ESPN.com – MLB – Recap – Marlins at Braves
Smoltz threw a complete game shutout and the Baby Braves got him some support after missing a couple chances early. Smoltz gave up five hits, walked two, and struck out six. He needed 123 pitches (87 strikes) to do it. That’s borderline, but acceptable, especially if it gets another day off for that bullpen. Would have been better if not for a couple of extra baserunners on errors.
Pete Orr made two errors (Furcal bailed him out on one of them) but had a big day at the plate, going 2-2 with a walk and scoring two runs. Marcus was apparently getting a routine day off but hit for Orr in the seventh and he got a hit and a run scored too. So a good day for the second basemen. Andruw was 1-3 with a walk and three RBI; the first of the game, on a groundout, and the last two, on a long homer to put him back in the league lead with 20. All the position players had hits but Langerhans.
Natspos are losing big, Mets beat the Phillies, so about as good as it could have been for the Braves tonight. Tomorrow, Chad Brian Moehler versus Ramirez on SportsSouth.
smoltzie pitched a complete-game shutout Tuesday night, it was awesome.Smoltzie and McCann battery were incredible. congratulations aj’s 20th homerun.and kelly’s nl Player of week . you helped braves win the game.btw kelly is so hot.i love watching the braves game.
for more win ,horam please do your best!!!
even though you guys don’t get games or champs i’ll always support you braves.
redsox fans have been waited a long time about 86 years. but i hoe not.do your best guys!!!
go atlanta braves. go for the world champs
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Good point bringing up McCann. He called a stellar game. I wasn’t paying attention; how many pitches did Smoltz shake off? Regardless, to catch a shutout this early in his career is pretty amazing.
Frankly, I don’t think there’s a place for Perez once he comes off the DL.
Despite Kelly Johnson’s still-low batting average, his OPS is 190 points higher than Brian Jordan’s. I really can’t believe the guy is still on our roster.
Andruw proved his worthlessness last night. Leading the NL is nice and all, but what is the point of hitting 2 HR in a game that your pitcher is throwing a shutout? He should have saved that for the next game when we are down by 2 n the 7th…
yeah, i watched the game against the rangers last week.i heard from the person , tom grieve who is the commentator of rangers “kelly’s swing is good” i think so. and im positive seems like chipper’s stance.maybe he’ll be better. hes adorable. absolutely. ^^
that 2nd homerun must have been in a fantasy game.mouton, i am guessing that your statement is obviously sarcastic, or just trying to get a rise from the Andruwians. therefore, i will not dignify it with comment.
Pretty sure that was supposed to be 2R HR.
Minor knit. The opposing pitcher is actually Brian “Scuffy” Moehler not Brewers no-hit catcher Chad Moeller. I would say something snarky about there being little difference, but Moehler has had his sandpaper ball dancing this year to the tune of a 2.70 ERA and he looked great last time out against the Angels.
Marcus was apparently getting a routine day off
Doesn’t the day after an off day seem like an odd time for a routine day off? Maybe Bobby is as sick as I am of seeing Giles hack at pitches around his shoulders.
nyb, I thought that I was the only one noticing that. I don’t get it really. The guy has opposite field power (or at least he used to) I can’t figure out why he feels the need to swing at balls around his shoulders.
Hey has anyone else mentioned that Kelly Johnson was just named NL PLayer of the week? Way to go Kelly.
I hope that worked, otherwise just go look around MLB.com
I’m sure most of you will run across this at some point if you haven’t already, but there’s an article by Tim Kurkjian on the ESPN site about the Braves kids. About half-way though it, and it looks like a pretty good read… except that he inexplicable refers to Kelly Johson as a first baseman.
The Braves have gone from Spahn and sain and pray for rain to Smoltz and Smoltz and pray for huma n cloning so we can have even more smoltz.
Not as inexplicable as Gary Gillette’s article (on Insider), which refers to Roman Colon as a rookie who had one season above A-ball before this year. Hack.
Gillette also refers to Vasquez as 27, when he’s listed as 24, though it’s possible that Gillette’s right and it’s a baseball age. Still, hack.
I’m surprised you made it through an entire article. Most. boring. writer. ever.
Ah, EPSN. There’s got to be something there like Spahn and Sain…
Gammons and Neyer and a funeral pyre?
Neyer and Gammons and a bunch salmons?
Ok, maybe there’s nothing there, but if those two guys defected I could safely and happily remove one bookmark. (Although I don’t hate Tim Kurkjian, I’m rarely interested in what he writes about).
Smoltz has been dominate over his last four starts (going back four he had a no-hitter late before losing it)… He seems to work very well with McCann…
Kelly is now a fixture in this lineup. He is too good of a hitter (patient, good idea of the strike zone, and excellent power) not to be in there everyday. If we had a couple more like him and not so many free swingers like Furcal and Giles (even though he has been getting on lately), we would be able to score 8 runs a game.
I was not happy with LaRoche’s bases loaded at bat last night. After Burnett loaded the bases with walks, Adam swung at the first two pitches- even though both bounced in front of the plate. He then took a called third strike. He has completely been fooled in half of his at bats lately. He has 40 RBI’s, but he could have a ton more. Play Julio more. He is a much tougher out and better situational hitter. Put Chipper there when he gets healthy.
By the way, Betemit is the real deal also. He deserves to play everyday. Great “tough out” at the plate. Something the Braves have lacked tremendously in the lineup over the last few years.
Langerhans has not been as consistent from the plate, but remains a solid fielder. Like to see more production and less K’s there.
