ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Braves at Padres
Pitchers’ duel, pitchers’ duel, offensive explosion. I sure can call it, can’t I?
The Joneses did most of the damage. Chipper was 4-5 and scored three runs. Two of those runs came in front of Andruw’s two homers; he also walked twice. In the first, Renteria homered, then after Chipper singled, Andruw broke out of his homerless drought with a blast to left. In the third, after another Chipper single, Andruw hit a ball that hit the top of the centerfield wall and bounced over, making it 5-1.
The Padres had cut it to 7-4 in the sixth when LaRoche, neck apparently no longer stiff, doubled home the Joneses to make it 9-4, then came home on a Pratt single. Francoeur was 0-5 but every other regular in the lineup (including Diaz for Langerhans) had at least one hit, and all but LaRoche reached base at least twice. Giles and Renteria joined Andruw with two walks each.
John Thomson isn’t really pitching very well right now, but did well enough to get the win — at least when the Braves score ten runs. Two of the six runs scored off of him were charged unearned, courtesy of errors by Renteria Giles and Francoeur. He maybe was a little unlucky; he allowed eight hits, but only one (a double) for extra bases, and struck out three with one walk. Normally you’d expect better than six runs. Villareal got the last two outs of the eighth, and Reitsma pitched the ninth. I really think he should get a save for that. Four runs for Reitsma is like two for anybody else. He allowed a hit but did get two strikeouts.
A needed day off to travel to Chicago for three with the Cubs. Hudson-Zambrano in the opener. Maddux pitched last night (not well at all, by the way) so we won’t see him.
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I have been a critic of Pendleton for a while now, but I think I’m seeing a strategy from him that seems to be working. I believe that he’s doing a lot of work with the younger hitters in getting them to go with the pitch and go to the opposite field. Obviously the veterans don’t need much coaching and they’ve just told Franceour to go up there and hit the ball, but the other guys have seemed to buy into this philosophy. This strategy seems to be a direct response to Mazzone’s down and away approach.
It seems that when we do this we have scored a lot of runs and that’s why we’re one of the top teams in the league in runs scored. On the flip side, power pitchers often seem to overpower us and our timing is off. That could at least be a partial explanation for our league leading strike-out total. What do you guys think?
Do we seem to be hitting a few more balls than normal to the opposite field and when we do, we score a lot of runs? I wasn’t able to stay up for all of the game last night, but it seemed like we did this fairly effectively last night (LaRoche’s double being a case in point.) Thoughts?
I think TP has changed the teams thoughts on hitting. We are being more aggressive at the plate than I have ever seen us. I think after we have seen all the diffrent types of pitchers, we should be able to adjust. The strikeouts should go down, I would think.
*HAWKS DIGRESSION*
Anyone see Diaw put up almost 40 last night? Man, we did a great job with that guy when we had him. Stupid Hawks.
Well at least the Hawks aren’t the worst run team in the league. How ’bout them Knicks!
I was watching the MS Braves last night and noticed… they work the count so much… the opposing pitcher throws so many pitches (or did last night) because there are lots of full counts, two – two counts, etc. Just something I noticed… a lot patience at the plate and keeping an eye on the ball and where it’s at.
Marcus made the error, not Renteria. It should have been a double play, but Renteria made a soft toss to Marcus, allowing the runner to be almost on top of Marcus before he could get his throw off. His throw sailed and ended up in the stands.
This “other-way” fascination with the Braves announcers needs to stop. Pull hitters are pull hitters, especially guys that have power. I want to see Andruw, Chipper, and Francoeur pulling the ball instead of dinking it the othre way. Everytime I read about how someone’s improved by going the other way, I go to the MLB hit charts, and always there are lots of pull hits and lots of other-way outs. TP was a hacker, who had to hit like he did. I hope he’s smart enough not to try and impose his style on these guys.
I don’t see the problem here.