ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Phillies at Braves
See, that’s all we needed. A little more Kelly Johnson, a lot less Mondesi — seven runs! Johnson, hitting third and playing left field, was 0-3 with a walk, but hit the ball hard, drove in a run with a fielder’s choice and scored, and also threw out a runner at the plate to end the sixth. He made a rookie mistake, getting deked at second on a fly ball by LaRoche and getting doubled up from left field, but all in all not the worst of debuts.
It’s unclear what the outfield situation is right now. Langerhans started in right (he tripled in two runs) and has the best arm of the corner outfielders. It may be that the job-sharing arrangement between Jordan and the two rookie lefty hitters will be on a case-by-case basis. I don’t know if Jordan’s arm is up for right field.
Tim Hudson had some control issues, walking an atypical five men in seven innings. But other than Mike Lieberthal (who doubled and homered) he kept the balls on the ground, got a couple of double plays and kept the game in hand.
Foster and Reitsma pitched the eighth, when the game was still in doubt, 4-2. The rain started falling heavily in the bottom of the eighth and the Braves got three runs thanks largely to bad defense (including a dropped fly ball by Lofton that warmed my heart) so Dan Kolb got to pitch in a Dan Kolb situation, a five run lead even he would have trouble blowing. In his continuing metamorphosis into Mitch Williams, he struck out two and walked one. Kolb in May has pitched 9 2/3, walked nine, struck out twelve, allowed two homers, and gave up five runs. It’s like he’s a completely different pitcher from the guy from Milwaukee.
Chipper hit cleanup and was the only position starter other than Johnson and LaRoche without a hit, but walked twice. Furcal continued his good hitting of late with a couple of hits, and Marcus hit a long homer in the first.
The Marlins, after trailing early, came back to beat the Mets and stay in a tie with the Braves for first. It was a very odd weekend in which the teams that were just swept by one division leader came back to almost sweep the other. As it is, the whole division is now separated by only five games. The Braves now head to Washington for four. Tomorrow is a Memorial Day afternoon game on TBS and ESPN, Davies versus Tomo Okha. Hampton is due to return Tuesday.
Goodbye Raul Mondesi. You will not be missed. Say hi to Rico Brogna for us.
The Mondesi news threw me for a loop, not because it wasn’t a smart move but because I couldn’t believe they’d actually done something everybody else wanted for over a month (or two). I hadn’t heard about him losing his spot, so when the announcers started talking about how he had been “given a few days to think about his future,” I figured he went AWOL again. Same result, I guess, but that would’ve been more interesting!
Encouraging showing from Kelly Johnson. He seems kind of like a Langerhans clone, but that will probably change. Hudson drove me up the wall with all those walks to the bottom of the order, but it didn’t bite us.
Furcal finally got on with a drag bunt! That gives him a success rate of what, 2%? Go, Raffy!
I almost had a heart attack on those two shallow pop flies. It looked just like a replay of the Marcus-Andruw collision last year. Marcus makes me very nervous occasionally. But “I got it!” now seems to be a big part of his vocabulary, and man, what a blast in the first!
Nats are tanking right now, so we may be in for a good series. I’m going to Tuesday’s game. Of course, that’s what we said about the Phillies…
Today we just slapped around the Phillies. Kelly Johnson had a good debut. I’m glad to finnally see the Braves use some of their young talent. The Mondesi news suprised me as well, but something had to give. Right now it seems that JS is moreso to bring someone up rather than trade for someone. How about Furcal on the bases today he was running around like a cheetah; like Joe or Skip said he hasn’t stole this many bases since his rookie season.
Darn stay away from the internet for a day and you miss the news. Shows what I know. I thought that Jordan would be the one to go first. I thought that he was the most unnecessary of the 2 outfielder signings. Schuerholz took a while but he finally folded on that bad hand he dealt himself. I wonder how much patience that he’ll have with the rookies. We are contending and soon the non contenders will be looking to deal. I for one hope that Johnson and Langerhans play well enough to make that unnecessary.
Is it just me, or is Jim Thome becoming Cecil Fielder? Heh.
Bobby announced after the game that Johnson will be the starting LF, likely batting in the middle of the order. Jordan & Langerhans will platoon in right, with Jordan likely seeing more work than Langerhans (other than the typical matchup advantages). Article: http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050529&content_id=1066963&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl