ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Dodgers at Braves
No Reitsma, and the bullpen still can’t pitch like human beings with control of all their limbs. Today it was Remlinger (who couldn’t get out of the eighth) and Tyler Yates (who was called up in place of Cormier, but couldn’t get anyone out and may not be around much longer himself, and isn’t Chuck James ready yet?) who were the prime culprits, allowing five runs in the last two innings.
Jorge Sosa was pretty good, seven innings, three runs (as you can tell if you do the math), seven hits, no walks, four strikeouts. He had one bad inning, the fourth, when he allowed an RBI single to Drew and a two-run homer to somebody named “Ethier” who may in fact be an elf. Other than that he was solid, and generally didn’t have to pitch out of trouble over and over again. Seven innings was a bit of a stretch, but they needed some innings from their starter, and got them.
Andruw drove in Giles with a single in the first, but after that had some trouble popping up with runners on. LaRoche hit a homer in the bottom of the fourth to cut it to 3-2, and Pena drove in the tying run in the sixth with an infield single. But after Marcus led off the seventh with a double, Renteria bunted him to third. I disagree with that strategy, because when you bunt with a runner at second, you know that you aren’t going to drive him in. Chipper screwed up and grounded out to second, but Marcus got into a rundown that allowed him to get all the way to third. Andruw then popped up with a runner in scoring position for the second time.
Good day for Langerhans, two hits and a walk. The Braves had eight hits and three walks among them… Hudson versus Brett Tomko tomorrow night.
Brad, I think Marcus will be fine. He is starting to take his walk and is on base twice tonight. So, that’s not bad.
Seriously, I think this offense and starting rotation is good enough to win, but the bullpen is awful, just awful. If I am Chipper, I would sue the Braves for misrepresentation to get the $4M back.
yeah I know. I like marcus…he’s just not a leadoff hitter. It reminded me of when dusty baker let michael barrett hit cleanup for the cubs–may work out, just feels weird.
The bullpen, for the 2nd straight year, is still awful, and all we’re doing is running out random guys who could barely get AAA hitters out.
I hope three games over .500 wasnt the high water mark for the season. It took a whole pile of miracles just to beat the Cubs. And it doesnt look like its going to be getting any better.
They are basically running a tryout camp at the major league level…using real games. I think the stories of Hammonds, Holmes, and Ray have such damaging effect that they believe the bullpen can be put together by pulling people off the street.
To some extend, I agree that there are more luck involved in relievers than other positions, but each team still needs two to three very good, dependable, and experienced arms to head a bullpen. What does the Braves have? Reitsma and Remlinger. Great work by our GM. You have to wonder why the Padres have a good bullpen every year. That’s one example which the team cares enough to put together a bullpen.
Right on, kc. Well said–tryouts at the major league level. If that’s how you want to run your team, to totally demoralize guys who try hard every day by late-game collapses, then you should give out refunds as fans leave the park unhappy. B/c eventually, who’s going to keep paying to see the same thing every game?
Unless the Braves are doing some crazy accounting with the contracts of Smoltz, Hampton, and Hudson, I believe the Braves’ payroll is well under $80M at this point. Seriously, I ask myself everyday what would happen if the Braves actually signed Todd Jones.
I know Mac is pulling a Mike González / Dámaso Marte trade rumor, but my bet is still on Scott Williamson.
I’m blaming myself for the last two games, both of which we lost by ridiculous margins. I was at Turner Field both yesterday and today. They were doing really well last week, stringing together a nice bunch of wins, and then they just fell apart as soon as I went to the stadium.
Don’t worry, we’ll get ’em tomorrow, because I’m not going. Tyler Yates and Mike Remlinger will now turn into Scot Shields and Felix Rodriguez.
I can’t help but be mad at our GM for the bullpen situation but at the same time understand his situation. Let’s think of last year’s offseason. We traded for Dan Kolb who had a good season as a reliable closer according to his overall stats, not splits. We paid him $3.4M last year. Apparently there wasn’t money for even a Dan Kolb pre-suckness this past year. Schuerholz had the right idea in drafting a great college reliever- someone who has proven themselves at the highest amateur level with great success- but he hasn’t worked out yet. So, it seems his hands are tied currently. But let’s look at 2004. Another glaring bullpen need so he dealt Bubba Nelson, Jung Bong, and other prospects for Reitsma and Juan Cruz and didn’t really have to take on payroll (according to BaseballReference.com, it was $370k for Cruz and $970k for Reitsma) so it begs the question: why couldn’t have he had done this this offseason?
