Florida Marlins vs. Atlanta Braves – Box Score – September 12, 2011 – ESPN.
This is really frustrating. The Braves rallied back, twice, from two runs down to tie it, only to go into extras and continually fail to get the go-ahead run in. Eventually, the Marlins did get the run in.
The Marlins got their first two runs thanks largely to triples off of Brandon Beachy. With one out in the first, Omar Infante tripled, then came home on a single. In the third, Emilio Bonifacio led off with a triple, then scored on an Infante sac fly.
The Braves got the first two on in the fourth, but looked like they were going to blow it when Martin Prado and Jason Heyward both struck out, but Alex Gonzalez came through with a double to score Dan Uggla. Unfortunately, it was cut off and Brian McCann coulnd’t score from first. Still, 2-1. In the fifth, Michael Bourn reached on an infield single and Chipper Jones singled to make it first and third; Bourn scored on a Freddie Freeman sac fly to tie it.
Beachy then lost it; after striking out the first man in the sixth, he gave up a walk and two singles to make it 3-2; Arodys Vizcaino came in and threw a wild pitch that made it 4-2. The Braves cut it to 4-3 with a triple of their own, by Martin Prado, and a Heyward sac fly. In the eighth, Heyward reached on an infield single and went to second on a throwing error, scoring on a AAG single to tie it.
Now the frustration sets in. In the ninth, Bourn led off with a double and Chipper was intentionally walked. Freeman struck out, but Uggla’s infield single loaded the bases, only for McCann to strike out and Prado to ground out to end it. Heyward walked leading off the tenth, was bunted to second, and was stranded. Chipper reached on an error in the eleventh, was run for, and the pinch-runner was stranded.
In the twelfth, Anthony Varvaro, in his second inning of work, allowed a couple on on walks. With two out, Fredi pulled him for Cristhian Martinez, who allowed an RBI single by Giancarlo Stanton to give the Marlins the lead. Heyward again walked to lead off the twelfth, and again was stranded.
Is it time for…dare I say it?…Phil Collins videos?
Things are starting to feel desperate.
I too think it is time to bring out Phil. Maybe the version of “Home” w/ Bone Thugs. LOL
Land of Confusion?
Two words describe this game: Shit Sandwich.
But save Su-Su-Sudio for when we really need it, like the WC lead down to a 1/2 game and we’re facing Cliff Lee.
Manny beating Mrs. Manny.
Surprised? Sadly, no. Dissappointed? Yeah,I am.
————-
I wish Denard Robinson played in the SEC so he could be my unabashed favorite player. Eh, he is anyway.
Best smile since Magic Johnson.
————-
Did I hear that right? McCann has 27 strikeouts in his last 84 at-bats? Oy.
What a frustrating team. Cialis-for-daily-use is prescribed.
I’m not convinced Beachy lost it in the 6th. One of the singles–the one that put the second runner on–was a pop up that AAG never saw (he was covering second on a steal). The walk, meanwhile, was issued on a borderline call that could have been strike 3.
McCann is hitting .159 with an OBP of 275 in his last 88 ABs. Agon has a .276 OBP over the same time frame.
Prado has a .204 ba with a .246 obp in his last 108 ABs. Jeff Franceour is like, WHOA, take a pitch there buddy.
OPS in the last 30 days:
Chipper 1.038
Uggla .803
Bourn .743
Freeman .724
Heyward .691
Agon .643
McCann .627
Prado .523
Constanza .575
Hinske .514
There is NO ONE hitting lately, and if you were to read the comments at the AJC, it is all Heyward’s fault.
I am not Fredi G’s biggest fan, but with numbers like that, where do you go for answers? Couple these numbers with talented, yet young, pitching that tends to fall behind in games, no wonder the braves are having their worst run since April 2010.
I wasn’t worried until I saw the numbers today, now I am really, really worried.
RE my post at 8, no one is hitting, other than Chipper
From CAC:
“Although I’ve been absent from CAC over the past few weeks, I haven’t been absent from Braves baseball. As our society empowers more people to voice their opinions through sites like Facebook and Twitter, more and more ignorant and uneducated fans are exposed.”
“Rather, let’s look at WAR and accept the fact that Lowe has been the second best starter in Atlanta this season.”
Can we also agree that people at CAC are incredibly arrogant?
Was I mistaken that Lowe has been giving up runs?
CAC has made some poor decisions lately. It’s especially odd to think that FIP gives you some saber cred. Back the arrogance up with, I don’t know, some knowledge and logic that goes beyond that possessed and deployed by a casual fangraphs reader.
10 – Agreed, 110% Right with you.
They are dipsh*t @ssholes over there.
I believe in the advanced metrics a lot more than I used to (thanks Mac), but some people forget that this is not a computer simulation, but a real live game.
Derek Lowe, whose contract, due to the salary structure of this team, cannot be ignored in this debate, is a consistently awful pitcher. Tim Hudson is a good pitcher who has some really bad nights. D-Lowe having a WAR 0.3 behind Hudson tells me that Hudson’s numbers are skewed because of a couple of really, really off games, not that D-Lowe is the second best pitcher on the squad.
