ESPN – Braves vs. Dodgers Box Score, July 3 2007 – MLB
Thoroughly disgusting. The Braves led 3-1 and 6-3 and quickly gave both of those leads back, then were completely unable to do anything against the Dodger bullpen.
Both starting pitchers sucked. Randy Wolf lasted three innings and allowed all six Braves runs, and was lucky it wasn’t more as Saltalamacchia had a near-grand slam caught at the track. Davies almost had a double after that to score a couple of runs, but when he came out with that 6-3 lead — having already blown the 3-1 lead — he let the first two men reach and Bobby pulled him. Villarreal came in and had nothing at first, allowing those two to score and another run of his own to tie the game.
Then both teams settled down and acted like they’d forgotten how to hit. Villarreal was much better in two subsequent innings. (I would suggest he needs to adjust his warmup routine.) Fredo Ledezma pitched one good inning but allowed a one-out double to Kent (Andruw almost threw him out) in the seventh. Yates, who is definitely tired out, gave up a 3-2 single up the middle to allow the winning run, sticking Ledezma with the loss.
The Braves had only one hit and one walk in six innings against the Dodger bullpen. You don’t need me to tell you that that’s atrocious. Diaz had a great day, 2-2 with two walks, a run and an RBI, so it’s back to the bench for him. McCann hit a two-run homer in the second and drew a bases-loaded walk in the third. But the Braves didn’t get anything from the 1-2-3 spots, just one walk from Renteria, and they can’t do that and win.
From tha game thread…
Bvvvvvvrrrrrrrr-urrrrrrrrrrr.
/raspberry
I hate Betemit.
Very frustrating, considering it seemed we were hitting the Dodger pitchers much harder than we were being hit. Three to four near homeruns were caught by their outfield. If just of those drops or goes out, it’s a different outcome.
just leave it to Davies to keep blowing 2 and 3 run leads. Im sure Smoltz would like to have that
at least our rivals keep losing, problem is we really are playing ourselves out of WC contention. We have to win the division to get to the playoffs. If we keep letting Davies pitch, we wont have that chance. We really need to wash our hands with this kid and send him on his way. How about Davies and Lillibridge (sp?) for Vasquez
Well at least we got this Teheran kid. Bodes well for 2014.
our options to replace Davies…
Boyer, Reyes, and Harrison
Will it hurt Reyes that much to get the call right now. He’s been successful so far in AAA. Here is his line
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Jo-Jo%2520Reyes&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=457456
Also Boyer has pitched better as a SP. He’s not given up many hits in his few starts. His problem like Davies is control. 7 BB in his last start in 5IP takes away any thoughts of a call up
Saw a fairly uninspiring game at Yankee Stadium—8-0, although I like Wang & he did toss shutout ball. Nonetheless, I guess I’m glad I didn’t sit through that tease of a Braves game.
I swear: Mets lose, we lose; Mets win, we win.
Except for our lost weekend vs Detroit when the Mets swept the A’s, it seems like we do the same thing every day. And that weekend is about the difference in the season. Weird.
Davies delenda est
Braves lose again?
Based on that track record from Jo-Jo Reyes, I’d take my chances with him at this point over that slop we’ve been trotting out there.
A rotation of an injured Smoltz, Hudson, James, Carlyle, and Davies just isn’t going to cut it no matter how much we hope. The fact is if we aren’t willing to give up our top prospects/young players for pitching help we are wasting our time talking about playoffs.
I know what this loss means…
“Suss, Suss, Sussudio.”
Everyone keeps talking about this or that move, but when are people just going to face it, this isn’t a good team, it isn’t going to make the playoffs, it will be lucky to finish .500. JS has put together a crappy team; the young players cannot play, the old players suck. The Braves are maybe the 8th or 9th best team in the NL and only the ineptitude of the NL East is keeping the Braves from being buried. You can talk about Davies, but how about 1 hit over the last six innings for the pathetic offense. Yes, I know they hit some balls hard, but 1 hit is awful. 19-29 in the last 48 games. How much more evidence do you need. By all rights, the Braves should be 10 or 11 games behind the Mets; they are already, what 4 or 5 games out of the Wild Card.
The question is, will they win in a game in LA or San Diego? This looks like 1 and 6 at best.
I feel like a guy who’s late on paying his mob debt.
No, not Phil Collins! Anything but that! Please, no, not that! I have a wife and two kids, for God’s sake!
I don’t hate Betemit; I hate the fact that we traded him….
