ESPN – Braves vs. Phillies Box Score, August 10 2007 – MLB
So, the way for Chuck James to not tire is apparently to give up a whole bunch of runs in the first. The Braves took a 4-0 lead in the top of the inning, with Diaz homering, Teixeira singling home Chipper, and McCann hitting a two-run double. And Chuck gave it right back, including a home run by Wes Smelms to tie it. After that, both pitchers settled down, and the Braves didn’t threaten again until late.
In the seventh, Bobby hit for Chuck, who after the Phillies batted around in the first had retired sixteen in a row, with the immortal Martin Prado, even though James had only thrown 89 pitches and really isn’t much of a worse hitter than Prado anyway. Moylan came in to pitch the bottom of the inning, and got hung with a loss he perhaps didn’t deserve, Escobar throwing the ball away to allow the go-ahead run. On the other hand, the run very possibly would have scored anyway. We’ll never know.
Francoeur had the first Braves hit since the first with two out in the eighth, a double, but Andruw grounded out to end the inning — as usual, everything is his fault. McCann walked to lead off the ninth, and Woodhead ran for him, getting to second on a swinging bunt by KJ. But Harris (pinch-hitting for Kali) and Escobar couldn’t get a hit. (I try to not complain about umpiring, but both of them wound up in 2-2 counts instead of 3-1 because of bad calls.)
Weird game. The Braves put Dotel on the DL and called up Manny Acosta. Why Acosta and not Ring or Paronto or Devine or Ascanio? I don’t know. I’m sure they have their reasons.
Escobar makes the last out so he lost the whole game.
Weird game is right. Kind of hurts, too.
I listened to the 8th and 9th on the way home, and I guess I’m glad I missed most of it. These games are frustrating because all we needed was a base hit in the 8th or a base hit in the 9th and we couldn’t get it done. I’m becoming more and more frustrated with Andruw. With the tying run on second, all he could muster was a tap back to the mound to end the inning. Can one of our questions for DOB be whether or not this guy is injured enough to be DLed? I mean, the guy is hitting .213 and he’s hitting 6th. He’s making my head hurt…
Would you bat Mike Hampton above Andruw Jones at this point if Hampton was around? Maybe Tim Hudson eighth and Andruw Jones ninth?
Definitely behind the 8 ball this series now. I thought after we got 4 on Hamels we might just get that chance to get 2/3 this weekend, but James threw batting practice for his half of the inning before settling down. Oh well, now it is up to Cormier and Buddy to try and win the series. Shiver.
Marlins scored 2 off Wagner in the ninth. 2 outs and nobody on with Wright up. That would help at least if they hold on.
Looks like they held on to win. Yahoo is stalled for some reason, but other places show it a final.
At least the Mets lost. Still 3.5 out.
who would have guessed that dotel would be on the DL?
Marlins can score two off Wagner but we can’t score one with the bases loaded and no outs.
I’m sorry; I usually hate the doom and gloomers that wanna drop off a bridge after a loss on here. I’m one of them right now. Like I said, sorry…
I propose a Minimum Basic Understanding of the Game of Baseball test that must be passed before a forum member is granted the right to post. Can I get a second?
Who wouldn’t pass it that posts here?
I say we institute it and find out!
Freedom of Speech FTW
mcbride dropped a devine in detroit tonight: HBP, BB, BB, grand slam
Lefties who wore a Braves uniform at one time this season sure enjoyed giving up runs in 4s tonight.
So…do we have any other pitcher in the organization who can throw tomorrow besides Cormier and his 15.whatever ERA?
Reds have tied it in the 9th against the Padres, on to extras.
Go Reds!
Cormier will be our Dontrelle, propelling the Braves to the WC & WS champs.
Well, Andruw is a strong liability right now. We’re not getting anything from him in these past 4 clutch days of baseball.
Still peeved about KJ swinging freely after 6 balls in a row.
Padres have had to use 8 pitchers tonight after Fredo got knocked out in the 3rd. Yikes.
Acosta has played well all year in Richmond, where Devine, Stockman and Ascanio have split time b/t AA and AAA. Most importantly, it looks like Acosta has been used regularly, but not overused. I don’t know what’s happened to Paronto, he’s pitched 3.1 innings in Richmond and has allowed 3 runs. I know Devine was hurt earlier in the year and Stockman hasn’t even logged 20 innings yet. As Mac said, I’m sure the Braves know what they’re doing, but why is anyone’s guess.
