ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Mets at Braves
Tim Hudson truly is a #2 starter. In that he’s complete shit. (This is not license to curse in the comments. Use the Ranting thread.) Hudson gave up three runs in the first two innings, seemingly settled down, and then had his worst Episode yet, allowing six of the seven runs allowed in the horrifying sixth inning. (Paronto capped it with a three-run homer scoring two of Hudson’s runs.) How bad was this game? Jorge Sosa was — by far — the Braves’ most effective pitcher.
It was tied 3-3 much of the way after Giles drove in two with his second-inning single, having already scored in the first on a LaRoche sac fly. (With Chipper on the shelf, Adam batted third.) Marcus has been heating up, while the rest of the team is in the freezer, and had two of the team’s four hits, which equalled Paul LoDuca’s total for the day. The Mets had fifteen.
Chipper is probably going on the DL after the game when Aybar gets to Atlanta. L’il Tony is up to give the Braves a shortstop; in two weeks, if Chipper is back, they’ll have to make a decision on Orr vs. Aybar, though there’s no comparison and the Canadian should go down. Orr played third base today like a man without control of his legs and possibly his bowels. I don’t know who will go down in place of Baez or why Hudson sucks so much.
Ugg. I think this effectively puts away the division. Lets see if we can salvage a win tomorrow and grab the wild card. I think it would be fitting if we were to get in to the post season as a wild-card team and ride a hot streak to the WS.
What would the Yankees give the Braves for Hudson?
(Hoping for a Reds’ loss.)
This is what is going to happen:
– Orr will stay.
– Pena will go back down until September 1 roster expansion.
You see, Orr is a “veteran.” And Bobby and John love veterans because “experience” is more important than stuff like, you know, ability.
Orr can’t play shortstop. Nor can Aybar — at least, he hasn’t. The only player on the roster with any shortstop experience other than Renteria is Chipper, and I don’t see that happening.
Good job by LaRoche digging Orr’s throws out of the dirt.
Betemit couldn’t play second either but he did. If for some reason Edgar gets hurt, Orr or Aybar can be stuck in there.
Orr should go, end of story. We suck, Hudson sucks, there are no Playoffs now. We needed our starters to “step up” and they have all miserably failed.
So anyway, what would you guys do now if you were JS? I would call up all the other GMs and say make me your best offer for anybody on the team. If somebody blew me away offering great prospects, I’d have to strongly consider making the move. By next year, JS needs to blow up this pitching staff and put together a better one. Keep Smoltz (unless somebody basically offers you a repeat of Smoltz for Alexander), James, and Davies. Ditch the rest of the rotation. Use the money freed up by trading Hudson to sign a true #2 or #1 starter. Trade Giles, opening a full time spot for Aybar next year. Give either Langerhans or Thorman a full time spot in left field for the rest of the year to see if he is the answer. Dump Pratt on some dumb playoff contender who wants a veteran backup and call up Brayan Pena. Let’s see if his numbers earlier this year were a fluke. If you can trade Sosa for literally anything including a bag of baseballs, do it. Otherwise DFA/place him on waivers. Get rid of Thompson at the earliest opportunity.
the reds NEED to go ice cold, now! i think we play them next week. that series will decide the braves’ season.
With Chipper disabled and the team cratering, the wild card really isn’t an issue anymore. If this team ever gets back to .500, then we can start thinking about the playoffs again.
while we’re not playing great baseball now, i think the we’re an outside shot at the wildcard, but it’s not outta reach yet. we just need a lil help from the other teams. haha, i can’t believe people just now are admitting that the division is outta reach. that waved “byebye” a long time ago.
TRADE HUDSON!!
I think he’s hurt and doesn’t want to be a girlie-man about it.
It’s the starters. On a weekend when we needed big outings, the number 2 and 3 starters on this team, Huddy and HoRam, let us down big time. Forget the playoffs, this team is sunk, as is any team with crappy 2 and 3 pitchers. The number five can suck, all others need not apply.
Outside of Smoltz I don’t have confidence in any of our starters..
Hudson has been kidnapped and replaced with someone who I don’t know..
HoRam remains an enigma… it’s either 8 innings of 1 run ball, or 2 innings of 8 run ball..
John Thomson/Lance Cormier/Jason Shiell…don’t even get me started..
