ESPN – Phillies vs. Braves Box Score, September 3 2007 – MLB
So, no .500 for another couple of days at least. Hooray! The Braves were shut out through three, and fell behind 1-0 in the top of the fourth. But they loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning, and amazingly got a hit in that situation, a double from McCann to take a 2-1 lead. They added a run on a sac fly to make it 3-1. Single runs in the sixth (Brayan Pena with an infield single to score McCann) and the seventh (Diaz scoring on a Francoeur sac fly) made it 5-1.
Cormier went 5 2/3, and only allowed four hits (three by Utley) while striking out five. He left in a first-and-third situation in the sixth, and Moylan finished the inning on one pitch. The Braves’ bullpen (Moylan, Acosta, Yates, and Soriano in this instance) didn’t allow a hit. Acosta allowed the lone baserunner on a walk.
The Braves outhit the Phillies 11-4, with Chipper, Teixeira, and McCann with two hits each. All the starters had hits except Diaz… The Mets should probably give the Braves a playoff share.
If they had played like that vs the Reds, Cards, and Mets, this would be a very different playoff race. Sigh.
I’ve got a friend who’s a Mets fan and she was thanking the Braves yesterday (heck, she was thanking them all weekend :-L).
I didn’t see the game. How exactly was Brian McCann caught stealing at home??
#3, botched squeeze play.
Andy,
Failed squeeze attempt; the pitcher missed the ball and McCann was tagged out in the subsequent rundown. I guess it counts as a caught stealing.
I was very happy to see the Braves play such a solid game. It was one of the best of the year. I really think the problem all year–especially against the lesser teams–has been trying to win three games at a time. I hope the Braves just go out and stop worrying about the playoffs (which are highly unlikely at this point) and just relax and try to win games. It seems as if this team has had a piano on its back all year. INstead of saying, we have to 7 out of 10 or whatever,just worry about the next game. They have been tight and tense. I want the Braves to finish strong regardless of the effect on the playoffs. I’m not going to worry about the damn playoff race.
The bullpen is looking better and Soriano is showing he can be a good closer. In the long run, having Wickman here was a good bridge but getting rid of him will make the bullpen stronger. Acosta seems to have a real good arm.
The idiocy of Simpson and Carey increases daily. First, Joe talks about how he thinks the Phillies starting pitching is fine but he is not sold on the bullpen. Why? Because Brett Myers should be a starter rather than a reliever. Huh? Didn’t that just contradict what you just said?
Second, I think it was Chip that took a bit of a slap at Smoltz for essentially conceding the race to the Mets, talking about how there’s lots of time and baseball history is full of teams coming back from large deficits in September. Neither statement is true. It’s one thing to say the team should keep playing hard until they are eliminated and see what happens–which is true. It’s another thing to pretend that they aren’t the longest of long shots to make it. Their statements are akin to Bobby Cox saying the pitching has been good all year.
Alex R. made a comment on the last thread that as a Canadian I could not let pass. No ESPN?? Correct but we do have 2 great sports networks that show a balanced schedule of sports.
Then a buddy who works just outside of Atlanta sent me this. http://www.demonbaby.com/pics/americanworld.gif
You try to win every game whether you are eliminated the first week in September or in it until the end. Having dug themselves into a huge hole, all the Braves can do is try to win games. It would require a complete collapse by a whole bunch of teams combined with an almost perfect September by the Braves for the team to make the playoffs. On the other hand, they still could easily finish above .500 and in 2nd place in the division and wild card. Also many players’ performance in September will influence their chances of either being released, traded, or winning a roster spot next year.
Icebox – that’s awesome. : )
There must have been some sort of deal between the braves and mets.
JS to Omar: “OK, you drop Julio Franco so we can have him back and we will do all we can to let you win the division. We will lose to you and beat the phillies.”
This sucks because I live with a mets fan.
How many good starts in a row is that for Cormier?
