ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Braves at Cardinals
It’s a lot less fun to be on the other side of these.
Jason Shiell pitched four innings, in three of which he pitched pretty well. Unfortunately, in the third he was smacked around, giving up four runs including a three-run homer. He pitched behind in the count a lot and seemed to have mechanical issues. On the other hand, he did strike out six. He wasn’t any worse than Cormier but wasn’t any better.
Kevin Barry, however, was far worse, allowing four more runs in a third of an inning. Eventually Bobby came out and got him (“What kept you?”) and Paronto finished the inning, getting a strikeout and popup with the bases loaded, but the Braves didn’t have much of a chance at 8-1 down. McBride and the Vulture finished the beating harmlessly.
The Braves actually led 1-0 heading into the third, Betemit scoring on Andruw’s two-out first-inning single. From the second to the sixth, the Braves got only two baserunners — a double and a single, both by Chipper. After that it was probably too late, but McCann hit a solo homer to keep his streak going (now five in a row with a round-tripper) and they loaded the bases with one out in the ninth, but could only score one on a LaRoche groundout.
Day of rest, then on to Philadelphia, which is always pleasant.
Again, never has winning two out of three made me feel this bad. If only it just rained out.
At least Smoltz will stop the bleeding.
Jason Schiell vs Chris Carpenter
Come on kids, we’d win this one 10 times out of 100.
Just keep winning series, doesn’t matter which order they come. Time to take 3 of 4 in the Land of the Lard.
Does anyone know when Phil Stockman comes off the DL? The ohh-and-ahh has worn off of Kevin Barry.
Good point Wryn. We had basically an emergency starter against the Cy Young winner. Who did you think was going to win out? Now, I understand our offensive explosion the past 7 games. At the same time, we didn’t face a Chris Carpenter.
Jake Peavy isn’t exactly someone to sneeze at though.
Also what do you all think of this:
Betemit and two mid-level prospects for Rafael Betancourt and Bob Wickman. As heard on WCNN.
By homering in his 5th straight game, I think I read that McCann tied the franchise record. Also, I think Chipper has tied his career long hit streak at 19 straight. Even though we lost, this has been cool to watch some history. Wryn, I agree. This was a giveaway game. I am sure everyone wanted to win, but with the pitching matchup tonight, I don’t think anyone is upset at being 5-1 on the road trip so far. We need to pound Philly these next 4 games.
Dan, that’s one pretty good player whose value we won’t maximize for two decent relievers. That’s an OK trade, depending on the “mid-level prospects.”
Um… Andy Marte? Remember him? He’s Indians property now. They aren’t looking for a long-term third baseman. As for shortstop, Jhonny Peralta isn’t going anywhere. He’s not playing particularly well but is under contract until 2010.
It sounds like it was an absolutely awful night to be at Busch Stadium. 80 mph wind gusts. Press box windows blew out and fell on people, the tarp failed spectacularly, several concession stands overturned, and 30 people were hurt. Wow.
Yes. It was awful. I was at the game. Everyone was huddled in the stairways with water pouring down the stairs. Also, before it started raining, crap and dust from the old Bush site was blowing everywhere. People with contact lenses had major problem as the dust was unbelievable. It was actually pretty scary. 300k people in St. Louis are without power, and its supposed to be 105 again tomorrow! And the Braves looked like last months Braves tonight! (actually Carpenter was just being himself).
Sorry about that (the weather not about the loss.) Hopefully you’ll find our town more hospitable next time around.
And not having power tomorrow is going to efffffffffffff-ing suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccck.
Stockman is looking good and may be back this Friday.
http://www.ajc.com/braves/content/sports/braves/stories/0719stockman.html
I’m not sure why there’s so much negativity because Jason Sheill and Kevin Barry (who?) each had a bad inning and the offense “only” scored 3 runs in against the likes of Chris Carpenter and Jason Isringhausen. I mean, when we we’re up against Cy Young winners or top relievers, we still hit the ball pretty well tonight. 2 of 3 from the Central-leading Cards (who were RED HOT coming in to this series) sounds good to me, even if Barry got knocked around. Lets smack the Phillies around and head home.