Chuckie James is our #5 guy and I guess I can cut him some slack. Atleast he hasn’t been as awful as the rest.
But damn, there used to be a time that we actually had starting pitching. Good starting pitching. Now we just help Carlos Beltran pad his stats..
Ugh..
The writer for the official Braves site would still have us believe that Mazzone leaving and McDowell, greener than green, filling in has nothing to do with our pitching troubles this year.
Malone, I agree with your idea to get rid of Hudson — unfortunately, your following statement shows why we probably won’t be able to do so.
First post here, but have been reading for a while.
I think the wildcard is a very outside shot at this point. The Braves were not as bad as they looked in May and June, and they were not as good as they looked earlier in July. If they get balls to bounce the right way, they are right around a .500 club, give or take 4 games up or down, but with 7 teams in front of them for the Wild Card its hard to see how that’s going to be good enough. The pitching just isn’t good enough to sustain the type of “18 out of 22” run it would take to really get back into it (they got about half of that last month or we wouldn’t be having this conversation).
I guess I would say the Braves should start trading, but what would they trade and what would they get in return? Smoltz? He’s your most popular player, and is still quite valuable, but I’d agree that if something great is available for him the Braves should take it. Still, it doesn’t look like many teams are itching to trade their Scott Kazmir’s this year.
Hudson, Thompson? What are you really going to get for them?
Teams would probably be interested in LaRoche, but the guy is finally looking good after a few years of waiting, and he’s cheap for a few more years. Who could the Braves get for him that would honestly be a better bet?
Ironically, the best chip the Braves have left is Renteria, though dealing him after dealing Bettemit would solidly land this club in the cellar for this year and maybe next. Still, renteria is one of the top players in the league right now (never mind shortstops) and would make several playoff contenders much much better.
I guess some of my negativity towards trading is just an ignorance of whats out their and the knowledge of how they’d be treated by the organization.
With an aging Chipper, I’d say the Braves could move Renteria for a top third base prospect, oh you know, someone like Andy Marte 😉
McDowell should be fired.
Hire Maddux to the PC next year, he’s done pitching and he would make an excellent coach.
Pendleton and Hubbard prove that former Braves are good bets as Asst. Coaches.
I think we need to make a trade for the real Tim Hudson. The Tim Hudson we have isn’t the same guy who did so well in Oakland. I don’t know what his problem is.
We’ll forever bounce around the idea that McDowell coming in and Mazzone going out is to blame for the pitching collapse.
I can’t really say for sure, but injuries are certainly a factor. Now then, are the injuries a result of bad luck or the absence of Mazzone?
Hudson is a chief reason we’re not seriously competing for a playoff spot. Blame the bullpen or whatever, Hudson is 8-9 with a ERA over 5. If he pitches anywhere near his career levels, we’re leading the wildcard race.
Yeah, Pendleton has done such a great job teaching Franceour to be patient and Andruw to lay off sliders a foot off the plate. But I am with you. Maddux figures to be a great pitching coach and he should really retire before he tarnishes his legacy with multiple years of mediocrity at the end of his career.
What is this about trading Hudson? YOU CAN’T TRADE SOMEONE THAT NOBODY WANTS. Who is going to take him? The Yankees pitching is actually not that bad–they certainly don’t need a guy that can’t get National League hitters out. We are stuck with this guy. I too suspect that he is hurt–if not, omigod, what did Billy Beane put over on JS?
Hudson had a 3.79 ERA on June 10, and has a 7.97 ERA since. Crashing and burning that suddenly usually doesn’t happen without an injury. My suspicion is that Hudson maybe overthrew in some games in June when the team was struggling, tried to do too much. Just a random guess.
I’m not convinced he’s untradeable, but I am convinced the braves wouldn’t even entertain the thought. randy Johnson wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire when the Astros traded for him, but then he didn’t have a big contract . Heck, the Braves were willing to bet $48m that they could fix Mike Hampton post-Coors. I bet somewhere out there there’s a team with a scout or pitching coach saying “I’ve seen a flaw in Hudson’s delivery and I can fix him!” Maybe that guy up in Baltimore who was convinced he could fix Andy Ashby…
Braves have the number 2 offense in the NL, Pendelton has doen a great job over the years.