Who the heck is Chris Magruder? Why, he’s the scrub who hit a tenth-inning homer off of Tom Martin to beat the Braves. Except that the Braves really beat themselves, retreating to early-season form with a number of really bad ABC baseball failures, not getting runners from second to third with nobody out, not getting them home from third with one out, simply not driving them in. They had Doug Davis on the ropes for four innings but could only get two runs off him, and then got shut down by Dave Burba and Luis Vizcaino for two innings.
In the end, they left twelve men on base, but it seemed like more. And Bobby somehow mishandled the bench into a situation where he had to pinch-hit with two out for Martin and had only Eddie Perez, against a righthanded closer, to hit. End of game.
Pretty good start by Thomson (seven innings, five strikeouts, two runs allowed) wasted, as were perfect innings by Reitsma and Smoltz. I have no idea why Martin was the man they used in the tenth.
The Phillies lost, and that just makes it worse that the Braves couldn’t put more space between the teams… Hampton tomorrow against Victor Santos. The game is on SportsSouth. The Braves actually have several games on TBS coming up.
They have a month and a half worth of TBS coming up, if I remember correctly.
I think TBS apportioned the games so that we got most of ’em in April and May, didn’t see most of the June-1st half of August games (when, of course, they went on the run), and then the games that would theoretically end the pennant race.
uhhhhh…….
How does the Phillies losing make it worse? Seems like one of those dumb old baseball cliches.
I dunno about you, but when I saw that the Phillies lost, it made me feel better about tonight.
How the hell do the Braves manage to go two scoreless innings against Dave Burba? I thought pounding Dave Burba was one of the real constants of a Braves fan’s life.