On another note, I don’t know if this is a coincidence, but it looks like we’ve had several pitchers struggle in the transition from AA to AAA – and even moreso in the majors (Reyes has been lights out everywhere excpet Atlanta). The strange thing is that some hitters (Lillibridge, Brandon Jones, and JS Jr to name a few) have made major improvements from AA to AAA. JS Jr. has improved his avg almost 40 pts in AAA – from .182 to .220! )-:. Seriously, let’s hope Acosta can be as successful as he’s been a Richmond – we need him!
Part of it is that Mississippi is about as difficult a place to hit as Myrtle Beach.
JS Jr’s OPS went from .490 in AA to a whopping .648 in AAA.
Kyle B.,
Answering your question on who we have that can start after Cormier is pretty easy. Except for pitchers from the current staff (Villareal and maybe, but not likely Moylan), we have no one in the minors that can make more than 1- 2 effective starts IMO. Dan Smith has not done well in Richmond and the other starters (Hodges, Barry, Boyer, Villa, …) have accomplished nothing as starters to display that they’re close to major league ready. I think our only fallback outside of the current staff is Reyes again. This is depressing!
Padres have scored 3 in the 11th. Looks like we’ve lost a game to them in the standings tonight.
Tough game tonight. Really did not play out the way I thought (or, I’m sure, most people thought) after the 1st inning. Phillies seem to have our number lately
Also – it’s been a while, but a few threads back, somebody asked if anyone had a football league set up. I have a Yahoo league that still has several spots available. League ID is 184401, PW is ‘braves’.
I’m not giving up on this team, but damn we need to make a run at some point. I was hoping that THE Willie catch would lead to an extended run, but again no. Hopefully we can take 2/3 here anyway. Fingers crossed.
I’m also hoping that I won’t fail the MBUBT, or perhaps it should be renamed “No Baseball Fan Left Behind” test, proposed by Mr. Swings @ Everything. That quite possibly would send me into an abyss…
I was at the Orioles-Red Sox game tonight – and watched in horror at the scoreboard as the Braves ruined a great chance to hang a loss on Cole Hamels (who is, in my opinion, one of the best pitchers in baseball right now). On the other hand, I got to see Sox fans decimated after putting a 5-spot on the board in the 8th only to see Eric Gagne cough it up in the bottom of the inning. Lord do I hate those fans and love to see them whine.
I was never a huge fan of Davies, but then I was never a fan of Dotel at all. I can’t say I’m a big fan of this trade now. It’s not a done deal, not by any means, but I reckon that a win-some/lose-some attitude might be best used in this case. We’ll see.
The Acostalysis will be up in the morning. Suffice it to say, his walk rate is really bad. Not Dalkowski bad, but bad. It’s easy to see how he might be fascinating to the Braves, because anybody who walks that many people and is effective at all must have some real talent.
Just want to say one thing, Andruw needs to sit. Its bad enough he goes 0-4 every single night, when its 8-3 or 12-0, and sometimes he musters a hit here or there, but lately in the clutch, i find myself sitting there saying, ok your due, out loud, my family probably thinks im nuts. and he slowly grounds out to first or second, he looks TERRIBLE, should not be in lineup.
Diaz looks great hitting both sides, hitting for power, he needs to be in the lineup. We need to find a new CF, I dont think Willie is the answer, but for right now id try.
This is how much i hate andruw right now. If they put Thorman in Right Field and played Francoeur in Center, i would like that better than having andruw in there.
I also want to say that if you have a high capacity for pain and the Universal HD Channel, they’re showing “The Slugger’s Wife” this weekend. Another $0.17 for Skip every time.
I say DL Andruw and call up Doug Clark/Blanco/ or Brandon Jones. Im not letting Andruw off easy here, but you can see the pain when he swings. Bobby has to see this and be aware of the problem, Andruw is the last person I want to see right now w/ the game on the line. He’s 100x worse than Francoeur was last year. I’ve never seen anyone completely lose it like he has this year. If we dont make the playoffs, Im putting most of the blame on his lack of production…
The lack of ability to pull through games like tonight and the middle game vs NY speaks volumes about this team.
We’ll be lucky to split the next two vs the Phills.
Good Lord, I hope Smoltz is okay. If he’s not…we’re done. El fine.
Don’t do that CSG… be careful.
lando, did I miss something…who’s the little girl?
