Detroit Tigers vs. Atlanta Braves – Box Score – June 25, 2010 – ESPN.
Much better. The Tigers took the lead in the first, as Medlen wasn’t fooling anyone — well, he struck out the leadoff man on four pitches, but after that he allowed three singles to plate a run, and one of his outs was to the warning track. But after that, he mostly shut the Tigers down, allowing three hits (two of them doubles) and walking only one in the next five and two-thirds.
The Braves’ hitters were facing that dread force, the rookie lefthander making his first start. And he was pretty strong, really. The Braves put together three singles in the second, with Melky (Melky!) singling home Yunel. McCann hit a homer, the 100th of his career, to just left of center in the fourth to give the Braves the lead. That turned out to be enough. Folk Hero Brooks Conrad added a pinch-hit homer in the eighth for a little insurance.
After issuing his first walk, Medlen left the game for O’Flaherty, who walked the next man but got a grounder to end it. Moylan got two in the eighth, then Venters came in and struck out the next guy. Billy Wagner picked up his 400th career save with little trouble, capping it with his second strikeout.
Wager struck out all 3, on 10 pitches
That was a brutal display from Wagner to strike them all out swinging. Never once did I think they’d be able to put the ball in play.
Ton of respect for Wagner for committing to his family after this season even after pitching like a monster this season.
It was nice to see Bobby taking pitchers out before they had a chance to get in trouble for once.
Nitpicking but Wagner struck out the side in the 9th.
Wagner retiring to spend more time with his family is really weird. I’m used to players, coaches and politicians saying they’re retiring to spend more time with their family, but they usually have ulterior motives or don’t retire for long. With Wagner I think he’s sincere – good for him! As you say sdp, it’s hard not to respect him for that.
gotta agree, Wagner is a beast and seems to be a class act
The announcer at the end of this video about Zambrano says “it’s good that someone is showing emotion.” This isn’t ‘showing emotion’, it’s acting like a total idiot. How can that guy think that this could be constructive in any way?
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100625&content_id=11567858&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
Medlen and Wagner were great but who took Jason Heyward and replaced him with Jeff Francouer?
#7 – well the announcer is a moron….Good for the GM to put him in his place. Has anyone even seen the play that made him so mad?
Wagner is all business…damn, I wish he’d been a Brave 10 years ago.
Ha ha…Carlos Zambrano still acting like a spoiled freaking brat. And the Cubs still sucking.
anyone see this….
“Braves Not Actively Shopping Escobar
By Luke Adams [June 25 at 8:20pm CST]
One American League scout gets the sense that the Braves may be willing to trade Yunel Escobar, according to Mark Bowman and Chris Hempson of MLB.com. However, Bowman notes that the Braves aren’t actively attempting to deal the 27-year-old and that it would take an “extremely attractive package” for Atlanta to move him.”
Just watched the Zambrano video. I think the announcer at the end was Bob Brenly.
@9, Lee was cheating in a little bit, standing on the grass in anticipation of a bunt from Juan Pierre. Even if he dove, he had no shot at fielding the ball, which was a chopper that was on its way up should he have dove.
I watched it happen, along with that broadcaster’s asinine commentary. I guess he’s the expert on whether or not the Cubs players care about winning.
I guess Zambrano has joined Dan Kolb in the crusades against water coolers.
JC hits nail on the head.
C’mon, that’s a bit ungenerous isn’t it?
Didn’t see the game. Was Medlen really that good?
And while I’m all for family values, Mrs. Wagner needs to tell her husband that one more year of large cash couldn’t hurt. (kidding. kinda.)
As someone named Thomason once said, “Baseball is a weird game.”
Case in point: tonight’s SCAR v. Clemson game. South Carolina put a soft-tossing lefty out there just hoping he’d give them three innings and damned if he didn’t throw a 3-hit complete game.
he threw a no-hitter. he shouldnt be embarassed.
18 — Yes, some amazing performances considering the circumstances from my Gamecocks the past few days.
You’re all welcome.
Life back to normal! Remember when some of you were asking ourselves why we wasted $7m on Wag? Geez, I love him to death.
There is no way Bobby would move Medlen back to the bullpen unless KK pitches a shutout tomorrow and Saito continues to struggle…wait, how funny that Japan plays a role in Medlen’s future!
Gotta love Conrad!!!
Quoth Joe Simpson:
“You cannot stop the raw dog.”
@15 Well said JC.
Thanks for the win, Bethany.
JC hits nail on the head.
Uh, no. That’s idiotic. He beat one of the best teams in baseball 1-0 with a complete game shutout. Believe it or not, the whole idea is to keep the other team from scoring.
With any luck that will be the dumbest thing I read this week.
I think kc said it better….
Jackson performs his job in a sometimes-inefficient way, but he’s generally pretty successful. Today, he was extremely successful, though clearly he can’t sustain his success going forward with this walk rate. But that doesn’t make his no-hitter any less special.
Hey, I’m happy for Jackson. But 8 walks and 149 pitches — good Lord. With a pitch count that high, you’d think he was still pitching for Jim Leyland. If not for the silly fact that it was a no-hitter, he’d have been yanked ages earlier, and with good reason.
