ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Braves at Marlins
So, what have we learned?
1. Given bad enough pitching, it is possible to be blown out by possibly the worst National League team since the 1962-65 Mets.
2. Chris Reitsma is turning into Dan Kolb.
3. There is a very good reason why Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak has never been seriously challenged.
Anyway, Kyle Davies didn’t have it tonight, allowing four runs and two homers in four innings. He did strike out five, but considering the eight hits it didn’t really matter.
However, he was no worse than the third-worst pitcher of the night for the Braves. After McBride had his most promising outing of the season (two innings, no strikeouts but no baserunners, 11 strikes in 17 pitches, a double play to get a runner inherited from Davies) Moylan came in and stunk up the joint, allowing five straight hits to let the game get completely out of hand. Then Reitsma came in and made Moylan look like Goose Gossage. Four runs later, it’s 11-1. I guess it didn’t really matter.
The Braves got only one run before the ninth, to get a 1-0 lead in the second, an unearned run with McCann driven in by Langerhans. LaRoche doubled in McCann and Francoeur in the ninth after it really didn’t matter.
Renteria was hitless, stopping his streak at 22. Giles was out of the lineup; Orr was 1-4 in his place. The Braves had seven hits, Francoeur the only one with two.
Blech.
I think this has to be the low point of the season. Flat-out embarassing.
“Waive Reitsma” isn’t working. How about “The Streak is Over.”
yes… this game was horrible!
and I have to speak at a luncheon tomorrow which I wasn’t thinking about and wasn’t nervous till everything went terrible and my mind went to wandering off the game! so now we just played a HORRIBLE game and I’m extremely nervous about tomorrow and probably won’t be able to sleep! lol
I’m ready for tomorrow to be OVER!
I believe the streak was up to 24 games, Mac. Could be wrong.
Average pitches seen per at bat tonight for the Braves: 3.9 and that is inflated by 1 or 2 hitters. Horrible.
The streak was at 24 games, counting the last game of last season. I, for the first time this year, am feeling really depressed about this team. Even when many others were feeling down and discouraged, I always found someway to keep thinking optimistically. Right now I can find none, and if we lose tomorrow, it’ll be even worse. Here’s hoping we beat up on Willis, as previous Braves teams have been known to do.
We will make Willis look like Roger Clemmons tomorrow and yet another series lost. How can we let this series get away from us. Where is Chipper and Andruw? Neither one of them are hitting the ball very hard right now. Maybe Hudson can keep this AA team under control tomorrow and we can look forward to going home. If not, well, we are in trouble yet again.
I just cant imagine what JS and Bobby think about Reitsma and our bullpen. Maybe we should just use a 4 man rotation until HoRam comes back. At least we could give Sosa a shot at closing. I also think Ron Gant is too blame. I didn’t look at the game threads, but his interview w/ Waldrip could have been the most miserable thing I have ever had to listen too.
The only positive from the game is McBride’s outing. Tomorrow scares me to be completely honest I can hear Espn now. “Well Atlanta just lost the series to the Marlins and have dropped to 9 games out.” They are finished, Mets win!
Ok, I think Chris Reitsma is a great guy, a good Christian dude who generally would probably be a solid guy to know and play with on your team. I really do….BUT….we need a new, proven, closer! Period!
OH, I almost forgot…..
worst.game.ever.
Mac, I have a question for you or anyone else on the site. Can we find out what leadoff hitters are batting against us? I believe this is a big part of our pitchers problems, we cant get the leadoff hitters out to save our lives. Reyes, Rollins, and even Ramirez tend to kill us for some reason.
I could find it out by pitcher. For instance, leadoff hitters (meaning first in the order, not in the inning) have hit .389/.450/.556 against Davies and .348/.423/.478 against Hudson.
Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Just the leadoff hitter in the order not the inning. That’s very depressing. I was thinking out of all of our pitchers it would be around .375 to .400.
Other starters:
Smoltz: .318/.360/.773 (worst against any spot in the order)
Thomson: .333/.429/.556 (ditto — he’s killing the 3-4-5 hitters, though)
Sosa: .231/.333/.385 (go figure)
Woooo, bad sports night.
Just got back from a crushing Devils playoff loss at the Meadowlands only to find out about this debacle.
Gonna flush my mind & hope for a big Braves win tomorrow. But first a nightcap. I need one.
Well as bad a night that it was.At list the Canes beat the Devils so maybe just maybe it was not such a bad night.
Hockey: Sport of Divisiveness.
Among men and teeth.
I’ve always thought that Of Men And Teeth was one of Steinbeck’s most underrated works.
Even though we lost, there’s nothing like being in the arena during a close NHL playoff game.
But the Devils have given me plenty of thrills over the years with plenty of deep playoff runs, so I can’t get too down. Even this year, coming back to win the division & beating the Rangers will go a long way in my mind.
Now we just have to win one in a row four times…
Hey Stephen, the following is what Bobby has to say about Reitsma’s performance tonight:
“I wanted to get him an inning because he hadn’t thrown in a while. Closers never do very well when you bring ’em into a game like tonight.”
Unbelievable, I wish I have a boss like that.
Kolb > Reitsma
I’m starting to think that for Bobby to boot Reitsma, it’s gonna have to be like last year where there was really not one single reason why the team was not winning other than Kolb. Remember how Kolb almost single-handedly sent us into a month-long tailspin? Well, as much as I hate Reitsma (And I do entirely blame him for losses whenever it is even remotely feasible. For instance, the 14-inning loss to the Mets? Entirely his fault. Afraid the cat was already out of the bag on this one though.), he is not the only reason we’re in this tailspin. I have full confidence that he would be responsible for a month’s worse of terrible losses if we could ever get the game to him, but we have other problems right now. And what’s worse is that at this point, we can’t at all afford for him to start blowing five games in a row and so forth at this point. We’ve already gotten into this much trouble without him, so at this point I’m starting to become really afraid that our two choices are: he somehow gets through the year without ruining us completely and we suffer another first-round playoff exit because we don’t have a closer, or he blows a month’s worth of the season and we finish at .500.
We do not have time for this loyalty shit. I’m for loyalty just as much as the next guy. The team is far more likely to play for a manager that doesn’t throw them under the bus. I could give you 10,000 examples of this. But at this point, loyalty to Reitsma would be demonstrated by releasing him without having him shot.