Trade on the horizon: Braves general manager John Schuerholz had a closed-door meeting with Cox on Wednesday afternoon to discuss a number of different trades that he’s currently discussing with different general managers.
“You would like to get stuff done sooner than later,” Cox said. “We’re just throwing stuff around right now.”
While Schuerholz was wearing his poker face and not providing specifics, there was indication he will make one or two trades before this week is complete.
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060719&content_id=1565268&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
I’m not at all negative towards Jason Shiell. He seems okay to me, an improvement over Cormier and possibly Thomson. We’ll see what he does during his second start, which I’m pretty sure he’ll get.
I agree w/ Mac and doubt the Indians feel they need Betemit.
However, all indicators maybe that the Braves are being forced to deal Betemit rather then Giles to get that much needed relief help. In a perfect world, we’d deal “Jumpy” Giles and keep Betemit and his far more patient style, a better hitter all the way around. Plus, younger and cheaper. (the only advantages to having Marcus is the speed, though he makes a lot of base running mistakes, and his defense is better).
But hey, is packaging Betemit nets us 2 strong relievers, we will have to take it. So, then it’s possible Wilson is only getting all this playing time to showcase how good he is. It will just hurt that much more that we have to trade him.
Had we not traded Marte for Edgar, Wilson could be the SS and Marte would be at 3rd for years to come. Oh well. At least Rentaria has done a great job.
re: Jason Shiell
I cannot say anything bad about him, even if he wasn’t good. I read that he’s a Savannah native and I won’t bash anyone from my hometown.
Gee, I’m sure glad we had Huckleberry up there to win the game for us in the ninth.
Yay Huckleberry!
I watched the game on FSN Midwest, and all the announcers could talk about was how Shiell couldn’t or wouldn’t pitch inside to right-handed batters. The cards hitters came to the plate knowing to look for outside corner or ball away. It just looked like he was trying to get them to chase rather then put the ball in play. This worked the first time through the order but then the hitters adjusted and Shiell didn’t. I hate to be hard on an inexperienced kid, but its hard to trust a guy with no experience and throws in the mid to high 80’s.At least young fire-ballers can blow it by guys.
Well Landogarner, aka Mrs. Thorman, it wasn’t like Scott Thorman was tearing it up last night. Plus Diaz ended the game.
Well Dan, aka Mrs. Huckleberry, it wasn’t like your husband didn’t groundout with the bases loaded. Oh wait….. he did!
The only trades are going to be one-sided. You either are going to have to bite the bullet or not. I guarantee that any trade JS makes, people will be complaining that he gave up too much. But that’s the way the market is.
To expect Jason Schiel to beat Chris Carpenter after the Cardinals had been pounded two nights in a row is really fantasy. And complaining that a guy doesn’t hit a grand slam to win the game seems pretty harsh to me. LaRoche is having a pretty good year, certainly better overall than Francoeur.
Exactly Marc.
What would a grand slam by LaRoche in the ninth have done anyway? Make it a two run game with an out, no one on and Jason Isringhausen undoubtely coming in? Yeah, it’s real fair to expect a six run comeback.
The game where Adam LaRoche goes 0 for 4 and Jeff Francoeur goes 1 for 4 with a single, you see fit to chastise LaRoche. I think you’ve been awfully silent lately, as LaRoche is hitting .407 / .433 / .926 with four homers since the All-Star break. Compare that to Francoeur’s .295 / .345 / .370. It is laughable that you still find cause to criticize the way LaRoche has been hitting lately.
“Landogarner” is German for “willful ignorance.”
I pray to god we trade Huckleberry. It would be like going from worst to first and winning the World Series all at once!
But who am I kidding, we would have to pay someone to take Huckleberry off of our hands. One can dream though.
