Oh, and Skydome Skydome Skydome.
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man, those canadians know all aboot rock’n roll
Come on B Team! Pull out a win for us today!
DOB is going to be around long saying crasy things like this:
By David O’Brien
June 28, 2008 4:48 PM | Link to this
I also agree with those who’d have Blanco (or Kotsay) move to RF when Kotsay gets back. Francoeur needs to go down for a bit, but it’ll never happen
WOW! I love it.
That’s nice to read. I like it when guys make sense.
from the previous thread:
“On the negative side, Wren was not aggressive enough over the winter. At the winter meetings he said that he was after a backup catcher–which now seems like a lofty ambition. In fact, the winter would have been the time to get either a better hitting outfielder or another starting pitcher.”
frank wren does deserve to be kicked for keeping corky miller on any roster (a, aa, aaa, rookie ball, t-ball, etc), but on his defense once again, he thought (and so did bobby cox and js, i’m sure) javy was going to be the backup. if i was a betting man, i would bet that wren let bobby make all of the cuts, therefore keeping corky was not his pick. however, that’s still no excuse for him to be on the team.
regarding starting pitching: he had smoltz, hudson, glavine, jurrjens, james, jo-jo and a few other options. starting pitching depth was supposed to be our strength this year, and it has proven so. you are right that he was bailed out by campillo, but preparing for 4 of your top 5 starting options to be out for the season or implode at the major league level is something even js couldnt have done. i would say wren has done an excellent job in this area.
now the outfield situation. golden boy was a 160 game lock in right field (and looked to be improving). kotsay, anderson, and blanco were battling for center with one loser being the 4th outfielder. if that experiment didnt work, schafer would have been called up. diaz, coming off a strong season, was given the chance to be the regular left fielder. if that didnt work out, b.jones would platoon in left. i do see your point that our outfield situation needs to be addressed, but it seems like it might cost us too much until people are ready to sell. it is my understanding that everyone seems to be waiting last minute this year to declare their team “sellers” or “buyers”. any transaction that is rushed from a desperate buyer (such as the braves) might cost a fortune.
i do like your post stephen, especially this paragraph:
“It was virtually inevitable that a team built around Smoltz, Glavine, Hudson, Hampton and Chuck James would have serious injury problems. The idea that Kotsay would be healthy for an entire season was equally naive. Unfortunately, I don’t think that anybody who enjoys this site is all that surprised that Chipper would miss a decent amount of games.”
i cant disagree with anything in that piece. overall, wren did the best he could do with the money, and the situation, he was given. cutting pena and keeping miller, imo, has been his worst move to date. however, i think that was more bobby than wren.
one suggestion i can give to wren: grow some balls and override your old skipper every once in a while. he’s grown a little senile.
Maybe he has tried to make some moves, but maybe the other team wanted too much for too little.
This time of year teams selling have a huge price tag on players. If we can tread water for the next 2-3 weeks, then we make a move. If not, I suggest we sell. It will all be decided in the next few weeks. Maybe even in the next four games.
Schafer’s suspension really hurt us. I’m pretty sure the Braves were expecting to bring him up right about now.
This is the rubber game, but it already feels like we’ve lost the series.
There has to be something emotionally or physically wrong with Frenchie. He was never that good; right now though (as in through half a season), he is horrible. We are way past too small sample size, here. A sub .700 OPS (.684) for a corner outfielder?
Lineups
Cf Blanco
3b Gotay
2b Johnson
1b Teixiera
C McCann
Dh Norton
Rf Francoeur
Lf Jones
Ss Lillibridge
(P Reyes)
Jays
Dh Eckstein
2b Scutaro
Rf Rios
Cf Wells
C Barajas
3b Rolen
1b Overbay
Lf Wilkerson
Ss McDonald
(P Burnett)
Gotay makes me miss Infante and Prado… Isn’t that sad?
francoeur walks. and in other news: hell freezes.
ugliest major leaguer: randy johnson or a.j. burnett?
Turf, ladies and gentlemen: Making routine groundouts into doubles since 1966!
Ryan C, it’s got to be Randy. I feel like if I look at him too long I’ll lose my soul.
David Weathers is in the conversation for ugliest MLer
Go Jo Jo!! Nice reaction to a lead off double….
shouldnt Julian Tavarez be on that list somewhere?
Man, I love bunt singles! 😀
Who doesn’t love bunt singles? But who else hates guys who make Mendoza blush hitting in the 2 spot?
We got to get this team healthy.
JB
Gotay is beginning to make me nostalgic for Lockhart…
Not even close, Gregor
Gotay batting second feels like a bigger joke than Francoeur batting third and Norton/Infante batting fifth ever was.
