ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Braves at Diamondbacks
Andruw can’t do this alone, people. His two solo homers were the only hits Braves regulars got off of Javier Vazquez in eight innings of work (Horacio Ramirez also had a single) and the team only managed two walks — one each by Chipper and Langerhans. So if Ramirez wasn’t great, they were bound to lose.
He wasn’t great, falling behind 2-0 in the first. From then on, he was pretty good, allowing a solo homer but getting three double plays to pitch mostly around eight hits and three walks. It was a quality start plus an inning, good enough to win most games. Not good enough today. Brower and Foster got through the eighth keeping it a one-run game.
But after Johnson got an actual hit, Giles flew out, Andruw hit a swinging bunt to get Johnson to second, and Chipper hit a weak grounder to third to end the game. Sad, really.
Forget the Natspos, who lost again. The real problem is that the rest of the division is getting involved now; all won today. And the Astros are now in the thick of the wildcard race. Other than Andruw, no hitter on the team looked good in this series. Maybe they were just tired, having not played a home game in two weeks. They finally go home with three against the Natspos starting Tuesday. Barring rain, somebody’s going to be in first place all alone after Thursday’s game. Let’s hope it’s the Braves. Smoltz-Livan to start it off, so of course it’s on Turner South.
The Braves have not been a good road playing ball club this season (especially on the long long west coast road trips). Perhaps this is a sign of being a young team. Hope the next two two series at home can jump start their second half. Except for Andruw, everybody seems to be tired…
I am sick of not being able to see the Braves on TBS. For years, the programmers get me addicted to watching America’s Team on an almost daily basis. Now they’ve virtually yanked the plug in favor of some shlock. I am like a junkie — my addiction needs to be fed. And to top it off, the Braves are in a pennant chase with a bunch of no-name guys. This is exciting for baseball lovers. Hasn’t Pauly Shore used up his 15 minutes of fame? How many more reruns of Sex and the City?
Good thing we get an off day. maybe we will get a rain out too!
The network pretty much assuming people gets both TBS and TS, which is definitely not true. Perhaps we should voice out our opinion like we did when they took Skip and Pete off TBS.
I can’t believe nothing has been done about this yet. Pretty much everyone I know is upset about the lack of coverage on TBS, and I don’t know a single person who actually sits around their house, jumps to their feet, and suddenly cries, “I know! I’ll go watch Sex and the City reruns on TBS! What a great channel!” Has no one complained? Are we all assuming someone else will? We need to start a campaign to get Braves games back on TBS. What is the actual TS viewing area? Georgia and Alabama?
I will actually get the next 3 games because I’m in the Nats viewing area. The coverage sucks and the announcers are arrogant and of course biased, but 3 games in a row? I may pass out from Braves overdose…okay, maybe not.
This game sucked. I am still not sold on HoHum. Every inning feels like an impending disaster, and I always feel as if it doesn’t matter if we get runs because he might just give them right back. The long balls have to stop. I know my standards are too high for a #5 starter, but when he needed to pick it up when Hampton/Hudson/Thomson went down and the rotation was full of rookies, effectively making him #2, he did not pick it up. I want to trade him.
Addition: The loss was obviously Andruw’s fault, despite HoHum’s efforts. His failure to homer in 3 ABs tonight cost us the game. I am appalled.
Lets start a petition and send it to TBS
Is Sex and the City getting better ratings? If so…nothing can be done.
I don’t know that it has anything to do with ratings directly, but I imagine they do the schedule this way so they can have some continuity with what they are showing. And I’m sure a ton of people watch Sex and the City. This all happened because some change in status put them under different regulations, and they are only allowed to show so many games (90?). It sure would be better if they spread them out more, but who will watch a show that comes on every Thursday if some random Thursdays there’s a baseball game on instead?
If it’s possible guys, look into Directv. They’ve shown 97 of the 99 games so far between TBS,Turner South,Fox Sports South or any other outlet. The only ones they miss are when the Braves are on Fox Saturday regional coverage and there’s a local team on.
Is Turner South available on basic cable like TBS in the south????
This is why baseball isn’t as popular as football. Everynight there is a football being played(Monday,Thurs.,Saturday,Sunday) the sport is showed on TV. I know football season is shorter, but that is no excuse. Baseball is played everyday of the week and in most areas baseball is on TV 4 days of the week. There is a pay-per-view baseball thing, but who really wants to spend the money to hear some other team’s anouncer call your teams games? The NFL does the same thing, but there is a good chance you will get to see at least one team you care about on Sundays. Networks like Fox Sports should try to broacast more games (along with the 8 ESPN’s.) Baseball has done a poor job in marketing it’s self in this manner.