According to game score, that complete game shutout with 13 strikeouts by Capuano against the Atlanta Braves was the best-pitched game in the NL in 2011. How sad is that?
Extremely.
@11 and 12
Dead on point
WAR is a cumulative stat. If Hanson and Jurrjen weren’t hurt and could’ve played the full season like Lowe, they’d be better than him according to WAR. It might’ve even been the same for Teheran or Delgado had they had the same opportunity. Even Beachy is 40 IP behind Lowe — and it’s ridiculous to suggest that Lowe is the better of the two.
CAC thinks they are the smartest/coolest kids in the room, when all they are a bunch of guys who think they think they hit the big time with the Sweetspot blog thing at ESPN.
I never posted over there, but I knew they were full of it when they shut the comments down.
Anyone who doesn’t think they are right is ‘ignorant’. Look every fan base has some ignorant folks, if you don’t believe it, go over and read some of the boarderline racist comments that folks post about Heyward in the comments sections of the AJC. However, not everyone who doesn’t buy into every new fangled math theory about baseball is ignorant.
I am done with this subject, sorry to take up your time.
My issue with CAC now is that they’ve given themselves free reign to make those sorts of comments without having to back them up against any kind of counter arguments.
The problem with looking at FIP is that Lowe’s been giving up HRs at a much lower rate than his career rate, including his awesome years. His walk rate’s about as bad as his worst Red Sox year, and his strikeout rate is only slightly better than last year. While he’s not the punchless trainwreck of 2009, he’s worse this year than last year.
Some salve for the wound — at least we don’t have TLR as a manager:
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/16076/la-russa-hates-losing-loves-overmanaging
I still like CAC. Peter is great. Taking the comments away was a bad idea.
Yes, you are going to get some morons and stupid posters. But discussion is a good thing.
That is what makes this the best Braves board. The commenters usually can have a discussion and debate all points of an issue. The posters usually can drive the trolls and yahoos away. If it gets to a point where they are taking things where they shouldn’t, Mac bans them.
So you just have to tip your hat to Mac and the rest of this board.
Looks to me like Uggla is hitting, and Bourne. And Freddie is doing just fine. Over the last 7 Freddie’s OPS is .916 and Heyward’s .800.
Frankly, I don’t really see a problem with our offense. We need McCann to come around, sure, but we’re getting hits. They haven’t been coming in the right order to maximize runs, but that will come.
Our problem has been our pitching.
WHIP over the last 30 days:
Kimbrel 1.07
Beachy 1.08
Minor 1.23
Vizcaino 1.30
Hudson 1.35
Lowe 1.45
Venters 1.50
Jurrjens 1.80
The only guys pitching well are Beachy and Kimbrel. For Lowe this is where he’s been all season, but everyone else has gotten worse.
My problem with CAC is really the idea that the only proper way to watch baseball is through the lens of sabermetrics. But why do you have to have an advanced degree to enjoy what is, after all, entertainment? That’s why I have a problem with people like Keith Law that seem to want to eliminate all mention of batting average, RBIs, and pitcher wins. Even if they aren’t the most revealing stats, they have history and tradition behind them and they are fun to look at and they provide some hook for people who don’t have the time or inclination to study sabermetrics. Isn’t that what baseball is supposed to be about? I don’t particularly like listening to the analysts constantly talk about clubhouse presence and scrappiness and so forth, but these are humans playing.
@23
That is the best way I have ever heard that put. Great post.
@6 Denard is as nice in person as he looks on TV. I met him at Michigan’s fan day last fall and the kid is extremely humble and gracious and was great with the kids, posing for pictures and probably holding up the lines more then he should of to take his time with them. He really seemed like a great kid….
The “Lowe = good” crap is just too much to swallow, especially coming from Orris, a self-avowed statistics amateur whose entire argument centers around a stat that’s far from universally accepted even among those prone to accept newer stats. Results on balls in play aren’t entirely the pitcher’s responsibility, but they’re certainly not completely out of his hands as FIP and fWAR assume, and when that assumption contradicts three straight years of mediocrity it’s fairly damaging to the general acceptance of progressive thinking about baseball to keep insisting that it tells the whole story. Lowe is the Black Knight’s missing arm. He’s just a flesh wound!
James Franklin is the man.
So you just have to tip your hat to Mac and the rest of this board.
Whereas I think we should give them a lot of credit. But that’s one of the strengths of this forum: differing viewpoints.
PS: Lowe sucks.
My main issue with CAC is a reliance solely on fWAR when evaluating pitchers, when some people, myself included, believe that bWAR is a better evaluation tool. fWAR is not the end all and be all for pitchers, and I can site several examples such as DLowe vs Hudson this year at 12. Even the people at Fangraphs seem to acknowledge that there are flaws in their statistic, but the bottom line is you shouldn’t be using just one stat (whatever that stat is) to make decisions and then tell everybody else they are wrong if they don’t choose to use the same stat.
