ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score – Braves at Pirates
Things are really clicking now, though it’s only the Pirates. Chuck James took a perfect game to the sixth and a no-hitter to one out in the seventh, leaving with seven innings of shutout, one-hit, three-walk baseball. He only struck out three, but his control was great for the first five, and he was able to run the ball up the ladder to get lots of weak popups.
The offensive hero was Thorman, who really should get a chance to play every day now. In the second, he hit a three-run homer to give the Braves the early lead. In the ninth, after the Pirates scored two off of Paronto to close to 7-2, he put the lead back to seven with a two-run blast. The amazing Willie Harris went 4-5 with two doubles. All the position starters had at least one hit; everyone but Pete Orr (batting eighth and playing third base while Chipper had the day off) scored at least one run. Francoeur had three hits but was somewhat overshadowed.
Paronto, as I mentioned, struggled, allowing two runs on four hits. Moylan had to rescue him and was very sharp in an inning and two thirds, getting Poor Adam LaRoche (“Poor” is now his official first name, I think) on a double play to end the scoring threat in the eighth and breezing through the ninth with a pair of strikeouts.
I keep linking to ESPN, but now they’re using popups to tell me Barry Bonds is on deck. Sheesh. Maybe I should go to SI or Sportsline… There will be a site outage this morning for server maintenance, but Sean doesn’t think it will last long.
UPDATE: I’ve added a poll thingy. You’d have to page down on the front page, but it’s up top on individual entries.
UPDATE UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Bobby passed Sparky Anderson for fourth on the career wins list. That’s probably where he’ll wind up, because LaRussa isn’t going to retire until Bobby does. Five wins to 2200.
Thorman for everyday!
Enough of this platoon crap, Bobby.
Great win in all aspects. Best of all,the Braves didn’t have to use Gonzo, Soriano or Yates. What’s the deal with not using Barry? Has he pitched yet? I figured he would at least get a chance tonight instead of Paronto.
Kevin Barry is so gone when Wickman is activated on Tuesday.
I agree totally that Barry will be gone by Tuesday. It’s just strange to call someone up and never even have him warming up.
Also, I was pretty negative about McDowell last year, but he seems to have done pretty well so far. I give him no credit for Hudson’s turnaround, but Yates, Paronto and Moylan have all improved and I think he deserves some of the credit. He’s also supposedly been a major factor in Lerew’s turnaround. That’s quite a bit of success if these guys continue.
2 Homers from Thorman really had to make Laroche feel, well, expendable. Then again, that’s presuming Laroche noticed.
I fully support a change to Sportsline. ESPN-sider.com is the worst site for a sports fan on the internet. Unless you want to read that crappy magazine, you can’t read any content. Since they dont care about sportsfans, why show loyalty and give them extra hits and boost advertising. Also, the bonds thing is over the top.
Wow – Mets go 7-3 over their last 10 and LOSE a game in the standings,
Pitching probables, ESPN, not Barry Bonds. I want pitching probables.
I’m also glad that Gonzales and Soriano weren’t needed. I’ve been hoping for a big lead for either us or the other team: anything to give both of them a night off. Let’s get the sweep tomorrow with Anthony “Tony” Lerew.
Of course, if I didn’t need them right away, Sean’s really sensational box scores/game logs would work great.
Do you know Davies is actually younger than both James and Lerew? Chuckie is 25, Lerew is 24, and Kyle is 23…my goodness, they are all very young…
And technically, that question should be “To which site should I link?” but I don’t care.
After these nice back to back starts, if we ever see Redman on the hill again in a Braves uniform I will puke. If for some reason Johnny S. and Bobby feel the urge we may need to start a collection to pay for writing off his salary ourselves. We could do a telethon or something.
I will be very happy if we can trade Redman to the A’s for cash.
I voted for Yahoo. That’s where I always go.
I’ve also been impressed with McDowell’s apparent ability to make useful pitchers out of guys like Moylan and Yates, and also for getting Gonzalez straightened out in short order. I say apparent because assigning credit or blame to positional coaches is always questionable.
This winning everyday thing is pretty nice…
willie! man he’s hot. the kid’s got great hustle too. the platoon w/ him and diaz seems to be working out pretty well. but i agree that thorman deserves to play full-time, almost until he proves he just can’t hit lefties at all. ’cause wilson sure ain’t hitting them.
Willie the “kid”??? He’s 28 years old. I wish he was a kid. His current streak might mean something if he was young.
I dunno if Thorman “deserves” to be playing full time. He’s certainly been playing well in his platoon roll, and I wouldn’t mind giving him a start or two against LHPs on a trial basis. But what really concerns me is that Wilson has just been absolute trash. If there’s any hope of getting him going, I think we need to do our best, because having Pete Orr or Chris Woodwards as our #2 PH off the bench is just awful.
I’d be happy if we could trade Redman to the A’s for anything. Used up clubhouse guy, scuffed BP balls. Heck, I’m almost willing to pay THEM to take him.
mraver, Thorman’s potential outweighs any production Wilson might give us, if he got back on track. I’d rather see Thorman starting to give him a chance to reach that potential.
Does it really matter which site you link to? It’s the same AP recap everywhere.
That said, I voted Yahoo, mainly because the color scheme there doesn’t give me a headache.
Well, I link to box scores nowadays. The thing about ESPN is that their boxscores stay up forever, as far as I can tell. I don’t know about the others.
Guess I didn’t miss too much.
Saw “28 Weeks Later.” Pretty thrilling. If you have the stomach for virus-raging zombies ripping people apart, I recommend it.
Hey, let’s make it 6 in a row & root for Mr. Capuano.
Hello Braves journal from Pittsburgh! Let me just say again how happy this team is making me these days. Sorry for my absence but my new. Job is kicking my butt.
Anywayn let me add my “relief” at seeing Soriano and Gonzo get a night off. We needed a blowout. And frankly, we need to pile up wins against teams like pittsburgh and the Nats.
So anyway, I am in Pittsburgh with my wife visiting a childhood friend of mine and we will be at tomorrow’s game cheering Lerew and the boys on. I plan on emailing Mac love shots of PNC Park from cell phone.
The weird part of course? We fly back to D.C. Tomorrow night and then I will be back @ RFK for the Tuesday and Wednesday games which should be the Huddy and Davies starts, respectively.
Anyway, making me feel like a Braves groupie but it’s fun with the team on such a nice roll.
I said the other day that I was worried about this series. I will go and die now.
Alex, I’m definitely planning at being at (more than) one of the Braves games this week. Maybe we’ll see each other/narrowly miss each other again? Tell Cary and Kyle I said hi, in any event.
I love this team!