I wish the guy all the success in the world. A guy with his fastball and his stuff ought to be able to thrive in the desert. But walking eight guys in one start isn’t a path to success, it’s a path to AAA rehab.
9 innings, zero runs, that’s the idea.
Was at the game tonight. Nice to see the old Braves (Murph, etc.), and yes, Medlen was good & he worked his ass off. It was stiflingly humid.
I gotta put JC’s assertion in the same category as Around The Horn, and any Rolling Stone ‘100 Greatest’ list.. So patently absurd, as to be solely intended to incite reactions.
That is literally the worst thing I can possibly say about someone who takes they do seriously. You’ve entered Mariotti territory.
have to say that Heyward’s been murdering my fantasy team the past 3 weeks. I hope he adjusts, or it’s going to be a LONG year for the 20 year old.
@22 and 30
I’d pony up for season tickets for you, Bethany, if you can keep these results. But you’re much too busy to make every game.
Besides, ububba was there, too. And HE may have been the real good luck charm.
With our home record, there must be a lot of Braves fans who haven’t attended any losses this year.
Last night was my 5th and I’m 4-1 this year. The loss was a no-hitter, though.
Am I going crazy or did SportsCenter have “Wagner’s 400th Save” as the headline at the left for their summary of the Braves-Tigers game and then fail to give much (any?) attention to it being Wagner’s 400th save?
There’s a point at which you need to enjoy the results and not worry about the process. Sure, Jackson can’t expect to be successful long term pitching like that but give him credit for what he did rather than griping about how he did it. It is entertainment after all. And he is not the first to pitch a no hitter with lots of walks.
SportsCenter does that all the time. They don’t follow the left hand rolling topic list. I’ll wait for 10 minutes b/c I see the Braves highlights listed. They go to a commercial break. And when they come back, it is gone.
I love ESPN for a lot of reasons, mainly all the games you can watch now. But I hate ESPN for a lot of reasons too. This is one of them. Young Keith Olbermann-wannabes that suck are another one. Stuart Scott is another one. The Red Sox/Yankee uber focus is another one.
Yeah, that tweet is completely absurd. Jackson has nothing to apologize for.
Now, Hinch might. 149 pitches is a lot.
Jackson pitched a scoreless, hitless, complete game. Sorry Ill take the positive spin on it. That would be like complaining that he had too many fly balls instead of ground outs. He kept the ball out of the middle of the plate. Outside of the pitch count, great job and win for him. The pitch count is high, but he’ll be all right
ESPN is a joke. 30 minutes of every hr goes to NY and Bos. Its pretty bad coverage IMO. Plus the fact that they are always carrying some poker rerun instead of a live game. I still watch Sportscenter just because no other channel competes with them
@33 Haha, maybe it was ububba that was the real lucky charm.
Are we really discussing whether or not a guy should be criticized for 8 walks during a no hitter? Really?
I wonder if this happened at that Marlins game.
yup, the guy defending Zambrano’s fit was Bob Brenly. What a moron.
and Wagner is absolutely disgusting. He keeps saying he’s retiring and “riding off into the sunset” with Bobby but I hope he comes back for that last option-year. It feels bittersweet like Seinfeld going out on top.
When is the last time we saw something remotely similar to Zambrano’s fit go on in the Braves dugout?
We all seem to disagree with various decisions Bobby makes…but I sure do love how he manages the clubhouse and team chemistry. Very professional.
who was it throwing water coolers in our dugouts? Wickman or Kolb? Only other thing I remember was Smoltz/Chipper taking shots at one another through the media or Hudson trying to beat down DOB for screwing up the Griffey deal. Dont necessarily remember any dugout issues in front of Bobby
Fighting a water cooler is not the same thing as yelling at teammates. Water coolers are among the best team players. They will take everything you can throw at them and the worst they will do to reciprocate is not hold water anymore. And they will still do that if they are physically able to.
Humans don’t like being yelled at, though.
Zambrano’s an idiot, and his actions are unforgivable, but I’m sure he had some residual — and understandable — frustration left over from the ridiculously terrible decision to bounce him to the bullpen after a horrible start on Opening Day and three decent starts after that. They really didn’t have a good reason to punish him then, and he didn’t make it back to the rotation until this month.
I don’t think it’s all that surprising that he acted out somehow: he’s an idiot, with a history of clubhouse volatility. But the Cubs handled him ridiculously badly this year. He wasn’t pitching terribly at the time of his demotion, and there’s almost no precedent for moving to the bullpen an $18 million a year starting pitcher who’s been the best pitcher on your team for almost a decade. They gave him plenty of cause to be upset. It’s too bad he didn’t handle it better, but the Cubs already know that he’s a volatile guy. They shoulder a lot of responsibility for how this all went down.
Unforgivable? That’s a bit much, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sure water coolers would be okay with him on their team.
“Unforgivable” is a bit much. I should have said “inexcusable.”
Can I just say how much I love Wag again? It’s a dream to have him on the team.
44 — Kolb was the guy who beat up water coolers.
A 26 years old catcher owning 100 career homeruns…that’s very very impressive.