Florida Marlins vs. Atlanta Braves – Box Score – April 13, 2011 – ESPN.
Well, at least we weren’t quite no-hit!
Josh Johnson took a no-hitter into the eighth inning, before Freddie Freeman broke it up with a one-out double. The shutout lasted until the ninth, when Chipper hit a solo homer, accounting for his 1500th career RBI. That’s the highlights, folks!
Tim Hudson didn’t have a good night. Component-wise, it was a lot like the nights when he was getting wins early last season and we were saying it was unsustainable — seven hits, two walks, two strikeouts. The Marlins got a run on a double and a single in the first, then three on four singles in the second. A homer in the third made it 5-0, which was more than enough for Johnson, obviously.
For completeness’ sake, The Lisp threw a couple of shutout mopup innings and George Sherrill, in a role where he couldn’t do any harm, threw a shutout ninth.
Not much to say on a night like this, really.
It’s good to see Chipper can still hit one out.
BAbip frowned on Hudson, no question. The first two innings seemed a lot like his first two innings last Friday – he got the ground balls, they just found holes. Repeatedly. If he threw the exact same game 100 more times would anything have consistently cost him runs other than the, admittedly no-doubt, home run?
Gotta tip your cap. Their pitcher over there was just lights out tonight. – blah blah blah
That’s what’s going to happen if you don’t strike people out.
Some runs will score, yeah, but if any one of those three straight bleeders between Freeman and Uggla had been two feet to either side, the second inning was over. 2 runs still would have been plenty for Florida, given Johnson’s shut-downery of our offense, but Hudson’s line would have looked drastically different with very little change in his actual performance. But yeah, you expect him to have at least half as many strikeouts as innings pitched – usually more like 70% as many, so he might have been giving up more solid contact than usual tonight.
Mac,
What are your thoughts on a side-bar counter keeping track of lost Heyward plate appearances that he would have had if he were batting second?
Nothing New Dept.
Roy Halladay is such a badass. He heads into the 9th up 3-0, gives up a few hits & he finds himself hanging on 3-2 with runners on first & second with one out.
Manuel comes trotting out, decides to stick with him & what does Halladay do? He strikes out PH Matt Stairs on 3 pitches. Then he strikes out I-Rod on 3 pitches. Ballgame.
Someone’s already got one, Ben, I can’t remember who offhand.
Is there anyone in Florida who wants to give me a job?
My qualifications:
Sincere sounding laughter after bad jokes.
Can move my eyebrows independent of each other.
24+ years of gum chewing experience.
Bilingual (English and jive).
Can drive an automatic.
Loves animals but loves meat more.
Contact me for more details, but that’s essentially my resume.
Gwinnett recap
Lopez 7.2IP 5H 1ER 1BB 5K
Diory 3 for 4
Constanza, Lucas, Mather all with 2 hits each
Schafer 0-2 2BB
Selfish and completely true story…
I play on the world’s worst coed softball team and we actually won tonight (1-6 on the year). We were down 11-9 in the bottom of the 7th with a girl runner on 2nd. Olen, batter up to the plate now, is one of those guys who’s really bad at softball, but walks around like he’s Pujols (he struck out looking in the previous AB and proceeded to throw his bat in anger…church softball).
Back to the AB at hand. Olen swings, throws his bat into the umpire’s chest. The umpire makes an audible “UMPH”. The ball,rolling weakly to SS, fields, and throws to 1st. On his way to the bag, Olen yells, “MISS IT! MISS IT!” to the first baseman. Predictably, the 1b (being a timid female) drops the ball and the runner/champion takes 2nd and 3rd. The next batter (girl) walks and I got to hit with runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 out, bottom of the 7th, down 1 run. I hit a triple, 2 runs scored, and I was hero for a night.
My story proves this one thing: Bad sportsmanship wins ballgames.
Did any of you DISHers ever get the Braves broadcast thing worked out? I was visiting a friend tonight, and we couldn’t get the game on his DISH. The only FSNSouth had college baseball, and there was nothing on the HD feed. The FSNFL network showing the game is blacked out.
I know some of you on the site have complained about this before. Did any of you find a solution?
I am for some reason on Fox’s email list about Dish Network. They sent about five emails today: “It’s going to be on 673.” “No, 656.” “No, 622.” Etc.
I have Comcast.
There’s always an Olen, and he will find a way to be Olen.
Also, more things need to be sarcastically called “x/champion”.
1. Schafer, J. (CF/champion)
#Gwinning
My wife played adult coed rec league soccer for many years, and I remember well the Olens of those leagues. My moniker for them was “In Search of Former Glory”; many of them may once have been decent as a high school player. However, those meager skills now long atrophic, they try to compensate by working very hard to intimidate and injure others.