It seems to me the offense has let us down more than the pitching of late.
The offense was certainly flat in the Mets series, but over the course of the season the pitching has by far been the bigger problem.
Obviously, our organization is more worried about Richmond winning its playoff series than in what the major league club is doing.
Prado is in Richmond. Devine is in Richmond. and PHIL STOCKMAN IS IN RICHMOND.
FREE PHIL STOCKMAN!!!
mlb rumors…
ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick recently mentioned that if the Royals are sold on Joey Gathright in center field, they could shop David DeJesus this winter.
I would take DeJesus in CF
5.5 out of the wildcard. Not saying at all they are going to win it, but I am saying there is still plenty of time for the Braves to tease us one last time.
Maybe win three more in a row, make it 2.5 games back and then, out of nowhere, drop four in a row? That’s the way it’s been going all season.
So, we just scored more runs yesterday than we did in the whole Mets series.
#12, Prado and Devine aren’t eligible because it hasn’t been 10 days since they were sent down. They will be up soon. I don’t know about Stockman but since Bobby seems unwilling to put Ring in the game even with a 4 run lead, it probably doesn’t matter if Phil comes up or not since he wouldn’t play.
In his last 4 games at Richmond, Stockman has pitched 7 innings. He has struck out 8, walked 3, and given up 1 run.
I think we have to carry him on MLB roster next year out of spring training or lose him. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a look now?
I thought 10 days had run on Prado and Devine by now. However, the crazy roster moves can certainly get by somebody.
Heck, if Richmond’s season still has meaning, let them stay. At least someone will have a chance at a ring. I assume AAA teams get rings.
I’d take DeJesus in about five seconds. Dayton is crazy.
New poll.
How about a poll asking who deserves most of the blame
Bobby
JS
Pitchers
Andruw
I don’t know much about DeJesus but he has an OPS of .730 this year and was about .800 for the last two years. The 05&06 seasons were ok, but I don’t see much to get hot and bothered about.
It does seem a bit odd for KC to prefer Gathright to DeJesus. Gathright’s OPS is the same as DeJesus’s this year, but he was substantially lower than DeJesus in 05 and 06.
maybe KC would take Willie Harris and Lance Cormier for DeJesus. I can dream right
I give JS a 5. While there are some players (AJ) who haven’t lived up to expectations, I think the big flaw with this team was starting pitching. JS took a risky gamble that Hampton would be healthy without a good (= better than Redmon) fallback. The gamble turned out poorly and the Braves have suffered all season. Even a decent performance–say a .400 winning percentage–in games started by Redmon and th the other fillers would have the Braves in the playoff hunt. I would give JS more blame but I think he had payroll constraints last winter and had pretty slim pickings in the July trade market.
Schuerholz did everything in his power to try and make this a winning team this year. He is of no fault for not making the playoffs.
Yeah, JS made some nice acquisitions for the 2007 season.
Mac, what do you like about DeJesus, other than he’s cheap and plays good D? Doesn’t have much of a stick, from what I can see.
I give Shuerholz more blame (7) than Bobby (6). In hindsight it clearly was dumb to depend on Hampton returning from injuries and Kyle Davies magically morphing into the next John Smoltz. He made a decision that has panned out well in keeping Tim Hudson, although who knows if in the long term the team would have been better off trading him perhaps to the Yankees for Phillip Hughes or something like that. Redman was a total disaster as were most of the other replacement starters the Braves signed or brought up.
While Mike Gonzalez may play a crucial role next year, in hindsight it might have been better to hold onto Laroche which might have avoided the need to trade the farm for Teixeira and could have allowed those prospects instead to have been used to get a starting pitcher. He gambled on Thorman and Wilson being a solid platoon at first and both of those players failed miserably.
Soriano has been mostly good. Getting rid of Ramirez was a big plus.
Wickman started strong but faltered as the season went on ultimately being cut for ineffectiveness and being a bad teammate. If the team hadn’t resigned Bob, maybe it could have afforded Glavine.
