ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Braves at Expos – 09/17/2003
One.
The Braves exploded for five in the first and five in the fourth, and cruised from there. Six different Braves had four hits, and Javy, Andruw, and Hampton all homered. Javy has 41 for the year, 40 as a catcher, the latter only one off of the major league record.
Julio Franco, who started against a lefty, had the big first-inning blow, with a two-run double. It was an inning I like — six hits, five singles and the double. I know it’s not sabermetric of me, but I feel more comfortable with that than three walks and two homers. The homers all came after the game was pretty much settled — 8-1 when Javy hit his, the other two solo shots later on.
Hampton pitched pretty well. I was going to say that his control was shaky, since he walked four, but he threw 69 pitches, 40 strikes, in five innings. The balls were just concentrated, I guess. He did allow only three hits and one run. Jason Marquis pitched two innings, allowing three hits and a solo homer in his new “just throw the ball over the plate” role. Mercker struggled in the eighth and actually had to have Boom-Boom Bobby bail him out. (Fox viewers = idiots. 11 percent voted for Hernandez as the “If Smoltz can’t pitch” closer.) Darren Holmes had some problems in the ninth, allowing another run. I make some allowances for the blowout — the pitchers were mostly trying to throw strikes and get the game over — but I don’t have any confidence in any of these guys.
A Marlins loss would clinch the division. Currently they’re up 4-3 on the Phillies. Tomorrow is an off day; the Marlins visit Atlanta starting Friday. If the Marlins win the next two games, the Braves could clinch in Atlanta in front of their fans and the six Turner South aliens.
Gotta be a bit of a tease for both Maddux and Ortiz – who both desperately need one more win this season – to miss this 14 run outburst of run support by one day.
“Six Turner South aliens?”
Mac, where did the site go? Please bring it back, I want to talk about Smoltz! He has come back from a soul-searching trip to the mountain, and is ready to kick ass:
“I’ve changed the whole mindset,” Smoltz said.
Sorry fellas (and gals if any here)… our server company had a hard drive failure (and of course didn’t inform us of it). I’ve gotten it straightened out, but unfortunately it appears that any posts made after 9/19 were not backed up by them.
Mac, at this point, is unable to access the site and I have been working with him to try and get everything going again.
Sorry for the problems…