ESPN – Tigers vs. Braves Box Score, June 22 2007 – MLB
Oh, what’s the point?
For the third straight game, the Braves were shut out. This was the worst yet, a two-hitter. Renteria had one in the fourth and Thorman one in the sixth. That’s your offense, folks. A blind sloth couldn’t do much worse.
John Smoltz was super for five innings, then had what last season in Tim Hudson’s case I called an “episode” and gave up five runs on six hits and only got out of the inning thanks to a baserunning mistake. I don’t blame him any more than I blame Kyle Davies when the same thing happened to him. You try pitching knowing that even being perfect might not be enough.
Moylan pitched the seventh and Paronto the eighth with few problems. Paronto drilled Magglio Ordonez in the arm to knock him out of the game; this was the Braves’ only accomplishment of the night. Fredo Ledezma had a great debut, striking out the side in the ninth.
Join us tomorrow in another episode of Tales Of Ineptitude!
THe offense sucks so bad that I don’t even see the point of trading for Mark Buehrle.
The offense is the worrisome part. Our starting pitching shouldn’t be great, after all. But what’s up with this offense? Aside from Renteria, nobody is doing great. We need the offense to step up, otherwise the only starters that could possibly help us are guys named Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson (in their primes).
Well, at least the Mets, Marlins, and Nationals won. And the Phillies are up by 6 with one inning left.
thank god for that
bad, bad, bad.
Watching the Braves in April was great. It was a competitive team to cheer for who played good baseball.
This team…the June bizarro Braves…they are the opposite of everything stated above. I’m sure somewhere a wiseman once said “You can’t win if you don’t score.” True in so many ways.
I honestly don’t know if a trade could save the team right now. One player isn’t going to impact the struggles of an entire team significantly. It seems the team is facing either a stagnant offense or terrible pitching performances every night. What frustrates me the most is that I know this team has the baseball ability to win a lot of games.
The Braves usually play great after the All-Star break and then a little sub-par in September (and carry it with them to the playoffs the last few trips) so we’ll see. I just wish it was fun to watch.
Go Braves. Beat Verlan…I almost said that without laughing.
The thing is, this offense should be good enough to compete even without Chipper. However, they are all into a funk at the same damn time. IF they all play to their ability, especially Andruw, the offense is supposed to be decent, and a starting pitcher like Buehrle is exactly what the team needs.
Out of Andruw, McCann, and Frenchy, the Braves need to get two of them to deliver in each game to have a chance. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how many times KJ, Willie, and Edgar get on base.
Well, it’s a good thing we have $14MM tied up in Smoltz’s shoulder next season. That’s about the same bargain we’ve got with Hampton. Broken down pitchers are expensive these days.
I’m pretty down about this team right now.
Stu, why are you down on Smoltzie? A 14m gamble on Smoltzie is as good a gamble as you can find around the league. The good thing about Hampton’s contract is that the team can finally get rid of it after next season.
The Braves will have at least two large contracts expiring in each of the next two seasons. So, there is room to play around.
relax, $28M plus the $13M for chipper’s 60 game season will only be half our payroll…no big deal.
Verlander tomorrow? He may throw history’s first negative two hitter.
At least the team is showing some unity by all the hitters rallying around Andruw to suck as a group.
Smoltz did pretty much get hurt immediately after his new deal was announced.
It’s weird. I think we all agree about the trading-for-one-offensive-player thing. Yet at the same time, we say that a healthy Chipper changes the whole lineup. What are we thinking here? Dunn? Teixeira? …LaRoche? Heh.
The mlb site is saying that Chipper may go on the DL for his groin now. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player go on the DL for so many different, seemingly unrelated injuries. I think about half of them have had to do with baserunning – Did he injure his groin on his swing or coming out of the box?
Kenny Rogers. 2-hitter. Season debut. June.
Embarrassing.
That was the worst baseball night of my life:
– Braves lost
– Mets won
– Phillies won
– Marlins won
– Maddux (my favourite player) lost
– Chipper likely on the DL again
What else can go wrong?
Oh, and I forgot to mention that…
…Andruw has arrived at .199 (and still pulls everything),
…the Braves haven’t scored in 28 consecutive innings and
…we’re in 3rd place now, only 2 ahead of the f***ing Marlins.
But we’re (theoretically) 3 days out of 1st place.
Went out clubbing with a Marlins fan tonight. He mostly talked about the Dolphins.
Why exactly was Thorman starting vs a left hander? Salty needed to be in there. Instead of trading for a hitter, just trade away or send down Thorman opening a spot for Salty to play every day. Also play Harris in CF every day. Andruw can be a late inning defensive replacement and pinch hitter.
Kenny Rogers is going to get lit up in his next start too.
Ron,
You are right! Cox and JS justified Salty being up by saying he will backup McCann and play 1B also. Well guess what he hasn’t played 1B as much as he should. The guy needs to be either playing more, traded for top rotation type pitcher, or sent down to play everyday 1B for next year.
I imagine Salty’s working with someone to get a little more polish at 1B, and soon he’ll be playing more.
…or behind the plate every night 😛
Sigh, well I am going to the game today to make sure we win and stop yet ANOTHER slide by the Bravos. Don’t worry, I got it!
Smitty, I’ll be down there too. Hopefully we can win today! Need it bad!
John Thomson is a Royal? He’s on the depth chart on the mlb site.
Mac, after I pull out this win can the post game write up say:
Tigers ___ Smitty and the Braves ____
In the last 243 games (including the last seven games of 2005), the Braves are 117 – 126. It’s not just a slump. This organization is in decline. This isn’t a good team anymore. At this point, they are an embarrassment. All that JS said about last year being a “bump in the road” is nonsense. And, even if they wanted to, they couldn’t trade Chipper and Andruw for prospects. (I know it’s too early and they are too close for that.) The Braves make a big deal about having all these homegrown players on the field–but if they can’t play, who cares?
Marc,
Don’t jump off the wagon just yet, these homegrown kids can play. This is what happens when an organization puts alot of money into older players who can’t stay healthy. There is no denying players like Hampton and Chipper are allstar caliber players healthy. It’s just they are never really healthy. When you have almost 25 million locked up in two guys that can’t stay on the field thats a problem. The problem isn’t the homegrown players, the problem is the contracts given to players who can’t stay healthy.
Ever wonder what that 25 million would have got us in free agency last year??
It’s not those players fault either, want to blame someone, blame JS.
#8 and #9
These two posts are a microcosm of something I’ve found extremely frustrating — I have tried and tried to make the point that signing a 40-year-old pitcher to a two-year extension for that amount of money as early in the season as JS did was a bad business decision, and I’ve never gotten a reply other than, “What’s the matter? Don’t you like Smoltz?”
JS used to adhere to a policy of not negotiating contracts during the season. The players groused about it — lots of people didn’t like it. I even thought from time to time that he was too rigid. But if that’s the policy, why do you break it for a 40-year-old pitcher who still has 25-30 more starts to make under his present contract, especially when (as Stu notes), we already have so much sunk cost in injured starting pitching? If Smoltz pitches great and stays healthy, then give him the money the day the season ends — it would have kept.
What ever happened to our ‘adopt-a-player’ strategy? Has that been retired? Is it time to dust it off?
Why blame JS?