Hi, I’m Jay. As Mac said, I’ll be covering the Braves farm system here at Braves.net for the many of you interested in the guys who are the future of the organization. I plan on writing some organizational roundups, game coverage, player analysis, and other minor league content for Braves Journal.Â
To begin at the beginning, here are some notes on Richmond’s 5-2 loss to Durham this afternoon.Â
The Braves continue to gently stretch Chuck James, who went 3 innings (45 pitches) today. That’s up from 2 innings (28 pitches) last time out. He struck out 3 but gave up two runs on a mammoth homerun over Durham’s Blue Monster.Â
Kelly Johnson continues his good approach at the plate, going 2 for 3 with 2 walks. His 5th inning double was off the center field wall at the 400 foot mark. He did misplay a shallow Nick Green fly ball that he lost in the sun. It fell for a double, but he was lucky not to get beaned.
Kevin Barry took the loss despite pitching fairly well. He gave up 3 runs, though only 1 was earned (the others were courtesy of a Tony Pena error), and he struck out 7.Â
And last, Jon Schuerholz went 0 for 3, but actually raised his season OBP (.200) when he got hit by a pitch in the 4th.
Welcome aboard, Jay, & thanks for the updates.
Yes, Jay, welcome aboard (seconding ububba’s post). I’m looking forward to your addition to the site.
I’m gonna third ububba. Thanks Jay. I’m excited about this.
Jay,
I think that this is great! Covering the minors should be alot of fun and I know that many of us will enjoy your postings.
Wasn’t it nice to see Atilano have a nice start for a change?
Many thanks, Jay.
Who do James and KJ replace on the big league roster? Diaz has been burning up, and Sosa seems to have turned it around. Langerhans and Thomson as trade bait for bullpen help, anyone?
Don’t think it’s gonna happen. Just throwing it out there…
I’ll fouth it!! haha
I just got back from Pearl tonight actually… salty hit!rbi single! a walk… lol that was good news and he also had a ball that missed being out by a few inches (which it was to right field and there’s like a 15 foot wall there so they gotta go when they hit em that way) then hit a double
Blanco played a great game… not sure his stats show it tonight, but he saved a lot of stuff in center! played AWESOME out there! Esquivel… I like this guy… haven’t heard a lot about him! very nice guy and he started rough but has come around! I like! haha.. he’s in right field. for a while I was thinking he and blanco were the only ones that showed up to play tonight!
we lost… shouldn’t have but did
I could recap more but that’s just a brief… the coach for Bham got thrown out …rather interesting play the batter (bham) chopped the ball… runners on first and second… ball was chopped to the pitcher he threw it to third got that guy then threw it to first and got the batter who was still standing at the plate! lol (in the batters defense… I thought the ball hit his foot and was dead too) BUT the umps never said whether it was live or dead… they called em both out and it ended the inning… had we come back and won it would’ve mattered more but we didn’t
then we come in to bat and the first pitch sailed straight at the batter! …warned both dugouts and bham’s players started coming in toward home throwing a fit!
very entertaining night though!
Glad to hear everyone is excited . . . It should be fun to follow these guys.
Sounds like Salty had a good night last night, Miranda. I listened to the game and was pretty impressed with what I heard from him. Esquivel’s star has fallen since he and Chuck James got into a fight just before the 2004 SAL all-star game.
As far as the roster management, of James and Johnson, well the Braves have some choices to make. Right now they’ve got Brayan Pena up, and they’ve got just 11 pitchers. They’ll probably send him down when they feel McCann is ready, but I don’t think James will be the one coming back up. At least not yet. I don’t know what they’re going to do with Kelly. I think he’s at least as good a hitter as Langerhans and Diaz. Personally I’d like to see him at first, but …..
AA baseball is great! I enjoy southern League games a lot, we have the Lookouts here, so good times.
Good job Jay, nice to know about KJ.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Jay. Baseball Widow looks forward to hearing your thoughts. 😉
Good news to have somebody covering the minors. That’s something I missed from the Beat for most of last year. Welcome Jay.
Southern League is good stuff. Go Jacksonville Sun! (local team)
haha… didn’t know about Matt/Chuck’s fight… sounds interesting though
I’m partial to the Southern League myself. I lived in Knoxville for 3 years and watched a lot of Smokies games. Plus, you’ve gotta love a league that’s got a team named the Biscuits.
