ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Padres at Braves
Well, they can’t all be the same, but it was still pretty familiar. This time, the Braves jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first, getting four hits capped by an RBI double from Francoeur. After that, they went to one out in the sixth before they got another hit. The Padres tied it up with three hits, including two doubles, in the fourth off of Tim Hudson.
Hudson was hit by a line drive single in the sixth, but is apparently okay and got out of it with a lineout double play. He wasn’t as sharp as he’s been, allowing nine hits, but didn’t walk anyone and struck out four. In the bottom of the inning, after a single from McCann and a double from Woodward (Renteria has the flu) Wilson struck out, and Willie Harris hit for Hudson. He walked, bringing up KJ, who doubled into the corner, clearing the bases.
Paronto gave up a couple of hits to start the seventh, then got out of it with a sac fly and a double play to make it 5-3. Kali pitched the eighth (Gonzalez having pitched the last two days) and blew them away. Soriano didn’t have his best stuff (he’d also pitched the last two days) but got a nice play at third from Chipper and another in right from Francoeur, combined with a popup to McCann to end it.
The Braves were outhit 11-8, but (a) bunched their hits successfully and (b) got five walks to none. They haven’t hit a homer since the second game of the Phillies series, I think, which is worrisome, but went 7-3 on the homestand anyway. Now on to Pittsburgh, where I guess they’re out of Ritalin or something.
Well if you take out the first inning, its a come from behind 3-2 victory.
Adam is turning it around, slowly like the QE II
My office Met fans are once-again making themselves scarce. Won’t even walk past my office.
If we have a power slump, we’ll be OK as long as our pitching holds up. But with Chipper, Andruw, Frenchy, etc., I expect to see some HRs & perhaps very soon.
Davies & Lerew this weekend in Pittsburgh, BTW. Should be interesting.
FYI-Another example why not to overpay for a closer: BJ Ryan’s season-ending Tommy John surgery. One great season, followed by a disaster.
Well I am glad to see we won, i forgot it was a day game
Get it? They’re out of Ritalin so that’s why LaRoche hasn’t been hitting well! Ha!
(Thought I’d explain what I thought was a hard-to-get joke)
I don’t know what the deal with Yates is. He looks like the 2007 Mariano Rivera … some days hittable, some days unhittable.
Not many HRs the last few games, but still a lot of hard hit balls going for extra bases. Frenchy is the man again. Gotta give him some more kudos, he’s hitting really well.
And really good defense too.
“Not many HRs the last few games”
More like none.
I really, really hope that Bobby Cox doesn’t treat Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano the way that Joe Torre would treat them.
Soriano definitely deserves the day off tomorrow. Hopefully Gonzalez has three saves over the weekend and LaRoche doesn’t hurt us at all. I’m sure the Bucs fans would love that. I was originally going to go up to Pittsburgh for the series but one of my Pirates fans canceled on me. I’ve heard PNC is awesome.
Well, Bobby Cox says that Wickman will be ready to pitch when he can come off the DL this coming Tuesday. So that should help take the load off Soriano and Gonzalez.
Can anybody a series in which way played poorer overall but still won three-out-of-four against an over-.500 team?
While it’s not good that we’re not playing our best, the fact that we’re still winning a large number of games I think speaks to the level of this team.
I’m assuming tomorrow we’ll see Gonzo and not Soriano BTW. I’m guessing that was the plan all along so as to avoid having to rest them both on the same day.
That should read “Can anybody remember a series…”
I would leave Soriano off the team plane to Pittsburgh today, and not fly him up until Sunday, to remove the temptation from Bobby.
Did anybody see the trade for the Royals 1B Koonce?
What is JS up to now?
I’ve been to ten ballparks and PNC is my clear favorite. I’m going to Saturday night’s game.
I usually prefer day games, but with so many contests in a row, I was afraid a few players would sit on Sunday’s game.
The last two years I went to Cincinnatti to watch the Braves and Chipper was hurt (surprise) both years.
Not Again!
Summary – great ballpark, bad team.
Malone Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Did anybody see the trade for the Royals 1B Koonce?
The Royals have professional baseball players?