Re: the recaps
Mac:
It’s no secret that I absolutely love this site, and I appreciate everything that you do just so a buncha guys (and girls) can have a quality Altanta Braves. But I gotta ask ya, wouldn’t you say you have been showing some serious bias in your recaps? Giles has been atrocious all year, and he hasn’t been thrown under the bus. Reitsma has been really bad too, but since he’s not leading off and playing everyday, I can’t say he’s hurt the Braves more, but he’s been downgraded to slightly above pigeon poop on your recaps. Same with LaRoche. I know he hasn’t been what the Braves need at first, but he’s 3rd on the team in homers,
Sorry, hit send accidently. But he’s third on the team in homers, and fourth
CRAP! Did it again! Third in homers, fourth in OPS. And he hit a bomb today. Where’s the love for him?
Wow, quadruple post goin on, but those posts didn’t get edited because of my inept thumb finger trying to alt-tab it up. Sorry.
I feel bad for you AAR, spending so much to watch this bullpen work. You must feel your money being well spent!!!
As I said Rob, there will be more love for Adam if he hits the entire season like he is hitting in this month.
Bullpen help is just around the corner. Davies will be back by July and James should be back any day now. With Sosa and Ramirez (fingers crossed there) showing promise in their last few starts, we can deal one of our six starters for two quality relievers somewhere else or simply send them to the bullpen. I don’t know if Davies would be successful in the pen, but Sosa could be valuable.
This is Remmy’s first bad start in a while. I’m glad to see Ray, McBride, and Paronto (sans his last appearance) making some good pitches. I honestly don’t think this will be an ongoing problem for the season.
Yet Again Bobby leaves a guy in for 1 batter too long who shouldn’t of been in the game in the first place. Remlinger is just terrible, and when he gets in trouble he gets worse. We desperately need to get the bullpen worked out it’s a very glaring weekness how many years are we going to have to put up with such terrible terrible bullpens?
I thinik bobby needs to realize you gotta goto your best guy when th e game is on the line. Today that was: Game tied, men on 1st and 3rd with remlinger in. At that point it’s time to pull remlinger and put in whoever can get the job done. You can’t wait for some theoretical save situation that never comes. Put in your best guy let him get you out of the mess, and the next time theres a mess put in your next best guy. And so on. Why does he not do this, why does he goto his 3rd or 4th or 5th etc. best guy in a tie game and leave him in when he gets in obvious trouble.. sigh.
We don’t have any consistency (in the pen, the field, the plate or from the starters), which is another way of saying that we’re not a complete ballclub.
Gonna have to gut it out, scratch out some wins & hang around until some kind of help arrives or our guys play better. I can’t imagine a miracle cure/trade until the deadline.
The anatomy of this particular defeat makes me wonder about the Braves’ fixation on veterans. Why Yates? He has never been a good pitcher. In 2004 he pitched for the Mets and his ERA was over 6.00. Meanwhile at Richmond Phil Stockman has been nothing less that `lights out’. in 23 and 2/3 innings he has struck out 31 with an ERA of 1.14.
Somehow, the fact that Yates has been in the big leagues trumps all other considerations; it hardly seems to matter that Yates was awful in 2004 and he looks like he will be in 2006. I expect to see more of him.
Under Coming Attractions, the Braves have added another retread named Jonathan Johnson. He is about to turn 32 and his career is almost as bad as Yates:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/j/johnsjo08.shtml
Johnson comes from LaGrange (Georgia–not the town in Texas that ZZ Top helped to make famous) and brings a career ERA over 6:00. But he has 42 major league games under his belt! No matter how well Stockman or Barry pitches it seems as if the fact that Johnson appeared in the majors will matter more.
Even though he got lit up tonight in Richmond, I would not be surpised to see him pitching for the Braves….
Stephen, I don’t know what the Braves have in mind for Stockman. Moylan didn’t have major league experience either but the Braves didn’t hesitate to promote him. There must be some different set of criteria the Braves look at when they promote a pitcher.
That’s because Chris Reitsma is far more damaging to the team than Marcus Giles, especially from a morale standpoint. Think about it, even if Giles absolutely sucks, there are other people who can pick up the slack. However, we work our ass off for eight innings only to have the entire thing blown in one fell swoop by that Canadian clown and then go on a weeklong slump. And yes…I’m fully convinced that at least yesterday’s loss is pretty much entirely Reitsma’s fault, because the emotional stress his shittiness put on the team (even though we wound up winning) on Sunday afternoon caused us to play like complete crap for the first half of yesterday’s game. I’m sure there’s a way to blame today’s bullpen blowup on him, too. I’ll think of it sooner or later. In fact, there have been very few non-injury related problems that this team has faced this year that have not, in some way, revolved around Chris Reitsma. We very well might be in first place right now with any other pitcher as our closer.
