I caught up with Braves relief pitcher Peter Moylan in the middle of spring training in the Atlanta clubhouse. Peter's a jovial guy who is looking to crack jokes whenever he can and often answers questions with a tinge of sarcasm. He's a real joy to interview, and he's someone who is almost always available to answer a few questions. Hopefully we'll get to see him pitch again this year, but it's looking more and more like he's destined for Tommy John surgery.

Martin Gandy:  So how was your off-season.

Peter Moylan:  It was good, really good. I went back [to Australia], worked out a lot actually, went down to the beach a lot, and swam and ran and hopped on the bike... tanned, all the important stuff.

MG:  Did you work on anything in particular?

PM:  No, not really. I started playing catch in November and didn't throw any pins until I came over here, then when I came over here is when I started getting it going again.

MG:  How would you assess your 2007 season?

PM:  It was pretty good. There's room for improvement. I've spent the majority of spring training working on a change-up that will help me be more consistent against left-handed hitters. I'm looking forward to starting the year, and there are new challenges every year, and it's going to be tough to build on what happened last year but I just sort of see it as a challenge.

MG:  Do you feel that your role is defined already as the setup man?

PM:  People have told me that as well, but nothing has been said, and no one actually comes and says, "oh, your role's going to be this."

MG:  What about long relief, you did a lot of long relief early in the season last year. Which role do you prefer?

PM:  Doesn't matter if it's the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth inning, it doesn't matter, I go at it with the same mindset.

MG:  Well, there's a difference in pitching three than pitching one inning.

PM:  Sure, but you get more rest when you pitch three. I'm the kind of guy that wants the ball every single day, so it doesn't matter to me what inning it is.

MG:  Describe yourself as a pitcher.

PM:  Junk-baller.

MG:  Junk-baller? A side-arm junk-baller.

PM:  You got it. I pitch to contact to try and get guys to hit it on the ground.

MG:  Now that Damian Moss is in camp along with Phil Stockman, do you feel any extra pressure being that the team still does have a one Aussi policy?

PM:  Well, I think we're going to break that tradition. There's always room for more Australians -- that's just how we roll.

MG:  You're just taking over the baseball world.

PM:  <laughing> That's right! One Aussi at a time.

MG:  Do you look at your stats during the season?

PM:  Not really, but it's pretty hard not to with reporters asking questions about certain stats. But I don't go home after every game and see how my ERA's looking. I know whether I've done my job and that's all I care about.

MG:  Do you pay any attention to any one particular stat?

PM:  I mean ERA's can get... you have one bad outing in a year and your ERA can get blown out of proportion.

MG:  Okay, thanks a lot Peter.

It's bad enough that we're uncertain about the immediate future of Tom Glavine and that our closer, Rafael Soriano, is on the disabled list, but now the team has put reliever/interim closer Peter Moylan on the 15-day DL with a right elbow strain. Is Mike Hampton contagious or something?

That's a shit-load of injuries for this early in the season. Already we've had three starting pitchers on the DL -- Hampton (does he count anymore), Smoltz, and James -- and now two relievers -- Soriano and Moylan (not to mention Mike Gonzalez). I remember some years back in the mid-90s when hardly any key player would get injured for an entire year! I guess all that good luck is finally turning on us.

Coming up to replace the Ausi is starter and longman Buddy Carlyle. I guess with Buddy they wanted experience, because they sure didn't pick the hot arm. Buddy had made two starts, had not gone longer than four innings in either of them, and had given up 11 hits in 7.2 innings (and three walks) -- that's a 7.04 ERA. I know it's still early and yada yada yada, but why not give Charlie Morton a shot -- he's only given up five hits in 10.1 innings for a 0.87 ERA. Or even, dare I say it, Jo-Jo Reyes, who hasn't given up a run yet and has 14 strikeouts in nine innings (Jo-Jo must have rediscovered his strikeout pitch).

Oh well, Buddy has spurts of decentness, perhaps we can catch one of those. I don't even think the team knows how they'll fill in the rotation for the near term. For the Florida series we'll trot out Jurrjens, Hudson, and Smoltz, then the team site shows us throwing Bennett in the opener against LA at home on Friday followed by a TBA pitcher. Glavine's turn is Saturday and everyone will have to play the "wait and see" game before we know if he'll be able to pitch in that game.

Between the one-run losses and all the damn injuries I may be a broken man before the All-Star break!

We've played four games, and our bullpen has made 25 appearances! Including the oddity of Chris Resop who has 5 appearances in only four games after appearing twice in last night's game while playing left field for one batter. None of this is a good sign for a part of our team that is supposed to be a strength. Keep in mind that while some of these appearances are for one batter, they still have to warm up in the bullpen, then again on the mound -- that's a lot of back to back wear and tear this early in the season.

Add to all this the fact that we are carrying eight relievers (instead of the usual seven), and tonight we'll likely have nine relievers in the bullpen and the numbers above sort of boggle the mind. For comparison, the Atlanta starters have made three appearances (I'm not counting Bennett as a starter, even though he made a start) totaling 17.1 innings. It hurts that two out of the four games we've played are for extra innings, but that just further underscores the importance of the starters going deep into games this weekend (and the offense scoring plenty of early runs to put us ahead and keep us ahead).

Admirably, Royce Ring earns the "perfect award" for having appeared in three games to face one batter in each game and having struck out all three batters he's faced -- that's a good LOOGY.