ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Marlins at Braves

Awful game. Sorry defense, poor pitching, impatient and inefficient offense. It’s one of the more dispiriting losses of the year, even though with Jason Shiell pitching you couldn’t expect much.

Shiell, as in his first start, was good in all but one inning, this time the second, in which he got Shielled. He gave up a single to score Commando Cody and then a homer to Matt “.274 Slugging Percentage” Treanor. Shiell’s line of six hits, two strikeouts, one walk in five innings isn’t too bad and he probably didn’t knock himself out of the rotation. He’s better than Travis Smith.

The Vulture came into a 3-0 game in the sixth and was victimized by shoddy defense, errors by Betemit and Giles (and poor play all around) to allow three runs. He pitched the seventh, too, Paronto the eighth. Sosa came out to pitch the ninth, since it couldn’t get much worse, but got hurt. Or “hurt”. Some speculate he was faking. Ray finished up and got a strikeout.

The Braves’ best chance was in the first, when Giles singled and Renteria walked. Bobby had Betemit bunt, which was a curious decision with your #3 hitter but not obviously ignorant; first and second, none out, is probably the best time to bunt if you can pull it off with the force in effect at third. As it was, the bunt worked, but Andruw and Francoeur struck out. They had another chance in the third after Shiell walked and Giles singled again, but then made three straight outs. Giles’ single was the team’s only hit with a runner on base, and it was an infield hit. Francoeur homered, too late, in the seventh for their only run.

All this and Pedro tomorrow. Someone serve him some bad chicken, please.