Willie Harris was a lucky signing that paid unexpected dividends until late in the year. Tanyon Sturtze was money flushed down the drain for no conceivable reason.
Octavio Dotel was a nice idea to strengthen the bullpen but he quickly was injured. The team needed to offload Davies who clearly couldn’t handle pitching meaningful games for his hometown team anyway.
All in all, most of the things Shuerholz tried flopped and despite it all the team is barely better than it was last year. I have to think Shuerholz could have found a way to sign Glavine last year if he had really wanted to which would have strengthened the rotation and weakened the Mets. Not doing that is probably the biggest reason for why the Braves are where they are likely missing the playoffs for a 2nd straight year.
This offseason is probably his last shot at proving what a genius he is. Put a better rotation together behind Hudson and Smoltz next year, John. Don’t count on Hampton giving the team anything other than days spent on the DL.
would you take a 1yr risk of $10 mil for Glavine next year. Our rotation would be old, but good
Smoltz, Hudson, Glavine, James, Hampton/Cormier/Carlyle/Reyes/Lerew/anyone else
It would allow us to probably keep Renteria for one more year or even trading him for more SP depth
Ron,
Willie Harris was signed to a minor league deal. Woodward was the other terrible player, with Sturtze, to receive the major league money.
I hope Glavine retires at the end of the season. I really do not want to go through his drama queen act again this offseason.
DeJesus is having a bad year, but even so has a .355 OBP, and his career OBP is .360. He has a pretty good glove. Now, he’s an awful, Francoeur-level, baserunner, and he’s never developed the power I expected, but he’s a good player, and could benefit from a change in scenery.
Ron–you left out the fantastic [end sarcasm] signing of Chris Woodward. That signing is bad enough in its own right but it also forced the trading of TP Jr. for a minor leaguer with a bum elbow.
Woodward is trash, but he’s not the reason the Braves will miss the playoffs.
I’d definitely pay Glavine a market level price for a one year deal. Tommy has had few injury issues and is still pitching effectively with no reason to expect a huge dropoff for next year.
I see no reason to sign or trade for any outfielders. Just use Diaz, Francoeur, and Brandon Jones. Maybe platoon Thorman in there somewhere if the team still believes in his future.
Oh and I bet Shuerholz wishes he had done that Andruw for Lester and Coco Crisp deal last year.
The trading of TP, jr. was a good move as were the Soriano and Gonzales trades, and the non-tendering of Giles. Schuerholz’s culpability lies in the signings of terrible players to ML contracts. Those chunks given to Sturtze, Woodward, and Wilson could have added up to a pretty decent player.
The Woodward deal is the one that has hurt us, though. And it certainly has JS’s signature on it.
Fault: Schuerholz = 3
Bobby Cox = 7
Pena OPS=.600
Woodward OPS=.500
Fielding–Pena>Woodward
Pay–Woodward=850k; Pena=380k
Although it’s not the difference between making and missing the playoffs, Pena has a better bat, better glove, and a cheaper contract.
If next year really is the “all in” year before Cox, JS, and Smoltz retire and Tex becomes a FA then signing Glavine makes a lot of sense. He won’t dominate, but he’ll give the team a chance to win almost every game he starts.
At the beginning of the year, JS’s decisions were propelling him into knighthood. We dealt our overachieving first baseman for a stud left-handed reliever. We traded Crap Central for Soriano, and at the time, we thought that was the greatest trade ever. He also re-signed Wickman which, after his fantastic second half last year, it looked like we had the best bullpen in baseball.
Our rotation was looking good with Smoltz/Hudson/Hampton/James/Davies. I will concede that JS should have had a better back-up plan should Hampton go down (which was very lucky), but there’s no way anyone thought Redman would do far, far worse than he ever had. It also wasn’t JS’s fault that Davies couldn’t develop whatsoever. Even then, we traded him for a solid reliever.