Mr Swings at everything, go read the last 20 posts or so from the last game thread and the first posts from this thread.
He defended Andruw and started crying when nobody agreed with him.
well, thats okay..after a loss I really dont care to go back and read post, they get kind of depressing…there are too many people here who think the world is coming to an end if we lose one game…I’m good
however, how can anyone defend Andruw right now. The guy gets $15 mil a year and cant hit one out of the infield right now. The DP in the Mets series shows us what Andruw is capable of right now. What’s depressing is that no matter where he is in the lineup it always comes down to him producing and he cant. Best thing for him is to just stand there and either walk or strike out. One out is better than two
Okay. Lando, I’m going to have to edit those comments. That was too far. Don’t do it again.
Seriously, no matter where bobby puts him in the lineup he finds ways to hurt the team…. Depressing.
Ok, so edit his in the last post too Mac. I didn’t exactly start this.
If this is what we’re getting, call up Brandon Jones who’s now hitting .320 in AAA and see what he can do. I want to see this kid play and maybe he’ll be a spark right now. To keep playing Andruw and making either Diaz or Harris sit is completely inexcusable right now
why didnt Bobby allow Chuck to go into the 7th tonight? They had the bottom of the order coming up and he had retired 16 straight at that point. If we were leading then maybe I could have understood that decision, but he was only at 90 pitches
Pretty lame Mac. I was only giving what I got from him. But don’t reprimand that douche.
CSG, they way Chuck drops off around the 90+ pitch mark I wouldn’t trust him either.
I don’t see anything he said that was wrong. But I deleted for content and language, which I consistently will.
Everybody, before you post, read what you’ve written. If saying this to someone’s face (let’s say someone bigger than you) could get you hit, don’t say it.
yeah, I somewhat agree, but this wasnt your typical Chuck start. Usually you get 5 good out of him, but when you’ve retired 16 straight you should get to face the bottom of their order. This was just a game they we weren’t suppose to win I guess. Escobar tried to make a great play and the throw got away…
So the dumbass comment is ok? So I can call him a dumbass?
Y’all be nice.
Remember, this is a community (OK, it’s therapy), but we’re all pulling the same direction.
In esco’s defense I thought Tex should have caught that. He is a gold glove, it wasn’t that bad a throw.
You live in New York bubba, this is pretty tame compared to what you are used to.
#51 – we agree there, no way that throw should get away…In that situation at least come off the bag and keep the ball in front of you
Like someone else said earlier, it really doesnt matter though, Renteria wouldnt have had any chance to get to it and it would have scored the run.
lando,
Right. Why do you think I’m asking folks to chill?
Ain’t no reason to get huffy on a blog.
I agree, rente doesn’t get to that ball.
I agree bubba, but when someone starts indirectly calling me a dumbass I will give as good as I get.
lando,
BTW, I thought the same thing about Tex at first.
I’ve seen him make one really good play & two that (possibly) cost us games. I realize we’re talking about exactly one week, but I’m not yet impressed with his 1B play.
lando,
Gotta let is pass, my man. Ain’t worth fighting about. Way bigger battles out there. The bigger man lets it slide.
Yeah, and Tex actually made it worse when he quickly brought his glove up it looked like it made the ball bounce off higher and into the stands.
You are right bubba.
Not that I was ever an MLB 1B—far as I got, I was an all-star Little Leaguer in Columbus—but Tex has to block that ball that Yunel threw. The risk to to high to make a swipe there.
Gee wiz, a couple lagers & I can’t type worth a damn.
Lando, I am not taking sides here. The deletions were for content that I found offensive. I was not monitoring the game thread because I was otherwise occupied, but if MS@E was baiting you that too was a violation and should not have happened.
And pretty obviously Andruw is hurt and shouldn’t be playing, though one look at the Mets can show you the value of centerfield defense.
Anyway, the Acosta comment is now up.
What are ya drinking bubba?
Lando,
Um, a few things. Harp, Guinness (OK, not lager), now Becks.
I gotta do a DJ gig Wednesday night in Atlantic City & I’m working on my set. Beer helps.
hehe, any stouts? There is an oatmeal stout brewed here that I enjoy a lot.
Here? Where?
Guinness is the mother of all stouts. The Irish actually call it “mother’s milk.”
Working on my DJ thang, trying convince myself that The Gap Band mixes into the Angry Samoans, then The Go-Gos & then The Pogues. I know I’m wrong, but it sounds good to me.