Jones goes on 15-day DL; surgery not ruled out | ajc.com
They still don’t know what’s the deal with Chipper’s feet. Hopefully, it won’t require surgery.
Andy Marte was called up. Presumably, he will play every day, or nearly every day. Betemit has been great, but there’s no need to make this move if Marte will sit. Hopefully, he’ll hit well enough that the Braves will have some tough choices when Chipper comes back. As it is, this is the youngest Braves lineup in a long time, with only Andruw and — when he’s in the lineup — Jordan with more than five season’s of experience coming into the season.
Soldiers and doctors and people who frequently deal with dire situations often say, when things get REALLY dire, that there is almost a calmness that comes over you as a result of the clarity of your situation, no matter that it’s clarity about doom.
Our situation is not as dire as all of that, but it is kind of refreshing to know that one of two things is going to happen: (1) the team cuts through it and wins the division again, going down as, bar none, Bobby’s greatest feat ever; or (2) the injuries and rookies are too much to overcome and we fall out of it by August.
It’s either the fabulous glory of overachievment or an understandable defeat. Simple.
I would rather they had called up someone for the bullpen, since we have three guys capable of playing third base on the roster now.
Why would we want 13 pitchers on the roster? I wouldn’t mind some changes in the bullpen, but if anything I’d rather see 11 pitchers than the 12 we have now.
Andy Marte 54g 199ab 19r 55h 15d 13t 9hr 35rbi 99tb 27bb 40k 0sb 1cs .363obp .497slg .276ba 6errors
typo Make that 1 triple. I think Marte will be ready. Last year it took a pounding from Pittsburg? before they got fired up and started burning up the division. Maybe this roadtrip will do it for them with their top hitter down.
I see Giles, AJ and Furcal turning it up by the end of the month.
Betemit has certainly been playing very well, but I don’t think the Braves will call up Marte to sit on the bench. Therefore, I think Marte will get majority of the playing time.
I’m hoping for some sort of rotation between Marte, Betemit, and Furcal. Furcal’s obviously not 100% yet, and could use some more rest.
Most people trace the turnaround last year to the game in Baltimore in which we came back from a big deficit in the 7th or 8th inning.
Thanks JL that was the game I was talking about. I forgot that they came back in that game.
Anybody think that Affeldt from KC would be a plausible trade?
He seems to have trouble staying healthy. He seems like a fine reliever, but not someone to get all excited about in my opinion.
KC would be foolish not too trade him. OK, they are foolish… but they’ll probably trade him anyway. If they had any sense (there I go again) he would be their closer right now so they could get closer value for him in trade. But they’re so stupid that they’ve already replaced him. I don’t care at all about the Kansas City Royals, although I do feel sorry for some of my friends who do, but it’s frustrating just to know that such a ridiculously run organization even exists. They’ll probably still try to get closer value for him, even though they’re showing everyone else they think they have a better alternative in a guy who makes Kolb look like he has the control of Brad Radke or David Wells. This is because they are, well, stupid.
That wasn’t JL – that was me 🙂
Has anyone else been wondering how Betemit would handle playing in one of the outfield corners?
I think it’s too early to consider moving Betemit, Marte, or any other infielder to the outfield. Let’s give Johnson and Langerhans, who has been hitting better recently, some time and really see what they can do.
That being said, Betemit has been hitting well recently, and with Furcal not 100% merits some additional AB’s at shortstop. Marte needs to play everyday at 3B, otherwise there’s no point in bringing him up.
Thanks Kyle that game and the following months was a good example of how important mindset is. Redsox had it when they played St. Louis
I have fantasized about the Braves having the guts to go young for a long time look at what we have now…
Under 30 position players: Johnson, Andruw, Langerhans, Marte, Betemit/Furcal, Giles, LaRoche, Estrada (with McCann on the way), Orr
Assuming Furcal doesn’t come back we have some interesting choices to make regarding what to do with Chipper. I assume langerhans isn’t the answer as a fulltime player meaning Chipper or marte has to go play left or rightfield…
Pretty Funny. What to do with Chipper, what to do. How about playing him since he’s the best player on the team? Marte will go back to the farm unless he burns things up, in which place we’ll see them trade Betemit and keep Marte for platoon duty, then send him back down when he falls off.
Chipper will not, let me repeat from his mouth will not play outfield again. He was the all-star pick for 3rd base before he got injured.
Andruw still has a couple more weeks before he goes into his next hot streak. It’ll hit two weeks before all-star break, then he’ll be stopped by the break itself and he’ll be cold again. He’ll get to .288, then fall back off to around .239.