I would really like to see a functional Kelly J and a healthy Chipper hit back-to-back. It’s a good formula for getting the starting pitcher to throw a lot of pitches in the first inning. Let’s play the lineup game! When Chipper comes back:
2B Giles
LF Johnson
1B Chipper
CF Andruw
SS Betemit
C Estrada
3B Marte
RF Langerhans
I was not happy with LaRoche’s bases loaded at bat last night. After Burnett loaded the bases with walks, Adam swung at the first two pitches- even though both bounced in front of the plate.
Seems like there are two schools of thought here. One is that the pitcher is struggling with his control so I’m going to take a pitch and make him prove he can throw a strike. The other is that the pitcher just walked a guy, he doesn’t want to walk another so he’ll probably try to get ahead with a first pitch fastball and I’m going to crush it.
The Braves hitters seem to uniformly subscribe to the second school of thought which drives me nuts because I’m firmly in bed with the first idea. After a (rare) Braves walk it’s almost a given that the next guy will hack at the first pitch. This is the kind of thing you can truly try to blame a hitting coach for and one reason I don’t have much good to say about TP these days.
That’s a solid lineup. If we can only flip Furcal for a bullpen…*droool*
Kelley Johnson’s OPS is now almost 100 points better than “proven veteran” Aubrey Huff.
And the answer of why Brian Jordan is still on the roster is that he bats right-handed, and he isn’t that much of a worse hitter than Richmond’s Mccartey, and the Braves just couldn’t put another rookie on the roster. However, he cannot face a right-hander pitchwer again, this year. He is strictly platoon, and really only just good enough at that (and he is awful).
We all agree that the Twins make the most sense for Furcal, right? Here’s a question… Would you trade Furcal for Kyle Lohse? The Twins are shopping Lohse; he’s a pretty ordinary starter, but right now the Braves could use ordinary. Even if Hudson’s back in a week they’ll be stretched thin. I’m not advocating this, necessarily, but I’m not wild about Davies’ ability to maintain success yet, and HoRam… sigh.
Provided there was no money exchanged, I think I’d do that in a second. It would fill an immediate need in the rotation, and IF everybody came back healthy somebody could go help in the pen. Plus it would free up somewhere between $1.5M and $2M for another deal. His 5.3K/9 is nothing to get excited about, but he’s not a walk machine and, considering that, his 10 homers so far isn’t too scary.
But I’m so far in the dump Furcal camp that there isn’t much I wouldn’t do.
And he could always be non-tendered in December or lumped into an early offseason trade.
d’oh… should be 4.3K/9, not 5.3
LF Johnson
2B Giles
1B Chipper
C Estrada
CF Andruw
3B Betemit
RF Langerhans
SS Furcal – just because I don’t think that the Braves sell low on him if they are entertaining a trade which I doubt because they have all kinds of question marks about Wilson which are justified because he just might come down to earth and become Wilson Betemit again and finally, to stop the rambling, Marte will go back to Richmond so that the organizations best prospect can get some steady at bats.
Does it concern anyone else that Smoltz is 2nd in the NL in innings pitched?
A little, but he hasn’t had any really heavy outings, 125+ pitch efforts — yesterday was the first time he topped 116 — and he’s averaged 103 pitches a start.
Re: Laroche vs. Burnett with the bases loaded
Lots of talk about what a crappy AB Laroche had; Those were three of the best curveballs you’ll ever see in sequence. The first one looked like a hanger but quickly dropped way low out of the zone. Admittedly, he probably shouldn’t have swung at the second, but the third, wow. Outside corner at the knees. Perfect, perfect pitch.
Better hitters than Laroche would have been shaking their heads as well after that.
i think we can all hope for marte to stay up, but i think the truth will be that chipper will return to 3rd, laroche stay at 1st, and marte sent down to get some regular work in. although, i would not mind seeing furcal and laroche to go in a package deal, putting marte and betemit as your everyday left side, and putting chipper at 1st, only using juli”old” for pinch hitting purposes. none of this will happen, of course, if chipper opts for surgery.
I like Mac’s lineup, even though ten bucks says Bobby switches Betemit and Estrada just because Estrada’s a veteran.
I would trade Furcal straight-up for Kyle Lohse. Lohse seems like a guy with problems focusing — he’ll look great in one start then get hammered for two weeks. Maybe Leo could even him out a little.
I might also see if I could add LaRoche to the deal and get a prospect — the Twins could make Morneau a full-time DH.
I agree with Ryan about Marte/LaRoche. If there were serious thoughts about using Marte the rest of the way, I would think he’d be playing more. Even though Betemit has to play somewhere, I’d imagine Marte wouldn’t have sat three days in a row if he weren’t headed back to Richmond at some point. And, actually, that doesn’t bother me. Ready or not, a few more months in AAA won’t hurt him. But I think (and hope) Mac may be dead on for ’06, with the possible substitution of McCann for Estrada.
This would almost certainly have nothing to do with Furcal, at least not directly, but the Toronto Sun claims that Jim Fregosi was present for both of Ted Lilly’s last two starts. I know his overall numbers look like crap this year, but he seems to be coming out of it lately. Consistent he ain’t. But if he really is available, he may well the best of the bunch. They may have some relievers to deal too, but I’m not sure how excited you can really get about Miguel Batista and Scott Schoenweis.
Minnesota wouldn’t put Morneau at DH. They already have Lew Ford at DH, with Stewart, Hunter, and Jones in the OF. Plus, they have LeCroy as a 1B and DH. Now, if we could get one of their outfielders for LaRoche, that would be nice.
Only one Brave on the Futures squad, Franceour. The rest of them don’t need to play in the futures game, their future is now.
Furcal should be traded only because he’ll get expensive after this year and we could and should get something useful for him. He’s respectable in runs scored, 1st in the NL in stolen bases and 2nd in triples. His fielding is much improved, with him being 5th in the majors in fielding %, 2nd in Zone rating and tops in range factor.