Yeah–Teheran could help, but I would be a lot more excited if we could sign Heyward and then Shreve, Demny and Belt. Fields sucked this year and he return to Boras’s stable for all I care….Without these players, the 2007 draft is a bust….
With respect to filling in for Smoltz, I would love to see Reyes–but only if he is ready. I fear that Harrison has hit a plateau (the Braves have yet to promote him to AAA and his 2006 numbers are close to his 2007 numbers) and there is no reason to think that Boyer would be a good starter.
Therefore, I would not be surprised to see either Trey Hodges or Kevin Barry….
#14…true they are 19-29 the last 48, but they were also 24-12 the first 36. Which is the real team? Were they playing over their heads early this seaon, or are they underachieving of late. I think the answer is a bit of both.
This team’s problem is squarely in the rotation. It is simply not good enough to give the team a chance to win a high percentage of the time. The offense is fine, especially if and when AJ hits and Chipper is in the lineup.
If it’s a little bit of both, then this team is a .500 team. I don’t know what to think of this team right now. It seems like they’ve been treading water for the past month or two, and I don’t see anything really improving. I don’t see any of our pitching all of a sudden pitching better. I think what we see is what we get with Davies, Carlyle, and James. Unless Andruw heats up, I don’t see our offense changing either. Perhaps KJ will start hitting better, but we also have to believe that Willie Harris isn’t what his batting line says he is. So, I guess we will see.
“It p—es you off, to be honest with you,” said Braves manager Bobby Cox, in an unusually candid — for him — assessment of the loss and Davies’ performance. “You get six runs in the first three innings, you’ve got to win.”
Looks like Bobby is getting tired of Davies. I wonder if his comments will force a trade for a decent starting pitcher.
Oh, here’s the link.
http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/braves/stories/2007/07/04/0704braves.html
wow…
I think it’s about time for Mac to try the Hall & Oates videos again. “She’s Gone” would certainly be appropriate for our recent winning streak.
I think everybody has just about had with Davies. Blowing a two run lead on three pitches and then blowing the three run the very next time he went out. He’s the epitome of suck.
Send Davies to AAA or DL him (I’m surprised the Braves ain’t done that yet) and bring up Jo Jo Reyes. There is no way he would be worse.
sunbelt,
i think ” say it isn’t so” works
Happy 4th of July, everyone. Anyone else run the Peachtree this morning?
happy 4th to all, Im expecting to see Villareal given the next start. I mean he’s probably just as good as Carlyle and James. Davies just has to go and Mr. optimistic (Cox) seems to have washed his hands with the kid. Or at least thats what Im hoping. Call up Devine or someone else and send Davies back to AA or AAA. We could use another lefty in the pen, but Moylan should be more than useful in the Villareal role. Where is Stockman?
Boy, Rob, it didn’t take you long to jump off that everything-is-fine-and-this-team-is-really-good ship. Does this mean you’re not a fan anymore?
No, I just don’t know what to make of this team right now. I kept the everything-is-fine-and-this-team-is-really-good for about two months. Now I don’t know what this team is.
rob, does that mean we can start yelling at you just like you yelled at us a couple of weeks ago?
Call me a glass half full guy, but at least McCann’s power appears to be nearing getting back.
Can we page Dr. Jack Llewellyn for Kyle Davies ?? He has a lot of pressure developing while trying to win games at the same time as it is, and I think he adds to it even more. It just seems like he tries to be too perfect instead of trusting his stuff, thus all the walks. In the bottom of the second, after Davies had already allowed the tying runs to score and was in further trouble, he dropped a filfhy change up on Loney to get out of the inning and he slapped his glove and started screaming while walking off the mound. I still think the talent is there, but he clearly is not the answer right now.
Reyes, Harrison, let’s see what they can do.
For Davies’ case I think it might be better to page Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
If Smoltz can’t go in his next turn, I don’t see any reason not to DL him. He would only be forced to start a day or two later for his next start. Let’s bring up Reyes and if he shows any signs of being able to pitch at the ML level, let’s send down Davies when Smoltz gets back. Davies will probably be very good one day, but now he’s a drag on the team about 60% of his starts.
The Braves are the 6th best team in the NL, at the absolute worst. Mets, Brewers, Dodgers, Padres, Dbacks. The Phillies are not better than the Braves, nor are the Cardinals, Cubs, or Rockies. Even the Dbacks is arguable. 5 games out with 3 months to play!? The NL West teams will all beat each other up down the stretch…we are going to be right on the cusp of the playoffs at the end of the season, but obviously we’ll have to play better than this to have hope.
60% means basically every other start. Davies has been terrible, not just bad, for the last three years with just very few good starts thrown in.