After all that offense and the 7 game winning streak, the Braves are still 5 games under .500 and 5 games out of the wild card. Last night’s loss feels a lot worse than it really was (do you really expect to beat the defending Cy Young candidate with a journeyman making his first major league start?).
How weird that the Mets lost and it pisses me off because it was to the Reds.
I’m hoping for some long term trades that help us this year and for years to come rather than selling away our best young players for short term rentals. That Marte trade was one of the worst of JS’s tenure. It was totally unnecessary. Betemit would have been fine as the starting shortstop. It didn’t give us a leadoff hitter which was what we lost when Furcal jumped ship. We should have held onto Marte or used him to fill positions we actually had needs in such as, you know, relief pitching.
“Well Dan, aka Mrs. Huckleberry…”
I think the only place that is possible in the United States is Massachusetts.
Stu didn’t I ask you to PLEASE ignore anything I say? You always have to stick your big nose in don’t ya? Silly little Stuey.
I don’t think it was bad at all. Renteria has been great and it’s very possible Marte never becomes anything. Renteria is a great plus until Elvis Andrus is ready. Elvis is the future.
look, I like wilson, too, but his “more patient style” than Giles. Betemit’s OBP above his average this year is .060, and for his career is .059. Giles OBP above his average this year is .095, and .078 for his career; Giles is this year, and has always been, far more patient than Betemit. it isn’t even close.
Come on guys, we are still rolling, we just ran into a buzz saw last night. Time to take a day off and dominate this weekend
Mac,
What exactly are you referring to when you say Shiell seemed to have mechanical problems? He does seem to have a weird hitch in his delivery but I figured this was just an idiosyncrasy rather than a problem.
Ron, I completely disagree that the Marte/Renteria deal was a bad one.
But I completely agree that I don’t want to trade away potential building blocks for short-term fixes.
I think Renteria has been an up grade at short for us. He is solid in the field and always seems to be getting on base. If we trade Betemit or GIles, we are going to have to pick up a guy to come off the bench.
As much as I hate to say this, but if we do trade WB or Giles, Vinny Castilla might be a good bench player/late inning sub to sure up third base. I now he sucks, but he might be a good pinch hitter in the Julio role. I don’t want to see him platooning with LaRoche, but if we loose the WB we are going to need a bench player that can play third. Castilla is a good fastball hitter and that is all you see in late innings. I will duck now and let people throw things at me.
Smitty you do know we already tried the Castilla experiment in Atlanta? Once is enough.
Don’t be shocked if you see a certain Cubs pitcher on the staff within the next few weeks. You heard it here first. 😉
Hopefully Carlos Zambrano (yeah right.)
Actually, Daniel, if you’re referring to Maddux, it’s been all over the web. But it ain’t happening.
Ron,
The Renteria deal was a great move by JS, and could, down the road, look like a steal if Marte doesn’t produce. People are saying .275, 25HR, 85 RBI’s for Marte, during his usual years, maybe he’ll have a few grand years, but if you take into consideration the more demanding position Edgar plays, the amount of money we are paying him, plus the fact that Boston is paying some of his contract. Yeah, I think JS did well.
I do agree that I’d like to see a player acquired for more than a year (JD Drew) if we are going to give away decent prospects (Adam Wainwright).
I think Maddux is just about done. While even an almost-done Maddux might improve our rotation, I think he’d be too expensive in salary and/or trade pieces. If the Padres released Castilla, maybe the Betemit for Linebrink will happen. Maybe JS has to wait for Giles to come back before he moves either Giles or Betemit?
Man, anything but Vinny Castilla, I Heard a Ray King rumor too, another guy I do not want to see in a Braves uniform again.
I dont think JS would have to wait to deal Giles, he’s not on the DL
No to Vinny Castilla, no to Ray “Burger” King, and, sadly, no to Greg Maddux (my fave pitcher of all time).
Folks, Andy Marte is not to the Braves what Scott Kazmir is to the Mets—not yet anyway. The only similarity right now is that he’s regrettably gone. Time is past to get over it, move on & embrace Edgar.
