Braves bring back all coaches for 2009

[HMFFL]

Falling flat this season in the standings is not going to cost any of the Braves coaches their jobs.

The Braves announced Thursday they have retained all six members of their coaching staff for the 2009 season: Roger McDowell as pitching coach, Terry Pendleton as hitting coach, Chino Cadahia as bench coach, Brian Snitker as third-base coach, Glenn Hubbard as first-base coach and Eddie Perez as bullpen coach.

As manager Bobby Cox put it Thursday, the Braves don’t blame the coaching staff for all the injuries.

“I’m disappointed they couldn’t enjoy this season more with the work that they’ve done,” said Cox, who is under contract for next season as well and has reiterated of late he will make good on that commitment.

“They are really, really good. Good baseball people. Unfortunately none of them could pitch, and we lost four starters.”

It admittedly came as a relief to coaches who knew their jobs could be on the line.

“You have to be a little concerned,” Pendleton said. “For all of us as players, you’re only concerned with what you did. As a coach you have to be concerned with what others do. It’s a whole different world for me. I would be lying if I said there wasn’t some concern as coaches because of what we haven’t done as a team.”

Snitker smiled when asked about it Thursday, saying he had two kids in college.

“We’ve all been around long enough to know, you never know what’s going to happen,” said Snitker, who was in his second season as third-base coach after spending most of the past 30 years in the Braves minor-league organization.

“We know we’re capable of being better with everybody healthy. Everything we went through to survive this year, you want to be around for when things go right. It was a tough situation this year. You can’t do anything but survive it.”


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