ESPN – Braves vs. Rockies – Box Score – April 09, 2008
Well, at least it’s not another one-run loss. On the other hand, it’s a loss to Mark freaking Redman. Giving Chuck James his first start of the year in Coors Field turned out to be — hard as it is to believe — a bad idea.
Once again, the Braves got a single early run, McCann doubling in Francoeur in the second. But the Rockies exploded for six runs in the third, highlighted by a three-run homer. Chuck’s control was way off; even though he just walked one, he hit three men and threw about as many balls as strikes.
Jeff Bennett gave the Braves three solid innings, allowing one run and giving them a chance to get back in it. Of course, they didn’t, quite, and any chance was ruined by the presence of Chris “Radar Gun” Resop. He allowed five runs in two innings and can’t pitch.
The Braves had the same number of hits as the Rockies, 13, but drew no walks. McCann was 3-4, missing the cycle by the triple, which really isn’t that surprising when you think about it.
Oh, and Rafael Soriano was placed on the DL due to “tendinitis”. Things just keep getting better!
It could be worse. We could be Detroit. Oh wait…they just beat the Red Sox.
Early season blues, here. I admit it. Let’s just hope we can hover around .500 in the early going until the team rights the ship.
good news: we have the nats coming up to right the ship. this might be the worst start of braves baseball and braves news combined that i recall (hampton, smoltz, soriano, and chuck’s injuries, schafer and the hgh scandal, and the poor baseball. let’s hope the guys can straighten it out during the day. remember, it is really cold in denver.
I know it’s early yet, but I really need someone to put this in perspective for me. Ububba, Sansho, Marc, Mac, anyone want to share some horror stories from the ’70s and ’80s?
AAR,
This is, in many ways worse than the 70’s and the mid to late 80’s. That is, “hope” had not escaped from Pandora’s box so as to further aflict BravesHumanity (can’t use Nation as that is too tied to the damn Red Sawx).
1988 Update
Houston Astros 7-2 (-)
Los Angele Dodgers 7-3 (0.5 GB)
San Francisco Giants 6-4 (1.5 GB)
Cincinnati Reds 6-4 (1.5 GB)
San Diego Padres 3-7 (4.5 GB)
Atlanta Braves 0-9 (7 GB)
Ninth game of season, April 15, 1988
Atlanta Braves: 000 200 000–2 LP: T. Glavine (0-2)
Los Angeles Dodgers: 000 101 10x–3 WP: O. Hershiser (3-0)
Suddenly trading Devine, Ascanio, and Villareal doesn’t seem so smart. I have a sinking feeling Soriano is going to morph into Reitsma. Dare we hope that Mike Gonzalez will come back in June and become our full time closer?
And Yates too I guess.
Ron, you honestly think keeping Devine, Ascanio, and Oscar will make a difference? Devine and Ascanio are in the minor and Oscar isn’t pitching much better than what we have.
Keeping Yates would help though, but cutting $0.9M from the payroll should help the team adding payroll for mid-season trade.
Apart from Resop, I think the bullpen should actually be decent, especially with Gonzalez coming back though you cannot expect him to perform as he did before the injury right away. The starters need to go deeper in the game. That’s the key as we know. I really really don’t like Chuck James. I even prefer Jojo although suddenly our rotataion looks thinner than I thought it would be during spring training. Anyway, I am still not panicing. Go Braves.
#6
Sorry, Ron, Oscar sucked. Trading him was just fine. He would just be filling up the bases in Denver and giving up at least a run everytime.
Resop needs to go. I know it’s a short window of time since the season begand, but we’ve all seen enough. That’s one change: FREE PHIL STOCKMAN.
Second, I get that it was Coors, but one thing we had going was good starting pitching. I wanted to believe Chuck had grown up this year, but to me, he simply looks like a mediocre starter.
He’ll probably get another turn, but I’d either call Jo Jo up by next week, or else give Jeff Bennett a shot, who looks pretty darn effective.
This 3-6 start has all of us aggravated and the Rockies are ANNOYING. It’s annoying to lose to a team you feel you should beat.
But I expect that when the Braves return to DC tomorrow night (I will be there Saturday and Sunday) they better come in with the mantra – SWEEP – and let’s get the ball rolling here. Enough of this stuff already.
Chuck has never been able to pitch at Coors, even as a productive pitcher. He had an ERA around 10 at that park, going into yesterday.
That said, I’d also go with Bennett over him, if only to give him time to stretch out.
This is totally random, but this jumped out at me. I was reading the story on ESPN about Pujols getting into it with Brandon Backe yesterday, and when I got to the bottom of the page, there was a section entitled “Game Notes.” The following is taken from that section (please see http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=280409118):
“Astros 2B Kaz Matsui, who is recovering from surgery to repair an anal fissure, will continue his rehab assignment with Double-A Corpus Christi Thursday-Saturday and could rejoin the Astros on Sunday.”
Ok, first of all, an ANAL FISSURE sounds incredibly painful, but how would you like ESPN to tell the entire world? I think if I were the reporter, I would just say he was having “surgery.”
Chuck is a fly ball pitcher who made his first start in Coors. This was destined to be ugly. Especially when you can’t throw strikes. There is nothing more annoying than a major league pitcher who can not throw strikes. I give a lot more leeway to my 6 year old nephew’s accuracy, but major league pitchers have to at least be able to throw strikes.
I’m going to reserve judgement on Chucky until he gets back into shape. I read that he also had a cold yesterday so on top of not being in shape he was sick.
AND on top of that he is a fly ball out pitcher, which is never a good idea in that ball park.
So I’ll let everyone else be the doom and gloom on this one.