Where it seems our opinion changed was when Gonzo went down (no way we saw that coming), Wickman turned into a pumpkin, and that caused Soriano to be ridden harder than Barbaro. No GM could have saw that coming.
He built our offense into one of the league’s best. Still. Even after this weekend. Even with one of our best hitters crapping the bed the entire season, he signed Willie Harris and he turned out to be a stud for most of the year. He let Giles walk, which opened the door to perhaps our best second baseman in years. He also kept Diaz, regardless of your opinion as to why, and he’s been one of our best hitters. Wilson wasn’t a bad signing; he could have provided a good platoon for Thorman, but that just didn’t work out. Woodward was a bad signing, so he does get a knock for that, but he has hardly affected our playoff destiny. TP Jr. sure as heck wouldn’t have done that much more for us.
To borrow a phrase one of my professors probably says every 10 minutes, at the end of the day, JS built a good team. Injuries (Gonzo, Hampton, Chipper for a short time), overall player ineptitude (Andruw, Wilson, Wickman, Thorman, Davies), and other things like our inability to produce with RISP has killed us.
I give JS a 1 (I originally did a two on the poll, but I changed my mind). A half for a lack of a good back-up plan for Hampton, and a half for Woodward.
Excuse me, it was very LIKELY that Hampton would go down. Not lucky.
Oh, and Cox got a 7 for me. He screwed the pooch this year.
Trading Pena had more to do with the depth behind him in the middle infield (and the fact that he was out of options). Not acquiring Woodward should have been based on the same.
Mind you, I am not saying that Woodward should have been the answer over Pena. I am saying neither should have been on the roster.
Who would you have put at the back-up middle INF position, Parish?
I can’t fault JS’s moves. What pitchers were out there other than Glavine? He went out to resolve the main problem from last year–the bullpen–and he did that. As much as Wickman struggled, you have to say the bullpen was much better than last year. Given the payroll limitations and the dearth of available starting pitching, I think JS made the right move to try to create a dominant bullpen. If Gonzalez had stayed healthy, it might have worked. No one thought they should not resign Wickman and, in fact, for the most part, he was servicable.
Thorman was a reasonable gamble and it’s not as if LaRoche is having an MVP season. And, as someone pointed out, getting rid of Giles was brilliant. As for Woodward, people act as if he were the source of all the Braves problems. It was a bad move but he was a miniscule part of the problem (although I do think JS has a blind spot generally when it comes to the bench).
All in all, JS made some mistakes (who doesn’t?) but his moves were hardly the problem. And, while I don’t think Bobby had a very good year managing, I think this was a flawed, overrated team all along.
Rob,
The quick answer is Prado. Some thought he should have beaten out KJ for the starting job, if you will remember. We also had Pete Orr.
No need for Woodward or Pena, jr.
Marc,
The Woodward and Sturtze signings cost us some money that could have possibly meant more somewhere else. At least, we know we could not have gotten less for the money.
The notion that Woodward has been our “go-to guy” off the bench is beyond bizarre. As our first bat off the bench and our super-sub, Woodward has actually cost us a couple of games. Two more games in the standings would mean an awful lot right now.
Historically, even the worst players on the Braves roster have found ways to help us win a game or two. Lockhart did. Remember Jerry Willard? I cannot recall one time this year where Woodward made any significant contribution to a win. That is incredible.
Also, as much as I love having Tex, I feel like the king’s ransom we paid for him could have been used to acquire any of a wide selection of starting pitchers which probably would have meant more to the team’s post season chances.
So, JS has some fault, but not a lot.
Prado might be equal or better to Pena, but Orr is not. Orr also doesn’t play SS. So I’d have chosen Pena and Prado as the infield backups instead of Woodward and Orr. Cox should probably share some of the blame for decisions leading to a weak bench.
Um… Escobar?
Escobar is better than all 4 but apparently the powers that be thought he was too green to make the club out of spring training.