Atlanta Braves vs. San Francisco Giants – Box Score – April 10, 2010 – ESPN.
There’s no justice. There’s just Derek Lowe.
Lowe, who frankly sucks, or has sucked in his first two outings, is now 2-0, thanks in his first start to 16 runs being scored, and in his second start to seven runs and some really phenomenal infield defense from everyone who isn’t Troy Glaus — Infante at second, Prado (filling in for Chipper, out with a pulled muscle) at third, and Escobar at short. Lowe walked seven men in six innings versus just four strikeouts, threw 112 pitches, 52 of which were balls, and allowed just one run on four hits because the defense constantly bailed him out. (The Giants’ defense, on the other hand, was awful all night.)
The Braves couldn’t do anything on the other side, though, and it looked like he’d get hung with a “tough luck loss”, or that’s what the announcers would call it. But Jason Heyward, who was 3-3 with two walks on the night, hit an opposite-field homer in the sixth to tie the game at 1. Then the Braves got three runs in the seventh, one on a bases-loaded HBP of Glaus, the second on a groundout by Yunel, the third on a single by Heyward. They made it 5-1 in the eighth when Infante scored on a wild pitch, then Heyward scored from first (yay!) on a double by Hinske, who then came around on a single from Infante.
Moylan had no trouble in the seventh (his fourth appearance, he’s on pace now to pitch in 135 games, and don’t put it past Bobby to try) and Saito pitched around a walk in the eighth, striking out two. Amazingly, Billy Wagner did not pitch the ninth with a six-run lead, as Chavez got the call. Unfortunately, Wagner had to warm up after Chavez allowed a run on two hits and a leadoff walk, but got a double play to end it.
McLouth led off with Melky starting the game on the bench (he later came in as a pinch-hitter and scored a run) and had two walks. He now has a batting average of .154 and an on-base percentage of .421. Prado went 2-4 and saw his average drop to .600. Ah, April.
Dan
haha you seem to have an unhealthy hatred of chip, I’d get that examined if I were you.
Everyone hates Chip.
You know, Chip Caray is the only baseball announcer now-a-days that I really like to rag on. That’s an improvement over most here who hate just about damn near everyone, including but not limited to: Joe Buck, Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan.
It’s hard to get mad at Glaus for sucking at 1st base. It would be like yelling at your waiter for being a terrible dancer.
3 — Murderer’s Row
(or is it “Murderers’ Row”?)
How could you not hate Buck, McCarver, and Morgan? Chip’s obviously worse than all of those combined, but still, just sayin.
Anyone else catch McCarver reference teams trading draft picks a handfull of times today and go on a tangent at one point (during the tail end of C.C.’s no hit bid) about how there’s “no evidence in support of teams using pitch counts” at one point.
Christ he sucks. It was almost half as bad as Chip’s “Hinske is a left handed hitter in the mold of Babe Ruth” comment in the 8th inning tonight.
😉
I missed the Hinske=Ruth suggestion by Chip. Is he trying to imply that Hinske is a drunk, out-of-shape, washed-up hitter much like the Babe when he joined the Boston Braves? If he thought that he would be an entertaining announcer, therefore he wasn’t thinking anything.
I think he was trying to make a joke. Chip thinks he’s funny, but he’s not.
“There’s no justice. There’s just Derek Lowe.”
This is an another classic from Mr Thomason.
Stolen, with slight alterations, from Terry Pratchett.
A guy I was watching the game with tonight hinted that I should lay off Chip. I will not.
That opposite field Sheffield Bomb(TM, or it should be) by Heyward was really, really awesome.
Glaus sucks. I look forward to amusing backronyms from the regulars.
#10-11–Well, it may have another source, but I just want to say what a joy it is to come back from class and read another witty Recap on Braves Journal. It is one more great thing about the return of baseball. I might add that it is nice to that we won as well….
Nelson Cruz is single-handedly making my Fantasy League stupid right now. The guy who has him has Pujols, too. Jesus.
Luckily I have Heyward and McCann. But Fielder has done nothing (neither has Markakis) and my top 3 of Felix, Grienke and Josh Johnson have yet to get a win between them.
Thank goodness it’s a long season or I’d be looking to unload right now.
obviously i did not see the game so bear with me, but i looked at the recap and saw glaus scoop about 3-4 low throws. what did he do to suck? everything that i saw looked really good.
btw, hinske is raking and needs more abs.
Maybe he can hit leadoff and play LF?
Isn’t it nice to have a home-grown RF that can make adjustments at the plate?
Spike, referring back to our previous conversation: when a player reaches arbitration for the fourth time, his salary is basically being compared to most of the first year free agents’ salary scale anyway. I honestly can’t see much saving from arb4 to FA1 because of how arbitration works. If anything, arb4 may actually be more expensive than FA1 if the player wins the arbitration.
@15,
He missed a hard-hit line drive right to him at one point (debatable whether he could have caught it), but that led to some trouble in the inning and he botched a pretty straightforward pick in the dirt at one point. He did make a few solid plays, but I feel like we’re going to see a lot of cuts to Glaus after a bad play looking scared and apologetic for the first few months of the season. He also hit one to the warning track in left center if memory serves. 400 foot out.
Kc
you can cut or trade a player if you lose arb. You still retain rights that have value, as opposed to FA status, where you have nothing
thanks rob.
and on hinske,
i could see himself playing into a bigger role and melky playing himself into a smaller role. it’d be nice to trade melky midseason, platoon hinske and diaz, and sign sheffield as the bat off the bench. one can dream…
kc- I did not see the argument from the previous thread, but you seem to be saying what I was thinking and why I did not chime in on the “Heyward should stay down for 10 days” sentiment.
I saw no money saved by holding him down 10 days.
The risk is losing out on his 2016 season because we do not have first right of refusal on it. I see virtually no chance in that as I suspect the Braves will buy out Heyward’s arb years and a couple of FA years to boot.
I won’t take it any further, since some of you are quite determined on the issue, but to buy out a year of arb, where one team has exclusive rights, and the player has no ability to solicit other offers, costsa team far less than competng with the rest of the league for that players services
Glaus made some nice plays and botched a few. He should be able to catch a hard hit liner at his head, however, he was ducking and falling away from it. Cant say I blame him. He wasnt able to scoop a low throw from Infante and he made a pretty bad throw when trying to turn a DP
He did hit a bomb to left center, but it was into a pretty good wind. He made two or three good scoops on some other plays during the game. Its a work in progress
Game thread is up.