Atlanta Braves right-handed pitcher Tim Hudson was nice enough to give me a few minutes of his time last weekend to talk about his first half performance and what he's looking forward to in the second half.
Martin Gandy (MG): Tim, how would you rate your performance in the first half?
Tim Hudson (TH): Pretty shitty. Not what I would like, obviously; especially as of late. I know my last outing of the first half was decent, but I expect a lot better out of myself in the second half.
MG: What do you improve on in the second half?
TH: Just my delivery. Get my delivery ironed out, some things in my delivery, and things should be good.
MG: What do you like most about this Braves team, and what do you like the least?
TH: I think what I like the most is that there's not a whole lot of panic, as bad as we were playing, the panic button wasn't pressed. A lot of teams probably would have been pressing the panic button a long time ago. We were able to rebound mentally from that stretch that we had. We've got a different vibe right now than we did then. A lot of teams would have packed their bags up and called it a year, but I think we've got a lot of guys in here who want to win.
MG: Do you think the Athletics' teams you were on could have survived a stretch like the Braves had?
TH: We probably did, to be honest with you. We were always really streaky, and it seemed like at the beginning of the year we had some bad stretches. I don't know if it was quite like we had here, after that month, but it was always challenging.