I live in Chattanooga and we get Turner South. At first we didn’t, but enough people wanted the Braves games they added it to the channels.
I live in Chattanooga and we get Turner South. At first we didn’t, but enough people wanted the Braves games they added it to the channels.
And that’s why they do it — to the point of having fewer games on TBS than they’re allowed to carry. (After all, all the Sex and the City shows are available uncut on DVD.) Nobody is going to ask for Turner South because they really want to see old westerns, third-rate knockoffs of TLC reality shows, and repeats of In The Heat Of The Night. If it wasn’t for the Braves, nobody would watch Turner South because no cable company would carry it.
That all the really interesting matchups seem to fall on TS games is just a bonus.
That’s true about other teams announcers, Smitty. I just had to listen to Mark Grace on Friday night cheer when Cintron hit the homer off of Brower when I was pissed. But it’s not that bad ,you get to see other announcers in other cities who are most always very positive about the Braves. And when the Braves beat them you hear how deflated their enthusiasm is. It’s funny..
Then why do they ever sell games to FSS? Is it some competition agreement that they HAVE to sell to another regional network?
TBS coverage adds value to the team, so I can see cutting a deal. Turner South coverage basically allows Turner South to exist, so I see that. ESPN coverage is also national exposure, so I see that, too.
I don’t get the FSS regional coverage, though. Their production is horrible and, though it might reach more people than Turner South, there’s no added value to Turner Brodcasting or Time Warner.
I should have just bought the MLB package on my cable system – I’m assuming there are enough games there to fill the gap. We’ll never get HBO here. I think there are probably as many Cardinals fans here in Nashville as there are Braves fans. If it weren’t geographically ridiculous, we probably wouldn’t even get the “south” version of Foxsports. So close, but yet so far away.
Great! Stupid Sex and the City got me putting “HBO” when I meant “Turner South”. Definitely time for bed.
Is anyone watching the ESPN game? Evidence #21453 for Joe Morgan being a douchebag:
Bottom of the 9th, pinch runner tries to steal second. Runner called safe, but replays show him clearly out. Jon Miller keeps throws in a couple of comments on how upset Cubs fans must be, and each time, Joe Morgan screams about how it’s a tough call and “a tie goes to the runner.”
It wasn’t a tie. It was a bad call. Use your eyes.
I don’t know what the situation is with FSS. I know that once it was just SportSouth (I still call it that because I won’t use the F-word on a family site) and was actually a Turner entity and it may be that part of the agreement to sell the channel to NewsCorp was a long-term agreement to carry the Braves. But I don’t know that for sure. It might just be that TW thinks that the money from FSS is worth more than the chance to show the games on TS.
You live in Nashville? I was just there for two months (well, “just” meaning in January and February) doing pre-trial work on a case. We stayed in the downtown Doubletree and worked 16 hour days out of their conference room. Good thing the Braves weren’t playing or I might have gone crazy 🙂
Yeah, I remember how Fox sued Turner Broadcasting over Turner South, seeing it as a violation of it’s non-competition agreement that was part of the sale Mac just mentioned.
IIRC, the suit went Time Warner’s way, so I don’t think the games are part of any settlement.
When I first got my dish (around 1999) Wednesday night baseball was blacked out on everything except ESPN which showed a national game and an alternate. I think the agreement with all the Fox channels on Wednesdays included a national purse instead of a regional one which has to be more valuable.
A further note on FSS… Remember, the Braves are about as important to them as they are to TS. Since they don’t have the rights to SEC football, and hardly anybody in the Deep South watches the NBA (plus the Hawks suck) without the Braves they’d have a lot of trouble getting carried either. The Worst Show Of Any Kind In The Entire Universe Ever just doesn’t have the kind of fan base to force FSS onto cable systems. So FSS might overspend on Braves rights to guarantee they stay on.
It could be worse. WGN only has like 60 Cubs games this year. Letting people see free baseball on tv has become a bad thing appearently. TBS and WGn have done morefor baseball than anything else in this country.
Think about it. When I would come home from school I would turn on the Cub game in the afternoon and watch the Braves games at night. How many people that live in places like Florida, Arizona, Mississippi, Louisiana, really all over America, are Braves or Cubs fans because of the cable coverage? I would think that the Cubs and Braves rank in the top five in road attendance and a lot of that is due to TBS and WGN.
WGN has a ton of White Sox games, though. It’s hard to show more than one game a day.
