Atlanta Braves vs. New York Mets – Box Score – April 23, 2010 – ESPN.
Awful. Awful, awful, awful. At least they weren’t shut out for eight innings by John Maine, though they only got one run off of him before he left with an injury. The Braves instead got shut down by the Mets bullpen. Meanwhile, the defense was simply terrible, though somehow all five runs were scored “earned”. I really don’t understand that rule.
The only guy who did anything was Infante, who started at short, batting eighth, and 3-4 and scored both runs. The rest of the team had four hits combined, or eight fewer hits than strikeouts. Even Infante got caught up in the error parade, though he didn’t match Chipper’s two. McLouth didn’t commit any errors, but he did strike out four times.
Blame it on Francoeur.
The headline from last night on the official site reads: “Bats quiet in series-finale loss to Phils.”
An easy rewrite will be: “Bats quiet in series-opener loss to Mets.”
The “quiet bats” syndrome is becoming a common occurrence.
Defensive lapses tonight that makes you think of Little League.
Hitting that doesn’t look much better.
Snap the fark out of it Bravos. Act like you’ve got some damned determination and guts.
didnt watch…good god what a horrible game. are we ever going to be the team that we should be?
The Braves were initially built on pitching and defense. They got Bream and TP to bolster the defense. By contrast, the organization talks about building around pitching but put together a rotten defense. I don’t understand especially since it’s been clear this is not likely an offensive Juggernaut. It is early but, as over the last few years, there is no real identify for this team. Oh well,we could be the Orioles.
Are we making too much of the offensive woes? I seem to recall teams with Darren Bragg, Vinny Castilla, Rico Brogna, Matt Franco, Robert Dick, Eli Marrero, Charles Thomas, Jesse Garcia, Wilson Betemit, and Ryan Langherans winning lots of games.
The 2003 team was just nothing short of a juggernaut.
We won 96 games in 2004 with only a single player above .900 OPS. I’m not the most gifted in analyzing baseball, but it seems to me that we’ve won in the past with some pretty average offenses.
We won 90 games in 2005 with only two players above .900 OPS and only one with more than 78 RBI. Andruw Jones basically won that title for us.
I think what’s going on now is an anomaly and won’t be sustained.
What Marc said. The defense is a big problem right now; other than Yunel and McLouth, nobody’s playing well, and even they’ve made their mistakes. I seriously think that the Braves have to consider working Chipper out at first; he can’t be much worse than Glaus, and moving Prado to third and giving Infante second improves the defense at two positions.
In other news, what’s up with Brian Jordan telling Chipper he should stretch more? Was he really a portrait of health in his playing days?
http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves/former-brave-jordan-questions-487735.html?cxtype=rss_sports_82062
Jordan’s a douche, but just because he wasn’t injury-free doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a point to make. I think there’s at least a grain of truth to what Jordan has to say about Chipper.
Mark Teixeira is giant labia.
And in less douchey former Braves news, KJ went deep twice tonight.
Now I finally know…Heyward and Frenchy share the same agent.
So should Wren be calling up San Diego and Milwaukee?
I wouldnt mind flipping the pitcher they got from the Yanks in a package for one of them.
Maybe they will just take Melky for the hell of it!
RE: 12
Along with Smoltz and Chip Caray.
@10 – Still a douche. Really wish that guy never wore a Braves uniform, and not just because of Feliz/Andrus.
15 — Agreed.
Generally speaking, it’s fine with me if the runner bowls over the catcher that’s blocking the plate. But if you’ve got almost the entire plate open for a slide and you have to lean into the catcher to hit him… still a douche.
@16 That’s what Erstad did to Estrada if I remember right…
@13 I would be more than happy to send the same three players we got from Javy plus Freeman to the Padres or Brewers. The question is we don’t have money to fit additional salary into our payroll.