I cannot take much more of this. Once again, the Braves took the early lead, and this time held it to 3-0 heading to the bottom of the sixth. By the end of the seventh, the starter had tired and the bullpen had led the lead get away.
Johnny Estrada had four hits and all three RBI, driving in two in the first and one in the sixth. The Braves had ten hits! And three runs! Because they suck!
Gryboski played only a minor role in the latest atrocity. With Jaret Wright tired, having allowed two baserunners in the seventh and throwing 110 pitches (what was Bobby thinking?) Gryboski came in and promptly walked the bases loaded. Chris Reitsma was the other villain, walking in one run, allowing another run on a wild pitch, and a third on a single. With the run Wright allowed in the sixth, that was it.
I really can’t take much more of this.
This is mind-numbing; it’s one thing to lose game after game, but to do so in exactly the same way? A tight lead, runners on in the 7th, and your best reliever never throws a pitch. Unfreakingbelievable.
Is it going to be DeWayne Wise in LF against righties all of the time?
I wonder when Bobby is going to figure out that he has 12 million dollars worth of reliever sitting over there doing nothing. This is the exact high leverage situation you want him to come in and pitch in.
I read Smoltz’s interview on Sporting News. Do any of you all think that he could start again and last more than 5 games before he blew up his elbow?
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I would be willing to trade him to another team for either more offense or some quality middle relief and let the other team find out. It’s sad when the best reliever you have is the fat kid with 12 fingers that noone wanted to have on their team.
We’ve got a case of the 2003 Phillies right now. Our middle relief is performing so badly that we are not getting to use our best pitcher at the end of the game. Wright deserved better for his effort. He struck out 9 and only walked 1. What a shame.
Johnny – I’ve said since the season started that the team should be willing to take that chance. Smoltz the reliever is doing almost nothing to help this team win, because Bobby can’t use him effectively. So just start him. He wants to take the chance and try it, and if his elblow explodes then the team is really no worse off than it is now.
The only other realistic option with Smoltz is to trade him. He’s one of few Braves who could bring something useful in return. If not prospects, then trade him for a bat that has some attached salary (the team would free up a chunk of change by unloading him). Do so in a three way deal with a contender that wants a closer (say, Oakland) and a third team that has an expensive player they wand something for.
I don’t really see the point. Your starting pitchers have been okay, occasionally very good. The problems right now are that (a) they simply can build on a lead, and (b) the middle relief, except for Alfonseca, has been horrific. What’s the point of switching out Smoltz for Wright? You’ll have the same problem, and Wright’s probably been their most consistently good starter.
That’s a good line of thinking. I believe Smoltz won’t make enough of a difference in our starting lineup, because most of the implosions have been in middle relief lately. Let’s send him to Oakland and they can send the players KC is drooling over and we can have Beltran for the summer.
I just threw the Smoltz question out there as a hypothetical. Can he start or not? He seems to think so but the Braves think otherwise and they have more evidence than he does. Anyway except for taking Hampton’s spot in the rotation, Mac is correct starting Smoltz probably doesn’t help the team very much.
Just saw over on No Pepper that Charles Thomas has been called up. DeWayne Wise down? .263 lifetime minor league average. Hope that he does as well as Green.
I agree Smoltz is a wasting asset at present since they can never get to him but it doesn’t make much sense to me to move Smoltz into the rotation in the middle of the season when he hasn’t started for three years. It would be most of the season before he could throw significant innings anyway. The problem is not really the starting pitching anyway (although Hampton has been pretty bad), but a lousy bullpen, terrible defense, and bad hitting. Moving Smoltz to the rotation isn’t going to make much difference because, at this point in his career, it’s not like he is going to pitch complete games. I think it may be time soon to move him and start seriously rebuilding, but that won’t happen until they are definitely out of the race–which, given how inconsistent the Marlins and Phillies are may not happen for awhile.
You know how you get Smoltz ready to start – you start stretching him out, effective right now. You have a lead in the 7th? Bring him in in the 7th, and see how long he can go. If two innings, fine; if all three, great. That way you get the added bonus of his replacing innings from sucky guys. From there he can be easily stretched to four innings, because we’re not lacking for opportunities to bring relievers in before the 7th.
Is Smoltz all that much of a rotation upgrade? The marginal impact is probably small, but what exactly is his marginal impact right now waiting to pitch the 9th inning of leads we never have? People, John Smoltz is right now averaeging about 10 innings and three saves per month for this team. Hoyt Wilhelm he aint, and it’s pissing him off even more than any of us.
It’d take him a while to get streatched out to be ready to start, by which time we’d have a better knowledge of who needs replaced in the rotation. Until he can go five innings, use him as a long reliever in tight games. And when ready, if none of them need replaced, then Smoltz becomes extra tradeable as his old starter self.
Worst case scenario – Smoltz gets hurt, and we lose those 3 saves a month. Oooh, big loss.