The problem with TS is, they got people addicted to the Braves with TBS, which is a nationwide superstation like WGN, and then they stuck half the games on a channel that no one gets. I’m glad all of you in Georgia/Alabama/Tennessee can get it, but up here in Washington there’s no chance of it being added to the cable package. We’re not in the geographical vicinity and there are largely no Braves fans up here. My family has Comcast, and they offer ESPN, ESPN2, Outdoor Life Network, which is totally worthless, and the Golf Channel. That’s the sports we get, besides what’s occasionally on FOX. So I get all the O’s games between Comcast SportsNet and MASN, and some of the Nats games (really strange TV deal). We don’t get any FOX regional networks. Nothing. A petition is sorely needed. I’m sick of TW’s bottom-line attitudes about everything. I realize that it’s prevalent in corporate culture, but come on! You can’t develop a nationwide fan base and then just cut them off. I’m assuming they’ve done Nielsen ratings analyses that support what they’ve done, but why don’t they at least experiment again with carrying their maximum load of games and see what happens?
The abominable Neifi Perez just hit a grand salami in the 10th. Ick. I was rooting for the Cards. I can’t stand the Cubs.
They used to show more Cub games than Sox games. The Cubs were an easy filler from 3-5:30
I am sure MLB has forced the superstaions hands when it comes to games. The Commish will be in Atlanta this week for the Nats games and the grand opening of TOONer Field! Gag me
The higher load of games did convince a lot of cable systems to add TS over the winter, Jenny. So it worked for them, at least in the short term. And long term, I agree with the NewsCorp lawyers. TS is a plan to have a channel in place to convert to a regional sports station when the noncompete agreement runs out. I expect that in a few years we’ll see something like 90 games on TS, 72 on TBS, and none on FSS.
MLB has, to some extent. I think it was that Superstations can only carry half a team’s games.
TBS is far below that threshold, though, so there are other forces at work.
Chicago just brought in Comcast Sportsnet which must have requested more Cubs games than White Sox games in their contract so WGN gets the leftovers.
Turner South is an ok Channel though. I like the Junk’n show. I wouldn’t be suprised to see it branch out to Northern VA Jenny, but I don’t see it being a big thing in Minnesota
Wait! If Turner South becomes Turner Sports, then where will shows like “Junkin”, “Three Day Weekend”, “Homemakers”, and “Bushwhacked” go?!?!?!
The chick on 3 day weekend is hot
Turner South is funny, it’s available on the dish Only when the Braves are playing and it immediately goes off after the game, sometimes right after the last out before the last commercial.
If it became Turner Sports kiss the Braves good bye. They will try to compete with ESPN and they will carry national games, and stuff like Hockey
Smitty,
Erin Haney’s gorgeous. What I can’t understand is why TBS hasn’t gotten her on their network instead of freakin Pauly Shore!!!
Minding the Store is so stupid that not even TBS will keep showing it. I wish they would bring back Andy Griffith
WGN bought Sex & the City reruns for the fall. It must be a superstation thing…
I think Turner Sports would have to stay built around the Braves, as a regional sports channel. But someone has to try to go after ESPN, and soon. I think everyone knows my opinion of the current state of the Worldwide Leader.
Oh yeah ESPN needs some competition bad. FOX Sports net is worthless and there is no one else makeing a push.
If anyone would like to start a network, I am a Communications major and I would love to get in on the ground floor of something like that. Hint Hint!!
Fox Sports is trying, but they’re worse. They hired Max Kellerman AWAY from ESPN, and they’re flagship program is like all the worst elements of Around the Horn and Cold Pizza somehow merged into one beast.
Their only value comes in Boxing coverage. ESPN ignores the entire sport, and Fox Sports has top-notch coverage.
Er, “their”, not “they’re”. I really hate that error, too.
Mac,
The only way I see to get at ESPN is to get the NCAA Tourney and either the NFC/AFC on Sundays and get in the Super Bowl rotation of networks. The 2 Things ESPN/ABC doesn’t have…
I think CBS or NBC will probably try something in the next few years.
JoeyT,
Fox fired Kellerman he’s back at ESPN and for some reason on the Tucker Carlson show on MSNBC.
If CBS manages to find the Phil Simms of baseball announcing, they could have something cooking. But I really hope NBC doesn’t pick up baseball. I’m already sick of Bob Costas from the Olympics, and that’s only once every four years.
Smitty, I live in Maryland, not Northern Va. You’re thinking of Alex R., maybe. Maryland, at least the part I live in, is trying to deny that it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line. So a channel named “Turner South” would not be appreciated. We prefer “Mid-Atlantic.”
New state motto: “Maryland: We didn’t secede!”