I want to address some thing I have seen on this thread
1) “Why didn’t Bobby go to his go to guy”
Well I am sure he would have if he had a go to guy. Remember that we have gone deep in the pen the last few games and some guys probably couldn’t pitch.
2)I think we have all jumped on Marcus some. Has anyone thought that his patience at the plate might be hurting him? I always thoguht of him as an aggressive hitter.
We really need McCann back and need to consider moving Pena to first, that kid can hit.
it’s summer, I’m out of school and I’m looking for a project.
It’s been my intention to one day create a John Smoltz for HOF site. Is this a good idea and does anybody have any advice on tools and/or good sites that catch your eye?
Thanks!
If you want to do just a page, I can set you up. I am not really familiar with WordPress yet but it provides the ability to do static pages.
K.L…maybe I can help you aswell…I have a couple of sites…and it’s a part of what I’m studyin for..
I have to say I’m really losing confidence in this team. Yeah, they’re only 4 1/2 games out, but…they just don’t seem very good. They never play like a cohesive unit. Even when they win, there’s always a problem. (“Yeah, they won, but they were no-hit for 6 1/3.” “Yeah, they won, but the bullpen blew the lead late and they had to come back.” “Yeah, they won, but it was the Marlins.”) And they just can’t seem to beat good teams.
In fairness, though, I don’t see where you can blame JS completely for the bullpen meltdown. I mean, I don’t see any one reliever that he had a reasonable shot of signing who could have single-handedly lifted the bullpen out of mediocrity. Even if he signs Hoffman or Wagner or whoever (for an exhorbitant price, I might add), that just pushes back the problem to the eighth inning…I think he was really counting on Boyer and Devine to step up and be the go-to guy in the pen, but they’re both hurt.
I think if everyone had a set role, then everything in the pen would be fine. Don’t panic yet. It is a good sign that we can win those games that we mess up and should loose. Finding a way to win is the sign of a champion. We just have to stay clsoe until the second half.
It’s frustrating that the bullpen continues to suck, but I’m not sure if you can pinpoint any single reason as to why. I mean, with all the youth the Braves have – including in the bullpen – it seems unfair to say they only promote veterans. At the same time, JS has his hands tied with a shrinking payroll and the team for sale. Remlinger had not been the source of all the trouble, in fact he’d looked okay for much of the season (suprisingly), so I can’t really fault Bobby for going to him. And everybody knows Bobby likes to get new guys a chance to play right away; sometimes it fails but it often works.
The talent just isn’t there right now. The lineup is okay, except for the ridiculous strikeout tallies, and the top end of the rotation is coming together. But until there is some consistency in (1) the defense, especially in the infield, (2) the bullpen, and (3) at the back end of the rotation, the Braves will be no better than an 85-90 win team, at best.
And if precedent is any sort of ‘guide,’ I agree wholeheartedly with Smitty.
Adam you are right on with your assesment of our infield defense. Renteria has been great with the bat, but he has missed some plays he should have made, same with Chipper. We rag on LaRoche’s defense, but he has saved the infielders a few error this season. When Marcus Giles is your best defensive infielder, you have a problem. Not that Giles is bad, but he is sightly above average at best.
I think our infield D has cost us three or four games this year. It doesn’t help when you have a bunch of relievers that get a ton of ground balls.
I think it would be nice to just have some consistency. When our starting pitchers go out and pitch eight innings of 1 run baseball…the offense can’t seem to get run support. Either we strike out 147 times in the first 7 innigs..or leave tons of people in scoring position..or get almost no-hit..
And when the offense does click..our pitching won’t be able to stop a team fielding Jessy Garcia, Tony Pena Jr and Rafael Belliard.
Other times it’s the fielding..or most of the time..it’s the bullpen that implodes one way or the other.
It’d just be nice..to just have some consistency..where hitting, pitching and fielding could all co-exist happily..
I believe that we have the tools to be successfull on the offensive and defensive sides of the game in the clubhouse already. It may be taking longer than we would like, but those things will come together. Our problem is that we do not have in house solutions for our pitching. The top half of the rotation is adequate, but we will have to get outside help for our bullpen or we won’t see a division title this year. That is just a fact. I do wonder how much flexibility our GM has right now. With the team going through a switch in owners in the middle of the season, the question has to be asked. What does JS have the ability to do?