5+ run margin) was 24-20.  Also keep in fact that 56 of the 87 run differential in scored/allowed was all Mark Teixeira.  It was clear that if the Braves couldn't acquire starting pitching, they were going to go for a bigger gun to try and outslug their opponents.  Unfortunately, this is a prime example of where their fine offense was knocked flat on its butt by the pitching that wins championships.  And despite their pleasing above .500 season, it wasn't enough.

2008 - worst since '90

Record:  72-90
Runs Scored:  753
Runs Allowed:  768
Leaned towards:  Pitching season, by default.

Barely, only because the Braves' pitching staff was demolished by injury far worse than it was in 2006, but the offense was outright pathetic.  Losing Tim Hudson was devastating, and the whole Smoltz debacle was an awful way to see him limp through 2008.  But the offense could not come through in any key situations, also evidenced by the abysmal 11-30 record in one-run games.  Also this squad could never get the edge in any extra-inning scenario, evidenced by their 3-10 record in extra-inning games.

2009 - shouldn't we be better than this?

Current record:  30-34
Runs Scored:  268  (On pace for: 677)
Runs Allowed:  293  (On pace for:  741)
Currently leaned towards:  Pitching season.

So prior to this season, the Braves went full head-on to put a big band-aid over the gaping gushing wound that was starting pitching, by acquiring Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami, and making a trade for Javier Vazquez.  That's fine and dandy, and combined with Jair Jurrjens and phenom Tommy Hanson, the starting rotation looks to be in decent shape.  The offense, on the other hand is the new wound that is bleeding the team to death, as way too much stock was put into the faith that Jeff Francoeur would find out how to play good baseball again, Garret Anderson would be close to the median that he set in all those years out in Anaheim, and Jordan Schafer would be greatness out of the box.  Neither of those hopes came to fruition, and the Braves are struggling to win ball games, because they can't score any runs to support the pitchers whom have pretty much been holding their end of the bargain and keeping the team close and most of the time going at least six innings.

If the Atlanta Braves continue playing like they are now, then a .460 winning% is all that should be expected, at best.  The scary thing is that I do believe that pitching does win championships, and it's always evidenced when watching MLB playoffs, when a Carpenter, a Shields, a Francis or a Beckett just goes out there and makes potent offenses look like, well, the 2009 Braves.  But if that's the case, then why do the last few seasons of non-playoff-caliber Braves baseball look so much better than what we're enduring now?

I think the reason why I'm so not enjoying this season is because when your team is down, then you have to hope that they can come back.  Whereas when your team scores 8 runs a game, having to hope that they can just hold onto it, which seems safer, I'm guessing.  To think that I'm thinking back to 2006, when the Braves would at least be in the lead when going into the 9th inning, even despite seeing guys like Chris Reitsma trotting out to go for the close, it just felt a lot more comforting knowing that we were in the lead.