I don’t know if anybody mentioned this during the game thread or not today, but there’s a really great article on the history of the Braves from their Boston days. It’s really a pretty entertaining read if you have a couple of minutes:
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid39678.aspx
Useless trivia: today’s game was Chipper’s 1795th. That ties Hall of Fame Shortstop Rabbit Maranville for 4th place all time for the Braves. Dale Murphy is in 3rd, 131 away. Then there is Eddie Mathews with 2223 and finally Hank Aaron with 3076. If Chipper averages 150 games a year, he’d have to play until he is 44 to catch Aaron. Wow, Hank was an incredibly durable player. Andruw is closing in on Herman Long for 7th place (only 5 games away) and will probably get to Fred Tenney in 6th before the year is out (96 more to play).
Koonce is a nobody. He turns 32 later this week, has good strike zone knowledge but his low batting averages (.241, .268, and .256 the last three years, worse this year) career .454 minor league slugging percentage (in mostly hitter’s leagues) and awful strikeout rate (about one out of every four AB) mean that he’s not major league first baseman material.
From CBS Sportsline:
“The Royals traded 1B Graham Koonce, who hit .243 with four home runs, six doubles, 14 RBI and a .365 on-base percentage in 20 games with Triple-A Omaha, to the Braves for a player to be named. Koonce played six games in the majors in 2003 with Oakland, hitting .125 in eight at-bats. He was a non-roster invitee during spring training.”
He’s 32-years-old and has a grand total of 8 career ML ABs. Has spent 13 years in the minors, hitting .271/.392/.454 in 4809 ABs.
I was just gonna put that phoenix article..but it looks like jj3b. beat me to it
Sounds like minor-league restocking to me. Hopefully Richmond won’t be so mad at us now.
My initial thought on the trade was that the Braves were considering options to replace Craig Wilson if his ineptness continues. But this guy bats LH, so that wouldn’t make much sense.
My guess is that it’s a largely irrelevant deal.
BTW, the prospect we traded in the LaRoche deal, a fellow named Jamie Romak, is doing pretty well. He’s got an OPS over .900 for the Pirates A-ball team, which is less impressive when you consider that he’s 23. Not saying it was a bad deal at this point, just saying this guy could turn out to be something.
Two comments. I agree with AAR, it looks like the minors needed a first baseman, I can think of no other reason for such a trade.
Thanks for the link on that Braves article, jj3, it looks very interesting.
UPDATE:
It’s now been 2000 days.
http://webpages.charter.net/evansgv/spuatMemories
So when Wickman comes back on Tuesday, will Kevin Barry get the boot?
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070510&content_id=1956557&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl
I’m not sure what the Braves are going to do with Sturtz and Lance Cormier, who are both getting close. Davies’ spot maybe? What about Redman? And who does Sturtz replace if Wickman gets Barry’s spot? What a logjam.
Wryn,
The reason one doesn’t rub it in is because your rival already knows these things. There’s no need.
And, karma sucks—I’m just sayin’.
ububba –
I happen to be in Auburn today for my nieces graduation. That web page was very plesing to me. Auburn will perpetually be 2nd best (at best) in this state to a large majority of the population, so even if karma comes, we want to maximize our turn with the whip.
Christ – spelled and punctuated like an Auburn English major.
Could the PTBNL in the Royals deal possibly be Redman? Since he’s on the DL, it would make sense. Sounds like a great deal to me even if Koonce never gets another MLB at bat.
Spike,
I’m a UGA grad, but I well remember the Bear Bryant/Shug Jordan Eras & I know how it is. Auburn wandered the desert for many years.
An Auburn grad ran a liquor store up the street from me (in Columbus, Ga.) that had the “Punt Bama Punt” newspapers framed at the checkout counter. And this was in the middle of the 10+ years of Bama abuse, so I get it.
Enjoy it while you can. I guess I can’t expect anything different from that rivalry.
Ububba,
Wryn hears the footsteps. I’m content to let him have his moment because he knows just as well as you and I do that within a year or two, Nick Saban’s going to start putting the hurt on Tubby, and it won’t stop.