Was that really you, Danny? Doesn’t sound like you.
Larry isn’t going to back to the outfield. And he shouldn’t. If Marte isn’t headed there, then it seems the only realistic thing to do is trade LaRoche… who should bring a pretty decent return. I just can’t imagine any circumstances where Furcal returns next year. Not that that has to be a bad thing…
But this next year stuff is really where I start to get scared… visions of Esix Sneed and Royce Clayton with fancy A’s on their caps start dancing around in my head and I just get dizzy and want to vomit.
Looking back at the Andy Marte pool originally posted by Mac here: http://www.bravesbeat.com/bravesjournal/archives/2005/03/the_andy_marte.html#comments
Looks like Sansho and David Remy split the prize. Sansho LF on June 6th. David Remy 3B on June 8th.
Darn it, I had LF on June 5th!
Dammit! I had him being called up a week ago, but predicted his Atlanta debut as June 6 versus “the Dodgers”? I guess I hadn’t gotten used to the Angels new name when I looked at the schedule. Thanks for the link bamadan.
I think that JC called it early. The guy on the hotseat if Marte proves to be all that is LaRoche. A hot May hasn’t made him inexpendable. Lets just say that Marte hits .265/.354/.470, well heck he is a LOT better than LaRoche is now. Larry Wayne will be playing first when he returns. He is our best player. Apologies to those that thought Giles was but his drop in OBP and SLG are putting him in the good player category not the best player category. Langerhans and Johnson deserve to play over Jordan. I know, pretty obvious but I also believe that Bobby should play the hot hand and let Betemit prove that numbers to date are a fluke and use him a lot at short.
Dang I had Marte here in LF later in the month.
The circumstances suck. Chipper was having a Chipper circa 1999 season and was re establishing himself as the premier 3b in the NL.
I sure hope that this doesn’t keep him out for months.
It looks to me that Furcal has the most to be worried about with the Marte call-up. He’s almost certainly not coming back, so the Braves aren’t worried about hurting his feelings. And benching him is only going to make him more affordable. Plus, Betemit is better right now, so why not play him. And Orr and Johnson can backup if necessary. I wouldn’t be surprised if Furcal goes on the DL soon. If I were Furcal’s agent, I’d advise him to do so to give some explanation for his decline in play this year.
Kelly Johnson sucks! We should send him back down to AAA so we can have a #2 catcher.
Why did Bobby send out Smoltz to pitch the ninth?! It’s so pointless…
I agree if Marte tears it up 3rd base is all his and Chipper will be at 1st. Last year when LF didn’t work out they originally had Chipper taking ground balls at 1st. There’s 2 solid prospects with Thorman and Jurries if it doesn’t work out. I’m interested to see what Laroche or/and Furcal might get us back in a trade… Another injury tonight…Is Brian Mccann ready????? Poor Smoltzie, I thought Bobby was going to have him do a Livan Hernandez and throw 150 pitches… Thank God it’s a long season…
We are fasting forward to 2007 it seems…
Betemit can’t sit even with Marte here. Did you see him turn around KRod’s heater…..Nice!!!!
Two out rally? Too good to be true.
Furcal you better make him throw a strike…..
Furcal is gonna jack one.
Fast guys on the bases and one at the plate.
Of course not! I just felt a gust of wind up here in North Fulton County.
Furcal sucks
I just felt that same wind here in Pennsylvania…
Cox screwed this one up. Left Smoltz too long, replaced Estrada with Pena and Betemit should have batted 3rd with Johnson 8th. Johnson left 4 in scoring position Betemit 0
Umm, I don’t think Cox is responsible for removing Estrada from the game.
I wasn’t watching the game, but c’mon. We can’t all scream that the ‘pen sucks (which it does), and then bitch that Bobby left Smoltz in too long when it appears from the line that he was pitching pretty well. He finished with 114 pitches after going into the ninth, so he wasn’t laboring. He gave up more hits than we’d like to see, but a lot of those were after he got through seven. Did he look like he shouldn’t have started the 8th? He didn’t lose anything in the ninth, unless the play-by-play is wrong on the ESPN site.
We can’t have it both ways… well, then again, since we’re all just pontificating here, maybe we can 😉
Either way, it sucks. This team is in a major funk!
There’s a reason I only play roto in an AL league. I just noticed that Donnely got me a win in this one. That kinds makes me feel sick to my stomach. I shouldn’t be benefiting from nights like this. Yet another reason to hate interleague play.
We should have been tied if it weren’t for Erstad’s decision to turn this into last 2 minutes of the Super Bowl.