I noticed last night that it seemed like everytime I looked at Salty before he’d give the signs… looked like he was getting the calls from the dugout and wasn’t calling the game himself. …but then again Eddie could be trying to help him out and work with him some by calling a lot of the pitches or something! …just something I noticed though
haha… the Biscuits! I’ve always found that one very amusing!
I would like to see KJ take Orr’s spot on the roster. KJ used to be a middle infielder and he would still give us enough speed for pinch run situations. Orr doesn’t have much value.
Horacio will only be activated if McCann becomes able to play. I dont see McCann being ready after his pinch-hit the other day, but I hope I’m wrong. I also would like to see James come up and take Villareal, Remlinger, or Cormier’s spot. Again, I dont see that happening.
This is great news. It’s nice to have even more bases covered on Braves Journal.
Personally I’m hoping that C James get the call up to be the 5th starter. Let HoRo work in AAA. That being said, JS will most likely bring up HoRo and leave James rotting in AAA. As for Johnson, I still think that eventually we will trade for relief help and use one of our young OF as bait. So, until that happens he will mose likely kill AAA pitching.
I think they are getting James ready to come up and start. I bet we are about to deal him, HoRam, KJ, Langy, Thomson, or Sosa.
I would take Thomson off of that list. If we deal him, we will pay for it. Our depth at starting pitching is not quite what some of us thought when the year began.
I dont see Thomson or Sosa leaving, but I do see a package of Langy or KJ/Horam/Lerew going somewhere for our bullpen blues
We won’t trade both KJ and Langy
Langy or KJ, not both
KJ/HoRo/Lerew or Langy/HoRo/Lerew seem to be the package. What can we get for this package? Better yet, of what we could get, what would we want? I am clueless on this. There seems to be a shortage of valuable help available.
Langy/HoRam/Lerew would be my choice. I think KJ has more upside than Langy, I’ve never liked HoRam, and Lerew is the “hot” prospect throw-in. The Cubs look like they’re ready for a fire sale — especially if we sweep them, which I have a feeling we will.
Maddux returns to Atlanta under new ownership, bringing a relief pitcher with him? I know he’s had a brutal May but the return to ATL may perk him up.
Like I said, I’m just throwing it out there…
This is so weird. I swear I had Mac’s recap up at the top of the page and now it’s gone, even when I refresh like 8 times. Any suggestions as to what’s wrong?
What would it take to get Maddux or Willis, both want out.
I’d be shocked if we dealt John Thomson anywhere for anything. Overall, our staff isn’t good enough right now to be dealing a solid No. 3 guy.
Also, for what it’s worth, I believe he’s in the last year of his contract. He’s pitching for his next one, if not from ATL, from someone else.
I havent seen the recap for yesterday’s game
I would like to see Thomson stay around, but with Davies, HoRam, James, and Lerew. I cant see us offering anything. If we dont offer him an extension we need to get something in return instead of just losing him as a free agent. We need someone to be stupid enough to take Hampton.
Smoltz, Hudson, Hampton, Thomson, Davies – does look pretty solid though
I never saw a recap.
I think Thomson is a dilemna because we need him this year, but likely won’t resign him next year. Ideally, we would be in a postition with enough depth that we could trade him and at least get some value. Unfortunately I think we are in the postion where we will just have to use him and face losing him.
I saw the recap Jenny! lol… and I commented too! …a little later I refreshed the page and the recap was gone so I don’t know!
The recap seems to have vanished for me as well. Strange.
I don’t think the Braves can really trade Lerew right now — he’s been awful so far this season. James, on the other hand, looks to be a valuable rotation member for years to come. Seems stupid to deal him for relief help now.
The Braves’ precieved outfield depth is really an illusion. They’ve got one superstar (Andruw), one future star (Francoeur) and 3 fourth outfielders (Langerhans, Johnson, and Diaz). Actually, I think Johnson’s better than that, but I’m not sure management is convinced. The system’s pretty slim on OF, espcially the higher you get. They’re not going to trade either of the “stars”, but if you trade one of the fourth outfielders, what are you going to get back? Any team looking to trade away valuable relief at this point in the season wants to fleece the other team.
On the other hand, any of our fourth outfielders is too good for AAA.
What happened to the commenting now? I even lost the thread with the recap on it…
Never mind. I had to refreash this page twice before the newer threads popped up…