Did it seem like Chuck was coming inside more on RH hitters than he used to? Of course the results were disastrous–three HB–but I don’t recall him pitching inside like that before. Is he trying to follow Glavine’s example?
#12
Tennessee Brave…there were a few discussion threads dedicated several weeks ago to Kaz Matsui’s “problem”. Needless to say, it was the BUTT of a lot of jokes (zing!)
That said, yes, there are some ailments that probably should be kept private…of course, when Mike Hampton comes off the DL and next goes right back on say for Syphilis, everyone will probably know about it 🙂
The Free Phil Stockman and Jeff Bennet campaign began in earnest last night.
Interesting nickname for Resop. Radar Gun reminds me of when I played high school football and we had guys that would go extremely hard in practice and take away starting time for the real good players. But, when they got in the games they looked slower and lost. This happened on a regular basis. We called them the T-Shirt Heroes.
That’s still not as bad as Felix Pie requiring surgery in early March of this year to correct a “twisted testicle”.
http://deadspin.com/366269/felix-pies-minor-surgery-no-big-deal-nothing-to-see-here
Hampton has Syphilis! Holy Crap! That guy catches everything but a break. 🙂
Last night wasn’t the bullpen’s fault. We were behind the eight ball after that 6 run inning. The problem is that I just don’t get the sense that this team has much fire. At least not so far. I know it is early, but it looks like we are just going through the motions.
“The Free Phil Stockman and Jeff Bennet campaign began in earnest last night. ”
Stockman? Absolutely. I would really like to see Stockman replace Chris Resop.
But, despite last night’s one game, I will still take Chuck James over the Reyes-Bennett-Carlyle axis of evil.
Agree with Josh. Team looks like it could use a testosterone injection. I guess man-juice is a felony these days, however …
Actually, Stockman got a little lit up in his second appearance at Richmond (Tuesday?). But he still gets strike outs. I don’t care if your name is Albert Pujols, when Stockman at 6′ 8″ brings that 98 fastball up and in, you are going to flinch.
AS to Jo Jo, he had a great outing last night. He needs about 4 or 5 starts at that level (AAA). If those are similar to his endof year at Richmond last year (dominating 5 or so starts), then the only question left for him is “will he be able to translate to MLB?”
So, at that point, I think it is safe to bring Jo Jo up, if you don’t trade him.
For some reason, maybe I’m getting my hopes up, but I actually like the way Bennett throws. He lets his defense make plays for him and he gets a lot of ground balls. Small sample size, but as a Brave
2-1 3.68ERA 22IP 23H 7BB 19K’s – I would take that line from a 4 or 5 starter anyday.
What I dont understand is some of the moves that we made and didnt make last night. We pulled the infield in during a 3-1 game with a runner at third and 1 out. If its the 8th or 9th inning then thats okay. Why pitch to Torrealba with two on and two outs with Mark Redman on deck. The guy is 8-146 .055 all time. Then for some reason they try and let Chuck to continue to throw fastballs inside to right handers. He hit 3 batters and then Torrealba hit a 400 foot bomb off of his inside fastballs. Chuck really needs to watch Glavine more and go with his change up away. McCann needs to see when Chuck isnt hittig his spots with certain pitches and needs to call something else
It was 2-1 when the infield was pulled in in the third inning. (Which led directly to it being 3-1.) Ludicrous.
But hasn’t one of Chuck James’ problems been that he only has a fastball and a change-up? Has he developed that third pitch yet?
At least one cool thing happened yesterday: Fenway fans started to boohttp://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=1086196&srvc=sox&position=8 Edgar Renteria, so he went 3-4 and helped to knock out Jon Lester and get the Tigers their first win of the year.
Was Resop just getting out minor leaguers in Spring Training? You just can’t throw a straight fast ball past big league hitters.
IMO James will continue to struggle until he can mix in a slider/curveball. Glavine is dangerous because not only does he have great control over his changeup and fastball, but he will also mix in a curve. James does not have the control or the curve, so he will struggle. I’ll continue to root for him and hope he figures it out.
Last night wasn’t the bullpen’s fault?
I guess not. Resop just saved us from another one-run loss.
Anytime your starting pitcher does not get past the 3rd inning, the game is in jeopardy. This was not the same thing as a 4-3 lead after 6 strong from the starter and the bullpen blows it. We were down 6-1 after 3 innnings. Resop sucked, but it all started in that 3rd inning.
AAR, at this point in the 80’s we would be mathematically out of contention.
Cliff said it best. This is more frustrating because we at least think that this team doesn’t suck.
*Thought.
I still think this team doesn’t suck. However, that thought may be mathematically out of contention with reality.
Chuck James needs to go back to installing doors and windows for Lowe’s. He does not seem to be well suited for pitching.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/10/08
Thursday afternoon’s Braves-Rockies game has been postponed due to snow in Denver.
No makeup date has been scheduled.
Of course, the day we score some runs we don’t get a good start for the first time in a while.
@ #26. I think Mac has pointed out before that one of the reasons spring stats are useless is that hitters take a while to get their timing down. Major league hitters may struggle with catching up to a straight fastball during the spring, but Resop has not had the same luck to start the regular season.
Yep, playing a four-game series in Denver in April was a really good idea.
One thing I hadn’t considered a couple of weeks ago is that Glavine throws two-seam and four-seam fastballs, while James presumably throws only a four-seam (“rising”) fastball. They’re essentially two different pitches which the pitch data doesn’t separate.
Gosh, I am really going to miss Denver. The Braves should welcome this day off to screw their freaking heads on straight, and come here to Washington and kick the crap out of the Nationals.
Sorry for the lack of eloquence, but this team needs a sweep. Not to be swept.