No Castilla. The guy’s been released by Tampa Bay and Washington- two of the worst franchises in the majors. There’s a reason for that.
Ray King? Not unless there’s a burgeoning market for pitchers who allow two baserunners an inning and have 13/8 BB/K ratios.
Greg Maddux? Him I like. This team needs a steady presence in the rotation- even if it’s not a great presence anymore- and a de facto pitching coach since McDowell seems unable or unwilling to do the job.
Huckleberry? He is what he’s been, an average 1B that you replace when someone cheaper and/or better comes along. Thorman is someone cheaper, and maybe better. Certainly he has more upside and more flexibility with his ability to stumble around LF without hurting himself.
What I’ve heard is that if he is traded, Maddux wants to go west closer to his home in Las Vegas or maybe to Milwaukee where his brother is pitching coach. I don’t think he is coming back to the Braves. He has a no trade clause so he gets to pick. The Dodgers, Diamondbacks, or Brewers would seem to be the likeliest places.
Yes, Renteria has been very good this year. Betemit would have been nearly as good maybe even better offensively if he had played short full time. The Renteria trade was not a trade the Braves needed to make. They could have instead traded Marte for a closer or a leftfielder who could bat leadoff, areas they actually needed to address. I don’t at all mind that they traded Marte. You can’t hold onto prospects forever based on what you speculate they will become. Chipper will be our 3rd baseman for years so Andy would be stuck at Richmond if we had kept him. Moving him was fine. What I mind is not using him in a trade that addressed our most glaring weaknesses.
You may be right in that we could have filled other, more glaring needs in such a trade, but you earlier labled it potentially one of the worst in JS’s career, and that’s never ever going to be true.
I don’t think Betemit would be hitting what Renteria is hitting, nor do I think he would be very good with the glove at short.
Shea Hillenbrand (.301 with 12 homers, 15 doubles and 39 RBI) has been cut by the Blue Jays after criticizing the organization. The Jays have have 10 days to trade, release or send him to the minors.
Where would we play Shea? Platoon with Huck?
I think Hillenbrand hits left-handed, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Anyone else have trouble visiting baseball primer (aka baseball think factory)? I haven’t been able to get on since yesterday AM.
Anything that gets Huckleberry off the field is a good idea.
Betemit would not be as good as Rent, offensively, if he was playing fulltime. Betemit’ defensive troubles stem from being shuffled around the infield, and not being given a chance to succeed at one position fulltime.
Hillenbrand’s definitely a righty. Hinske is the lefty.
oh, oops. my bad. i guess a hillenbrand/laroche platoon wouldn’t hurt. it would have to be basically free, though – he’s not worth giving up ANYTHING to get
What does everyone think of Thorman’s performance at first base so far?
I agree with you there, Kyle.
You can’t platoon Hillenbrand. He bitches and moans when he doesn’t get playing time. And since the majority of pitchers are right-handed, he’d get less than LaRoche. Cue the whining. Plus he’s a clubhouse cancer, he doesn’t walk, and he sucks defensively. No thanks.
Thorman’s defense looks to be better than average and much better than LaRoche’s. Offensively, they look pretty similar in small samples. Thorman has made LaRoche expendable.
I agree that LaRoche is expendable, especially once KJ gets healthy.
1914 Update:
NY Giants 47-32 (–)
Chicago Cubs 47-37 (2.5 GB)
St. Louis Cardinals 46-40 (4.5)
Cincinnati Reds 39-44 (10)
Philadelphia Phillies 37-42 (10)
Boston Braves 37-43 (10.5)
Brooklyn Robins 35-42 (11)
Pittsburgh Pirates 35-43 (11.5)
1914 Update apologizes for giving the wrong result from yesterday’s game. The correct line score was as follows:
Boston 000 000 003 – 3 6 3 WP- Strand Sv- James
Cincinnati 000 000 200 – 2 5 6 LP- Yingling
Yep, six errors for the Reds.
