ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Braves at Diamondbacks
In a lot of ways, the Braves shouldn’t have won this game. For one thing, Braves pitchers issued an extraordinary ten walks for the game. However, they held the D-Backs to five hits, four of them singles, so the walks didn’t hurt too much… though both of the runs were scored by batters who had walked.
For another, they were no-hit for 5 2/3 by Brad Halsey, which is just what it sounds like; Halsey isn’t that good. He actually got only one strikeout, but the Braves kept getting jammed (as they have by all the D-Backs pitchers in this series) and hitting weak popups. Jorge Sosa pitched well, too, five shutout innings, but was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the sixth. Foster came in, walked the first guy he faced, who later scored to make it 1-0.
But in the seventh, the Braves finally broke through. Andruw was hit by a pitch (as I said earlier this year, when he gets hit, it’s a good sign that he’s about to get hot), and was doubled home by Julio. One batter later, Francoeur doubled home Julio, who was a veteran of two years of major league baseball when Francoeur was born.
Dan Kolb, setup man, blew it in the eighth, walking the second man he faced, then allowing a double to tie it. Reitsma had to come in to keep the game tied.
But then in the ninth, Andruw hit one of his long solo homers to give the Braves the lead. Julio was stranded after hit 2,499. Reitsma allowed another walk but that was it, picking up the win for an inning and two-thirds of work.
Furcal had a couple of hits (breaking up the no-hitter) and a stolen base, but Johnson and Giles were hitless behind him. Chipper was a late scratch after his foot felt bad in batting practice, but later hit for Estrada, who left the game with a sore back… Everyone in the division won tonight, so everything remains the same… Tomorrow’s game will be late afternoon on Turner South, Ramirez versus Javier Vazquez.
1.25 hours till Fiona S’s next feeding (and she’s letting me know it), so I’m still awake. Great game. FWIW, I think Francoeur swung at every pitch he saw until Valverde’s slider in the dirt. He can really sting the ball, but eventually someone will figure out never to throw him anything in the zone.
Kelly hit a few balls hard to center. Good sign. he was never going to hit Halsey’s “slider” (what Chip and Don called one, anyway) in a million years, though.
I can’t get over how much movement Sosa has on all of his pitches. He also seems to miss low in the zone, unlike Colon, which is a good place to miss. Still, he won’t continue having success like this unless he can pound the zone better.
Why do babies scream until the moment they are held by one of their parents, at which point they become completely silent? Infuriatingly cute.
Why is KolBB still being allowed to pitch with the Braves within five runs of the opposing team?
Cause he’s got a 2.5 ERA over the last month.
Andruw Jones has 1 strikeout in his last 42 plate appearances (including 8 walks). I find that incredible. This is from a guy that struck out 147 times last year.
Why do babies scream until the moment they are held by one of their parents, at which point they become completely silent?
Unfortunately, the going silent trick eventually wears off.
Like you Kyle, I’m confused as to why any pitcher would throw Francouer a strike. I guess it’s standard opporating procedure to throw rookies strikes no matter what.
Bobby nixes any possibility of further trade. So that should calm this board down a bit 🙂 Won’t be surprised to see Estrada DL-ed. Hampton, they might hold off on.
I don’t know if Francoeur should be up. The big league club is notorious for introducing hacking instincts to even patient minor league hitters ( Marcus, Rhino ). Chipper is the only guy who walks consistently, and even his walk rate is down now. Its not like Francoeur can’t take a pitch, he can’t take a pitch late in the count! He badly needs some seasoning and a nickname.
And oh check out the recent post on braves.mostvaluablenetwork.com . might stop some of the Reitsma sniping 🙂 ( and no, I don’t write that blog or know its author! )
Back to the KOLBB subject.
I don’t care what his ERA has been over the last month. Why don’t COX & Mazzone GET it? Mazzone has been so smart about so many guys, why won’t they stick this fat piece of crap in the blowouts where he belongs? DFA him, I don’t care.
Stop being seduced by what he did 1 freaking time for Milwaukee. I hate Kolbb and none of you Kolbb defenders on here will EVER convince me othwerside.
At least Mac and I see eye to eye on this one.
Not even one full time. More like half a time. One good half season.
‘Why do babies scream until the moment they are held by one of their parents, at which point they become completely silent?’
Standard tactics. The 3 step check. Hungry? nope. Wet? nope. Being pinched or irritated by something? nope. Just need to be held by Mommy or Daddy. yep. Good luck Kyle S. your gonna have more fun than humans should be allowed to enjoy with the parenting thing.
