ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Braves at Phillies – 04/10/2003
Well, that’s salvaging something. Trey Hodges started and pitched exceptionally well for 4 2/3 innings, but Bobby pulled him after he gave up a two-out run-scoring double. So no win for Trey; it was somewhat randomly assigned to Darren Holmes instead. However, I have to wonder if they can send Hodges down to Richmond after a performance like that.
The Braves got good performances from four relievers, but used five; Kevin Gryboski almost made the game interesting in the seventh, allowing a single and a double with nobody out. He got out of it with only one run scoring, but Bobby keeps using him in high-leverage situations even though it’s pretty clear he’s not very good. On the other end of the spectrum is John Smoltz; three hitters, three strikeouts in a non-save situation. So far this year he’s allowed three hits, no runs, no walks, in 4 1/3.
Offensively, the Braves hit home runs, so they won. They’re now 4-0 when they do. Moreover, they’re 4-0 when Andruw Jones homers; he’s hit one in each win, last night a solo shot in the fourth. Robert Fick also added a solo homer in the seventh. Every Braves regular had at least one hit and reached base via hit or walk at least twice — except Vinny Castilla, who was 0-4. Ah, normality.
The road trip continues with three in Florida starting tonight.
As I’ve written before, I’m no big Gryboski fan and would probably demote him even without the Reynolds signing. But last night wasn’t exactly a high leverage situation. We’re up by three at the time with the Phillies brining up the bottom of their order in the 7th inning. If we’ve got to wait until we’re up or down by more than 3 runs to use him, there is no way he should be on the team.
Okay, a medium-leverage situation. He’s useless.
It would be a shame to send down Hodges when Gryboski and Dawley are practically begging for it. Of course, helping young pitchers develop at the ML level is apparently the last thing the Braves want to do.
I think Joe Dawley should be nervous. He was consistently rocked late in spring training and he has a 19.80 ERA so far. I would think he’d have to go.
Hodges is really the second best starter on the team (or third depending on how high you are on Ramirez), sending him down would make things tougher for a team without much margin for error.
I thnk Dawley certainly has to be the one to go to make room for Reynolds. The question then is who goes to make room for Hampton if, as they claim, he comes off the DL next week.
I’d be content to see a rotation right now of Maddux, Ortiz, Ramirez, Bong and Hodges. It won’t happen, but I think that even if they don’t kick ass, it would make the season interesting and given an insight into where the team might progress in 2004 and beyond.
I’ve been meaning to bring this up before now, but haven’t gotten around to it …
Aside from the Skip-Pete debacle, does anyone else see anything strange about the Braves’ TV scheduling so far this season? I don’t know if it’s conflicts with the NBA coverage or what, but the Braves seem to be shuffling an awful lot of high profile games off to Turner South.
Two of three games with the Phillies wound up there, with the other the compulsory Wednesday Fox game. Given that the Phils have been billed as the challenger to Atlanta’s throne all winter, wouldn’t you think TBS would want the ratings points associated with Phillies’ games? Wouldn’t that seem in keeping with the new “MLB on TBS” theme?
We get the same deal next week when Atlanta travels to Puerto Rico to play the Expos. I’m sure plenty of curious pseudo-fans would tune in for those games given the novelty of the location, but alas, the Tuesday and Thursday games are also on Turner South.
Meanwhile, we get six straight games against the crappy and boring Marlins on TBS. I realize those are weekend games, so maybe there’s some kind of contract issue there, but don’t you think the Braves would rather sacrifice the usually lower weekend ratings (by putting those games on Turner South) and show the weekday, high-profile games on TBS?
Am I looking at this the wrong way? Help me out here.
No, you got the right idea. As you’ve noticed from the pretty much firing of Skip and Pete, TBS is becoming as dumb as a box of rocks thrown down a flight of stairs.
It could be two things, Creg: (1) Just a fluke of scheduling with respect to the networks’ other obligations. Or (2) an attempt to pump up the Braves’ ratings on Turner South and lower them on TBS. Thus, Turner South becomes more attractive as a part of a sale package with the Braves, while TBS gets to point to lower ratings to jutify going to a format of covering other MLB teams next year, and no longer being the broadcast network of the Braves.