If anyone starts a petition for more tbs braves games I want to be the first to sign it.
The last Braves WS title came on NBC.Maybe Costas,Morgan and Bob Uecker could be good luck???
Anything’s better than Buck/Mccarver…
Johnny Estrada should be on the DL and have an MRI on his back. Anyone see the AJC article? The pain has apparently started moving down his back. I have no experience with back injuries besides throwing it out once opening a window (don’t ask), but that sounds serious. The force of that collision was like a car accident, he might have done something bad to himself. At any rate, he’s not helping the team at all, which he seems to realize, and should just go on the DL and figure out what’s wrong. But he should serve the suspension first. If you make a move retroactive to the beginning of a suspension, does it still count as being served?
Yeah, but if NBC became the only network for baseball they’d probably hire McCarver. Costas/McCarver would be a slight improvement, I guess.
Is it just me or does Tim McCarver have a really bad/obvious dye job? I can’t decide who’s worse, Buck/McCarver or Kennedy/Zelasko. Jeanne Zelasko is more annoying than Buck and McCarver put together and I like Kevin Kennedy, so I can’t decide.
Actually, I don’t get the entire Jeanne Zelasko thing. I get the idea that every week for her starts out with “Hey, maybe this hairstyle will make me look pretty on TV!”
Jenny,
I’d bet that’s a piece on his head…
I expect that in a few years we’ll see something like 90 games on TS, 72 on TBS, and none on FSS.
I can’t sleep, so I did a little cursory Google search, and this site makes it look like the current FSS deal runs through 2012. It looks like a 10 year deal starting in 2002.
In fact, looking at these pages: link and link, it looks like FSS had a deal for 25 games a year through 2006, but extended it in 2002 to go through 2012.
So, unless there’s an unlikely buyout, it looks like 25 games a year on FSS (or FSN-S or whatever) through the 2012 season, at least.
Unless I move, the difference between TBS and Turner South, are, to me, largely superficial. However, the Braves Radio reception is poor where I am, and the TV delay on FSS is frustrating, so I’m somewhat dismayed that I have seven more years of Fox Attitude 25 times a season.
A good comment about Turner South.
I do like Braves In A Hurry (hereinafter, BIAH). This is one of the best ideas to hit TV in a long time. I could have watched ESP-Insider for half an hour and been bombarded with nba OFFSEASON news and Steven A. Smith commercials while clinging to the futile hope they’d show a Braves clip sometime after Harold Reynolds tells us why he couldnt hit a curveball and before highlights of Danika Patrick car wrecks. Instead, I caught the whole game, more or less. Im not saying its a substitute for the full game, but I have the test of my life Tuesday and the recent discovery of this never ending board of witty Bravo-bantering has surely reduced my chances of passing. So, for tonight, it was just what I needed. I think that for every game TBS doesnt show, they should let America get by with only one Minding the Store episode and screen BIAH. Or hell, why not get real radical, and delay the “Bloodsport XII” midnight screening a half hour, and run it at midnight for night games.
Neutral Comment about Turner South:
Its good for productivity. The inadvertent 4 minutes of the Rick and Bubba show I watched following BIAH, prompted me to sever the cable line running into my house, thus ensuring that I will go to bed early and not watch the Trifecta. Thanks Rick, thanks Bubba, I guess.
Network Commentators: I actually like McCarver, despite what Deion thinks. Surely, Im allowed to disagree with Deion once in awhile. Also, If it wasnt for Joe Buck, TBS’s own Chip Carey would be hold clear title to being The Most Mincing Baseball Commentator Who Got a Job Because of His Last Name. That would be bad for the organization.
Rick and Bubba are ubiquitous in the Birmingham area, but they never do anything for productivity.
The only way we’re going to see more Braves is if we get a NEW OWNER. (AOL)Time Warner doesn’t give two poopies about the Braves.
Should Chipper have opted for surgery?
Should we let Chipper out to pasture to DH for an AL club?
Sacreligious, I know, but he ain’t helping us right now and it’s looking iffy for the rest of the year…
Oh yeah, and Tim McCarver never says anything. I mean literally. When he talks, words come out but he says nothing.
He’s the f***ing worst.
The Braves would come with a package including Turner Sports right? WE could also have worse owners too. Look at teams in places like Tampa Bay or Kansas City.
Chipper was diagnosed with a bunion, right? I checked WebMD and now I’m confused. He must have some special kind of severe, genetically related bunion, because you’re supposed to be able to cure normal ones with funny shoes. It also says bunions can be caused by loose ligaments, which is what he had. But it also says that bunions can cause loose ligaments. So which is it? And how did he play if he had a bunion in the first place that caused the ligament damage, because apparently you can hardly walk if it gets bad. I’m so confused.