And Joe Simpson’s advice fails again!
goat tie strikes again. we really need infante, kotsay, diaz, escobar, chipper, prado, smoltz, glavine, moylan, soriano, bob horner, and stockman back.
Was it even close? cant tell by Gameday….
Small ball giveth, small ball taketh away?
….franco, gallarahga,
Nicely done again by Jo Jo after the first two reached that inning.
Its time for KJ, Tex and McCann to generate some offense. Then we can wait for another two innings for them to come up again….
balls.
Oh, gawdammit…
What was the answer to the trivia question? I was not paying attention at all.
Luis Gonzalez
Luis Gonzalez.
Boog is not pleased.
cox thinks kotsay and escobar will return tuesday but chipper might not be ready. man, what a boost it would be to have all 3 back for the phillies. i would love to see a normal lineup again.
Thanks. He was actually my second guess behind Todd Helton.
I wonder if we see Chipper hit the DL soon retro to the 25th, his last PH appearance.
New rule:
Boog and Joe can’t talk about how hard hit Frenchy groundouts are, even when they’re hit hard. Jesus, theyre trying hard.
So, I guess if Kotsay is ready, they’ll send Brandon Jones down? I understand on one level–he’s not killing the ball or winning games for us. But really, how much better would he have to be for the Braves to send Frenchy down instead (or dl him with the inability to hit)?
Not like we ever really expected to get anything out of that part of the lineup anyways. 🙂
Also, I doubt Chipper will get DLed, as it’s not like there’s anyone we’d really like to bring up.
Would that ball have bounced like that on “grass”? I submit that it would not.
mraver,
we could call up Stockman and get exactly from him what we are getting from Chipper (except of course that Chipper’s hurt and Stockman cannot be used because, well, uh, I don’t know why). Maybe we ought to DL Chipper and call up another pitcher anyway. Offense isn’t really important, not when you have Gotay, Frenchy, Lillibridge, and the Hamster, right?
Jo Jo is looking tough and smart. Its nice to see the other team experience inning after inning of LOB…
I wouldn’t have any problem sending B. Jones down (taking it as given that Frenchy’s not going anywhere). He’s had some success in the bigs, so send him down, let him build on it in AAA while they mess around with Blanco, Norton, and Infante getting starts in LF and (hopefully) spelling Frenchy in RF from time to time.
Also, Jo Jo is looking sharp today.
Blanco looking good lately.
Jo Jo is looking sharp. Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a Huddy-esque 6th inning.
Man, Blanco has been hella-hot after a good-sized slump.
A.J. Burnett this season:
7-7, 5.07 ERA and 1.50 WHIP
Leave it to the Braves to make the struggling “ace-potential stuff” guys (Burnett and Oliver Perez) look like aces.
Let’s score here, please…
Fun, interesting story in the NY Times about the 1968 season & the current offense/pitching trends, with regulation contrarian quote from Bill James.
http://tinyurl.com/5c3ptz
Best thing Gotay will do all game….
So, is Joe talking about productive outs now?
some damn fine pitches there
Aight, Mac, now or never.
Bummer. We’ll we’ll have another chance in two or so innings.
Stephen, I haven’t seen much to like out of Gotay unless he’s off the bench. Seeing as a starter is a little depressing.
*sigh*
Well, that’s 99 pitches for Burnett. Maybe we get into the bullpen next inning?
balls
Ballgame.
Nice damage control there.
One run in? Sorry, JoJo, not good enough.
Germany v. Spain underway on ABC.
Although the game is blacked out here, there’s something very strange about TBS showing Mets/Yankees, instead of the Braves.
I wonder what kind of rating they’ll get for that game.
Like I’d listen to Chip on a day I didn’t have to…
This zombie offense isn’t exactly taking the pressure off the young pitchers.
Jo-Jo has looked really good lately, did he change anything significant in the last trip to the minors or is he just locating better?
My theory is that Joseph got some success in AAA and when he came back up wasn’t afraid to throw strikes anymore.
how will francoeur blow this?
how bad can one guy suck?
A wild pitch, nice.
Burnett does what Frenchy can’t.
Something tells me Jones and Lillibridge haven’t seen a whole lot of curveballs like that in the minors.
Norton at .241 and Francoeur at .240. I still feel about ten times more confident that Norton will do anything positive when up to bat.
There is not a gift in baseball that can be given that this puny lineup can’t waste.
trade francoeur to colorado and have signs that say “franCoor’s field” and let him hack at everything.
Filthy.
No reason to drop a hook on a guy who can’t catch up with the heat.
This offense is terrible.
Without Chipper and Escobar, they can’t even scratch across one single run in seven innings against a pitcher with bad season stats. Even when he gives them gifts, like that wild pitch or the two consecutive walks to start an inning, they can’t do a thing.