May those around your Olen avoid those problems as much as possible.
@11 – I laughed. Great story
I may be the only one..1978, I make my one and only trip to Boston to catch a game at Fenway. Carl Yastrzemski gets RBI 1500 that night. Last night, staying to the bitter end, I get to watch Chipper do the same. Baseball is a wonderful because of moments like that.
Ryan c,
That is a funny story
So now that Chipper has his 1500th RBI, are there any other statistical milestones for him on the horizon? Looking at his stat page http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=97&position=3B I don’t see any (unless you want to count 500 doubles or 150 SB). It’s highly unlikely he’ll reach 3000 hits, 500 HRs, or 2000 R or RBI before retiring.
My story, like most of my posts, was hastily written. I apologize for any grammatical defects.
I left off one point: On his k looking, Olen proceeded to argue for 30-40 seconds telling the umpire that neither of the balls were strikes. We play in a USSSA league where if the ball hits the mat or the plate, and it has anywhere between 3 and 10 feet of arch, it’s a strike. They were obvious strikes. Olen, oblivious to obvious, threw his bat in anger then came into the dugout pleading his case for the rest of the inning. Once again, church softball.
@9 – Great resume. Way the hell better than mine.
@11 – great story. I played some rec indoor soccer in my early 40’s. Hell I was there for the post game beer more than anything. We had to play the 30’s because we had a 38 year old on our team. Olen’s abound. At least in softball there’s little contact, in soccer ….
#12 – yes, Dish puts the Peachtree games on the ALT channels now. Last night it was on 476. Most of the time they will be on channels 445-452 though.
@11,
It’s not just girls. We have plenty of guys on my softball team that would drop the ball in that situation–or in any situation. Several years ago, I was playing shortstop and a ball was hit to my left. I dove, stopped the ball and from my back threw the ball to first in time to get the runner (slow runner obviously). My idiot first baseman, however, with nothing better to do apparently, decided not to bother standing on the bag. That would have been my one highlight moment!
We’ve scored 38 runs so far. That’s good for 28th in the league, ahead of only Pittsburgh and Minnesota.
26 — That’s a lot of cap tipping.
Schafer could be an Olen. Robert Fick had some Olen in him. I think AJ Pierzynski is the definitive Olen.
Olen “f*cking success” Schafer. I LOVE IT!
My best softball story involves Chip Caray & an errant throw.
#19
Severe Coincidence Dept.
I have a friend who’s a Mets fan & his dad is a Mets fan. They hate the Yankees so much that they always swore they’d never step foot into Yankee Stadium.
But one day at work, dad scored some free Yankee tickets. They were great seats & it was gonna be a gorgeous May weekend, so they figured, “Why not? Let’s go.”
They go, and they see David Wells throw a perfect game vs. Minnesota. It’s their first and only visit to the park.
And what about dad’s first visit to Shea Stadium back in the day? He saw Jim Bunning throw a perfect game against the Mets.
Link under name of some baseball wives/girlfriends. To get your mind off last night’s game. In Co-ed softball I tripped over chalk line running home from 3rd and separated shoulder. Got up & scored after girl missed throw home. Not her fault as throw was bad.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/02/home-run-stunning-baseball-wives-slideshow/
@30
I really want to hear that story.
Another Olen note: I kid you not, Olen made 4 errors in the first inning of last night’s game and they were all balls that a 10 year old could catch. On the 6th ball, he actually made a decent play and threw out the runner at first (from third) for the first time the ENTIRE YEAR! As he walked off the field, he turned to me (I’m playing SS) and said, “I hope they keep challenging me”. I wanted to say, “I hope they don’t”.
Extended spring training sounds like hell on earth.
30—You’ve told it before, and I love it. It does everything you’d want it to do for Chip’s image, if you already dislike him.
@30,
I’m with Stu. It is a great story.
@33,
I would figure it is on the lines of white collar prison or repeating the third grade
I propose a new Braves uniform standard where they remove the bills from their headgear. This would eliminate all cap tipping.
Braves fez anyone? Or Braves yarmulke?
Quotes about last nights game on AJC includes no less than three ” Gotta Tip Your Hat “. Do they hand out a script post game for the players?