A bunion is apparently a deformed growth of the bone in the big toe so it basically grows sideways, overlaps the second toe, and messes up the joint. It also makes your foot look really gross. The surgical options include removing foot tissue, putting in pins and screws, removing various parts of the bone, joint fusion, and joint replacement. Recovery time is 6 weeks to 6 months depending on which one you choose and complications include recurrence of the bunion, tendon damage, and arthritis. They recommend conservative treatment for athletes, which is what Chipper is doing, but it doesn’t seem to be working. And if he’s genetically predisposed anyway, it would probably just come back either way. Sounds like we might have this problem to think about for a LONG time.
Here’s the link if anyone’s interested:
my.webmd.com/hw/foot_problems/hw33928.asp
Apparently the bunion issue is in check to the point that it isn’t a problem directly, even though it had the indirect consequence of causing the ligament issue. I had read that he was told surgery would end his career, which makes a lot of sense given the description you put up there.
I sorta appreciate the link. I need to stay away from webmd after I convinced myself that a weird fever I had last year with no other apparent symptoms was probably meningitis 🙂
I run weird fevers all the time. Last year I had a temperature of 102.7 for about half a day with no other symptoms and when I woke up the next morning I was fine. Meningitis? Ha! That’s not the website’s fault 🙂
I’ve always associated bunions with old ladies, for some reason. Maybe I’m mixing it up with “corns.”
I love Web MD’s symptoms list;
For a wierd bumb on your left side.
-Spider bite
-Bruise
-Cancer
creynolds I would like to read that about surgery ending his career. I hadn’t heard that before (not that I don’t believe you, just interested.)
weird not wierd, typo
Whether it’s a bunion [or corns :)], Chipper still is our only legitimate option at third. Trust me, Chipper wouldn’t be the first person to move like an old lady at third base.
Smitty – I think it was in one of the braves mlb.com articles. The other possibility is the ajc. It was definitely in one of the “hometown” outlets. I’ll see if I can find it.
Here it is. This is down near the bottom:
There aren’t anymore details, which is why I didn’t completely understand until now. It sure does sound like a messy procedure.
Sorry, blew the damn link again the first time around.
that news into the potential scale of Chips injury makes me think the braves will keep Marte in their back pocket for third base and that if anybody will move to first it will be chip.
You know, I didn’t realize until last night exactly how freaky Joe Morgan’s eyeballs are. He looks like a mad axe murderer. I can’t even tell which eye is the lazy one because they both go in different directions. I was never so disturbed in my life, except for maybe the special on red athletic contact lenses that made Brian Roberts look like the love child of Satan and Hannibal Lecter. I should save this for the Road from Bristol, but I had to get it off my chest!
I think there should be and NIT round of other sports casters. We could keep it small guys like McCarver, Costas, Joe Buck, Howie Long, so on. Even thought McCarver woud win in a blow out.
Alex and I decided against it because the only guy we really hate that much is McCarver, and yes, he’d win easily.
How long before McCarver goes to work for ESPN? Wouldn’t you watch just to see him and Morgan in the same booth? Oh my God, it woule be great!
McCarver-“Well you see Joe, one day when I was catching the great Bob Gibson, I discovered this grip and I went to the mound and taught Bob to throw it. That pitch became the four seam fastball.”
Morgan-“I remember facing Gibson durring my HOF carrer and I got a few hits off him. I bet that’s not in Billy Bean’s book!”
TM- Gosh we were great Joe!
JM- WE! I was great! You weren’t even the best catcher in the league!
TM- I was a Cardinal! I came up with the fastball, curve ball, and circle change! The Reds wanted me to play second base, but I was too busy carring Stan “the Man’s” jock!
Then they kill each other and last 8 innings of the Yankee-Red Sox game is silent!
That would be paradise, Smitty. Silent baseball? Excellent!
I find the mute button on my remote very hand during many broadcasts.
Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith, is going head to head with PTI. I see a new time slot in SAS future. Or maybe they are doing it to hide ASS
I think it’s only going head-to-head with the ESPNNEWS rerun of PTI, which is, of course, what those of us in the central time zone get to see.
I think the times are
ESPN – PTI – 5:30 ET
ESPNNEWS – PTI – 6:30 ET
ESPN2 – QUITE FRANKLY – 6:30 ET
I would like to see him and Skip bayless eat each other. IF they meet in the Road from Bristol, I won’t know what to do