Guys, What’s with all the venom against Frenchy?
Heh. Gregor Blanco is the fourth best hitter in that lineup. That’s how bad it is.
If Francoeur had been suborned by gamblers and was intentionally throwing games, could you tell the difference?
If he was actually throwing games, I don’t think he’d be so obvious about it. The Joe Jackson method: He’d still keep up a hollow batting average for appearance sake and what not.
As things are, it’s quite clear to me that he just sucks.
Let’s be fair. AJ Burnett is a very good pitcher. Looking at his ERA for this season and concluding he sucks is silly.
Lillibridge will never be a productive player with that long of a swing
If Francoeur was throwing games I’d expect to see some positives once in a while, it can’t possibly be good for gambling to just suck in every game.
Burnett’s season stats are bad:
7-7, 5.07 ERA and 1.50 WHIP
He’s only 76-73 in his career too.
Burnett’s just had some bad luck combined with control problems. If he’s not walking a lot of people he’s tough.
Now. Go. Get. Runs. For. Jo-Jo. Silly. Offense.
I don’t know if Burnett has ever quite reached the level of “very good pitcher.”
I agree he has very good stuff, but as his career record shows, he’s a head case who’s just as likely to have a bad day as strike out 10+ or throw a no-hitter. He’s looked pretty good today locating the curve and fastball, I’ll give him that, but let’s keep in mind who we’ve got in the lineup also. McGowan and Parrish looked pretty good against these clowns too…
Strong outing for Reyes. Maybe we get something off the bullpen. This would be the inning in which to do it….
Also, what the fuck is Oliver Perez doing throwing a 2-hitter against the yankees?!?
Gah, I love Jo Jo to pieces, I hate to see this happen to him. AGAIN.
Time for a smash, Kelly!
COME ON B-MAC!
Don’t worry, Francoeur is due up in the ninth inning and he’ll take B.J. Ryan deep.
That’s 6 LOB for McCann today. He really is in a bit of a slump.
Really, what’s the point…
They need to make a move for a left fielder or a right fielder ASAP. They are still in this thing. Also I am sure this has been said before but couldn’t Javy Lopez have done a better job than Corky. I mean WTF!!! McCann looks really tired.
At least we are back to NL games soon, so the pitchers can get to hit and have a chance to help themselves.
If Hudson doesn’t watch out, Joseph is going to take the presidency of the I Hate The Lineup Club away from him.
Hey Ububba, I posted this further explanation of my objection to that Bradley article about Cox in the other thread, but I figured you might not see it since this thread is active now:
Even if players do say that they appreciate Cox’s managing, it is difficult to quantify that effect, as Bradley seems to want to do by claiming that the team would have a worse record were it not for Cox’s managing. On the other hand, it is much easier to speculate that Cox has cost the team wins with his poor on-the-field decisions, because observers are able to use statistics to question Cox’s decisions.
As for today’s game, the only bad Cox decision the team seems to have been egregiously beset with is the lineup. I don’t know why Cox would hit Gotay so high.
Oliver Perez kills 2 teams—the Braves & the Yankees.
I’m no longer the top hit for “Francoeur Sucks”, but “Francoeur Sucks” is now a suggested search on Google. Because Francoeur sucks that much.
Well at least the Braves are working to defend their one-run road loss major league record.
I can’t get too mad at this lineup. It is what it is—lacking. It would be nice to scratch a run. But we have no players out there.
You know who sucks? Francoeur.
Norton and Francoeur blown away by 88 MPH heat from B.J. Ryan.
Absolutely pathetic.
We can’t trot that lineup out there again…it’s just unwatchable.
Yep…
Bobby please retire!
Hardly a surprise….especially with out punchless lineup…
Back to Spain-Germany…
Norton, Frenchy, Jones, Lillibridge, Blanco, and Gotay – who out of necessity bat consecutively in this lineup…
…combine for 10 K’s. Sounds about right.
bobby HAS to put someone on the dl if this shit continues. he had absolutely no options coming off the bench. 4 bench players: miller, chipper, infante, and escobar. i really despise bobby’s managerial skills this year.
While I have many times expressed my concerns about Bobbys bullpen management, bunt habits, and platoon over/mismanagement….what exactly did Bobby do to cause this loss?
This one isn’t on Bobby. With no Chipper, Escobar, Kotsay, Diaz, Infante, or Prado in the linup, this sadly is about the best lineup we can put out there.
Put someone on the DL and call up who?
Seriously, how is this particular loss on Bobby?
Make a trade for an outfielder. This sucks.
I have no use for soccer, of course, but I’m rooting for Spain on general principles.
Recap is up, unlike most of the team.
I wish Wren would sign Bonds.