Doubt I can top ububba’s story, whatever it is, but I have a softball story of my own. When I was in business school I played on a softball team with Evan Eschmeyer- not a big name, but he played for some period of time in the NBA and was pretty much the Northwestern basketball team at the time. I was playing third and he was playing first. I fielded a ground ball and threw a rocket to Evan, but it was a little low- and remember he was 6’10” or something. Anyway, it hit him in the ankle on the fly and blew it up pretty good. As I recall this was with some NBA stuff upcoming for him (although maybe I am making that part up); regardless I felt pretty low about maybe ruining the man’s shot at a big paycheck. Obviously no repercussions in the long run, but needless to say he gave up playing softball after that.
@36, maybe they could wear their yarmulke caps for Family Faith night.
I’m totally going to suggest that to our local minor league team.
It would also be appropriate if my “Thank Heavens We’re Not In France” promotion ever gets picked up.
I don’t know how Mac feels about this, but I wanted to put this out there for people that might be looking for Minor League Recaps. CBwilk over at talkingchop does an amazing job recapping the Braves affiliates nightly. Here’s a link to last night’s recap…
http://sbn.to/gwmdNe
Here’s my Olen story:
I’m captain of my law firm summer softball team. We’re bad and proud of it – more often than not, our outfielders have beers while playing the field. Each year we play ourselves in a split squad game. This particular game I’m playing third base. Olen is on at 3B and his son is at the plate. He hits a weak dribbler to SS, but too soft for the SS to make the play at 1B. Olen makes the mistake, however, of trying to advance to 3B. I catch the ball with Olen still a full 15 or so feet from the bag. Knowing he’s out, Olen yells some profanity at me, lowers his head and tries to run me over, as if I were the catcher at home plate. I sidestep him enough to avoid a full-on head butt, and tag him out. Unfortunately he drives his knee into the side of mine, tearing my ACL and MCL. Dumbass.
#36 – funny. Still laughing.
“Tipping your cap” is the new “Silencing his critics”
10 – csg, and everybody else that posts the minor league recaps, thank you, even if they are very brief, I do appreciate anybody that posts them, especially the AA & AAA ones.
Normally not a rah rah guy, but goddam, own your suckage. Cobb never tipped his cap, among others
ok, can’t resist, here’s another “Olen” story:
“Olen” hasn’t hit anything past the pitcher all season. After a couple of our guys launch home runs, “Olen” turns to me and says, “I can hit a home run anytime I want.” I thought he was joking but he’s dead serious [note: “Olens” have NO sense of humor — they are NEVER joking]. So, I say, “Really? Hey, go ahead, we’d love for you to hit a homer,” says I. (what I wanted to say: “sure beats the strike outs you usually give us”). “Olen’s” response: “Nah, I don’t want to make the other guys look bad.” And he says it with a straight face, with what “Olen” thinks are sympathetic eyes.
Lesson: Thank God “Olens” are terrible athletes, imagine what we’d have to endure if they could actually play?
Braves fez anyone? Or Braves yarmulke?
Dunno about a fez, but here’s a Braves yarmulke.
Nice.
Lol @ 46.
Chutzpah > Hat Tipping
#32
OK, the Caray story: When I was at UGA, I wrote for the newspaper, The Red & Black, and Chip worked at the radio station, WUOG. The staffs of the R&B & WUOG often played each other in intramural sports.
So, in one of the softball games, I was playing SS and, with a runner on 1B, Chip hit a grounder to me. I caught it & pivoted to underhand the ball to my 2B for the force. However, my 2B was nowhere near the bag, so I had to re-pivot & hurry a sidearm throw to 1B.
Unfortunately (for Chip), my throw was one of the worst in the history of the sport. It sliced away from 1B & into the baseline like a bad golf shot. I can remember the whole thing sort of happening in slow motion, as in, “Gah, what a terrible throw” into “Uh, I… think… it’s going to hit…. him in the…”
Gotta give him credit. He was hustling down the line, head down, steaming for the bag… but KONK! Right in the side of the coconut. He ran directly into the throw. Down like Gerry Cooney.
And I was genuinely nervous for a moment as everyone gathered near him. But he came around & finished the game. He was not happy & I couldn’t blame him.
Addendum: About 6 years later, I’m at Shea Stadium for a Mets/Cubs game. Because I’d scored some seats with “Diamond Club” passes, I leave thru the nearby press elevator when the game ends. Cub announcer Harry Caray steps in.
I’d had a few adult beverages, so I decide to tell him the softball story. (Because, like Mr. Pink, “Normally, I would never do this.”) I finish with something like, “Yeah, so I konked your grandson in the head & knocked him out,” to which The Mayor of Rush Street boomed, “Oh yeah? Well, you probably knocked some sense into him!”
Everyone in the elevator broke up & now I have a story to tell.
Game thread.