Its been mentioned before but last night I finally got to see the startling contrast in KJ and Francouer’s approach to hitting. Jeff is going to have to change his name to Vlad if he keeps this up. I can see why scouts are wowed though. Tremendous bat speed and the ball jumps off his bat. I never thought that I’d say this after cringing at Andruws propensity to swing at bad pitches but I’m actually kind of frustrated at KJ’s propensity to take hittable pitches. Geez kid pull the trigger every now and then early in the count and you won’t be hitting 0-2 all the time. JC and Kyle you are both right. I don’t see any reason teams continue to pitch anything near the zone to Francouer.
I thought Sosa looked good last night. Bullpen? Right now I’d trust Bernie Ebbers more with my life savings. Last night just ‘not bad enough’ to hold on to the win.
How the heck does Andruw hit a ball near his neck out? I’m glad of course that he did it but he might be teaching Marcus bad habits.
Jeff Francoeur saw 16 pitches last night and swung at 15 of them! The only one he didn’t swing at, a blind mind wouldn’t have swung at (in the dirt). Yeah, he’s got great bat speed, but he has to start showing some plate discipline, or teams will not throw him a strike, like they used to do to Andruw, before he started laying off.
Okay, mystery of the cosmos. If you see this (that Francoeur cannot take a pitch) and I see this, why can’t people who get paid to watch and coach this for a living see this and DO SOMETHING about it. A lack of strike zone judgment is killing Corey Patterson’s career, and it is going to kill Francoeur’s unless someone sits him down in front of some tape and gets him in a cage for a month (or a year) and teaches him some strike zone judgment. The Barves have a great track record of developing young hitters; this needs to be someone’s job #1.
If anyone deserved the loss last night, it was Dan Kolb. Instead, the loss almost went to a guy who had a no-no through 5 and actually did go to a guy who gave up a HR on a pitch you should not be able to hit that far. It was around Andruw’s eyeballs and it looks worse every time I see it. That poor guy. He didn’t deserve that.
Re Francoeur: Maybe he and KJ should coach each other or something. The problem is, I’m not sure either one has a good recognition of the strike zone. Frenchy just reacts by swinging at everything and KJ just reacts by swinging at nothing. I think they’ll be okay, though. They’re both good hitters and good hitters adjust. It may just take a little time. But in the meantime, I wish KJ would drop in the order, like maybe to the 6 spot, and put Marcus back at 2, because he doesn’t look so good right now.
Congratulations on your daughter, Kyle! It sounds like she’s doing well! My best wishes for all of you, including a sincere wish that you can sleep more than 2 hours a night for the next year.
Apologies for using the phrase “the zone” three times in the same post. It won’t happen again. I was really tired.
Javy Vazquez has a 3.30 ERA in 122 career innings against us (I checked because I remembered him always playing well when I saw him).
I was too tired to actualy watch, so I don’t know how it looked. But there’s an awful lot of Kolb anxiety for a walk (his first this month) and a double. The guy has had a pretty good July. If he looked terrible and all shaken last night, that’s different. But if this is because he gave up a run, well, I guarantee you that every pitcher in that bullpen (and in every other bullpen) will give up a few of those from here on out.
Anyway, not to defend Kolb too much (there’s obviously a lot of history) and not to try and save face (I was clearly wrong about him nearing Kloserdom), it just hasn’t been so bad lately.
We don’t need a closer. In case y’all haven’t noticed, Chris Reitsma is a pretty good pitcher, Mac’s name for him last season notwithstanding 🙂
I tend to agree with that, Kyle S, but gaining a “closer” would allow Reitsma to move into a setup role, giving the bullpen needed depth.
However, a bat (1B or OF) is probably a higher priority.
Francoeur was hitting over .400 going into the game lastnight. I wish Kelly Johnson would swing at some more pitches.
Any word on Estrada’s back today?
Is Chipper in the line-up?
In Francoeur’s defense, Halsey wasn’t throwing many pitches out of the strike zone last night. Jeff wasn’t hacking at pitches in the dirt or at eye level — they were strikes. He obviously isn’t going to walk a lot any time soon, but the true test will be what happens when pitchers do exactly what we’re discussing and feed him a consistent diet of junk out of the zone. Up until now, they really haven’t done that.
That’s a good point, and one I meant to make in my initial post. Halsey had very few 3 ball counts because he was throwing so many strikes. Even so, Francoeur swung at more than his fair share of balls out of the zone.
Okay, mystery of the cosmos. If you see this (that Francoeur cannot take a pitch) and I see this, why can’t people who get paid to watch and coach this for a living see this and DO SOMETHING about it.
When will you people figure out there’s more than one way to be successful? There have been a whole lot of successful free swingers. Why change something that is WORKING for him. Get over yourselves, you’re not better at this than the people who do it.