That said, on to today’s game:
Boston 000 000 001 – 1 6 0 WP- Tyler Sv- James
Pittsburgh 000 000 000 – 0 4 3 LP- Cooper
(Yes, those are James’ only two saves of the year. In both games, he came in to pitch the bottom of the 9th.)
Pittsburgh is the last stop on the Braves’ current road trip. At a time when train travel was the only way to get around and night games inconceivable, road trips and homestands both tended to be longer, to reduce the necessity of travel days. The Braves will have just five road trips and four homestands for the entire season.
We need Thorman in left field. Laroche is fine at first. The offense is not a problem right now. Leave it alone and fix the pitching.
As for whether the Marte trade was one of Shuerholz’s worst, where would the Braves be in the standings now if Marte had been traded for a closer such as Baeys (sp?) as had been rumored instead of for Renteria? I’ll grant you the Justice/Grissom and Dye trades were worse, but Marte ranks up there not because Renteria has been bad but because the result was us getting a shortstop we didn’t need and being stuck with Reitsma et al in our bullpen instead.
There I cannot support you. Thorman is just awful in left field. No range, no arm. It’s nice that he can stand around out there, but he shouldn’t play LF in anything but an emergency.
The Marte trade was not a good one. Chipper has to get at least some of the blame. He insists on playing 3B even though he really should not be there, so 3B is occupied for the next three years. Therefore, Marte had to be traded. I don’t know what else was on the market, but if Baez was available, he was clearly superior.
Schuerholz was sure that he’d fixed the bullpen with old parts he had experience with (Remlinger) and people in slots they weren’t suited for (Reitsma). We’ve fixed most of that, but it put us in a deep, deep hole.
I think we just traded a minor-league catcher for Bob Wickman. Supposedly this is being confirmed on Cleveland radio, and Cleveland’s Scout board acts like it’s true.
He’s played a grand total of 6 games at first base. C’mon now. According to BP’s defensive metrics, LaRoche is having his best defensive season and is rated well above league average.
Offensively they’re pretty much identical. LaRoche was Thorman at his age. I believe Jay wrote a piece about it on this site. (I’m pretty sure, anyway.)
I agree that dealing Roach this offseason would be the wisest move; he’s due for quite a hefty raise. We could get _close_ to the same production from Thorman while paying him the minimum. Then we’ll get to listen to people bitch and moan for the next 3 years about how much he sucks. Oh joy.
I’ll take Wickman, send down Sosa and Barry when Stockman is ready…
Maximiliano Ramirez for Bob Wickman. Supposedly official.
Well, so much for Wickman’s career. I’ll post when I have confirmation.
Bob Wickman meet Chad Paronto. You are now the Bullpen Beef Brothers.
That’s got the Wickman part, but not Max Ramirez.
Wow, Wickman should fit right in and immediately pick up where Dan Kolb left off…
In his last 8 2/3 IP, he has allowed 11 hits and 9 runs while walking 5 and striking out 3. This is exactly not the guy that Smoltz was requesting for bullpen help. We can already get this production from our guys.
Why can’t we bring just bring Rocker back? He has to still have at least a little in the tank. Or Juan Berenguer maybe?
I hate HTML.
http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/pdsports/index.ssf?/mtlogs/cleve_pdsports/archives/2006_07.html#163304
The Marte trade was a good one because we had no shortstop. We were not going to re-sign Furcal at those numbers so we traded a player who was not playing for a starter. That is a good trade.
Wickman for a minor league catcher that is not Salty, worth a shot.
LEts get Gonzalez for Giles now.
Last try, I swear.
Although my post above was skeptical, we did make a good trade. Hopefully a change of scenery will be good for Wickman- it was getting rough in Cleveland. He has converted 83% of his save opportunities this year. If we had that save conversion rate we would be only a handful of games at most behind the Mets right now (maybe better than that since we seemed to lose confidence and play lowly for several days after giving away games late).
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5799836
another one