As Smitty said, Peter is great, and I think closing the comments just had to do with a lot of AJC type of comments being left.
Using bWAR for example, DLowe is tied for the 10th most valuable pitcher on the team. I think anybody who has actually watched the team this year would say that’s closer to being accurate than his fWAR total, but maybe that’s just me.
And Heyward back to the bench:
Bourn
Chipper
Freeman
Uggla
Diaz
McCann
Prado
Gonzalez
30,
I’ve given him a load of crap over the last year, but I have to admit, I’ve been loving Fredi’s lineups recently.
On CAC… Kevin Orris is great, Ben loves to show how right he is, and Peter’s an extremely smart guy. It’s fine to have a little snark on the blog, but I’ve grown to dislike the ‘look at me, I’m so right and you’re so wrong’ articles that have started to pop up recently on the site.
You know, I’m just the type of person to whom that CAC article on Lowe should appeal. I do think Lowe has been more valuable to the team than many others seem to. He hasn’t been worth all of his contract, but there is a value in a guy who never misses a start and gives you five innings each time out. (I’m damning with faint praise, I realize, but that’s exactly what i think Lowe deserves–faint praise). If I were to make a list of “Braves problems” Lowe wouldn’t be at the top.
But that article’s tone is so obnoxious that I couldn’t even finish it. I think I need to take a break from reading CAC for a while.
How about benching Prado for a little while? Please?
Heyward and Diaz are in a platoon. I get it. But while a team in a pennant race would usually do well to sit a guy who struggles against lefties the way Heyward has, the Braves should at least show some consistency in invoking this pennant-chase rule. That is, they should then platoon Prado too.
Prado has been the inferior hitter to Heyward this year. More importantly, there is a much better hitter, at least against righties, sitting on the bench. And yet Prado and Hinske are not in a platoon right now. So I ask: why is Heyward platooning with Diaz while Hinske sits against righties? Aren’t we in a pennant race? Don’t these games matter?
Just a hunch, but Prado smoked some balls last night and got extremely unlucky. I say he’s coming out of it.
Or is in Tailspin-from-Hell.
If you really want to help the lineup, you sit McCann’s ass down and play David Ross.
@35
I’ll take my chances letting McCann hit his way out of it.
It’s hank — he is always looking for reasons to take shots at McCann, the team’s best player for the past half-decade.
@24,
Smitty,
Thank you.
@32,
I also don’t have a problem with the idea that Lowe is better than he appears on the surface. But the argument that he is really good is hard to stomach when you actually watch him pitch. While I think there is clearly a problem in this country with people not wanting to accept objective evidence that contradicts their beliefs, in this instance, I think some of the sabermetricians are going the exact opposite direction,i.e, that observation is never valid. Even though my eyes say that Lowe is getting the shit kicked out of him, that’s incorrect because WAR says that is really not happening.
Prado, September 2010: .257/.299/.317
Prado, September 2011: .216/.231/.275
In 2008, Prado had a great month of August, and Johnson a great September. The argument on the DOB blog at the time was Prado came up big when the Braves were still in it, but Johnson was only good in September when the team’s chances were dead.
Now, for two straight (maybe) playoff-bound years, during the final month of the season with the postseason still in doubt, the “clutch Prado” has come up small.
@34 – What measure are you using when you say Prado has been an inferior hitter to Heyward this year?
40 – Heyward is higher in everything except AVG. Not a lot higher, but still higher.
From DOB: “A day after saying he didn’t think the Braves needed a team meeting, manager Fredi Gonzalez changed his mind and called a closed-door meeting…”
Cue the theme to Benny Hill.
http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2011/09/13/gonzalez-calls-closed-door-team-meeting/?cxntfid=blogs_atlanta_braves_blog
great throw.
I hope that K-CS double play is a good sign. Lord knows we’ve run into them enough this year.
Where can I listen to the game online?
Who couldn’t love McCann?
But he hasn’t been the same since he got hurt and on his best day he’s not nearly the defensive player that David Ross is.
Just the way it is. We need to win ball games now and no amount of wishing is going to change how much he is struggling.
I’m confident McCann will soon return to All-Star form, but he’s lost up there right now.
Warning: this is NOT a political statement
So Lady Gaga is performing at the Bill Clinton tribute, ay? The possibilities, the possibilities …
Fun fact: If you use DRS (Dewan’s +- system) instead of UZR, Heyward has been worth 2.5 wins on the year in 400 PA. That’s a little above average. Not bad except when compared to his rookie season. Of course, selectively picking a one year sample size of the defensive system that likes him best should raise legitimate questions about my impartiality.
47- The jokes just write themselves, don’t they?
3-0 Cards, two of the runs coming in on a Carpenter single.
Groundhog Day.
This (lack of timely hitting) is getting ridiculous.
So you have to watch the Mets play baseball AND a Styx concert? Jus cogens.
Chipper’s hit would have been two runs if Bourn had let Hand put him on base in the 2nd.
chip just did it to me again. i blame myself
A runner on third with less than two outs scoring? Is that legal at Turner Field?
55- Only in a road team’s uniform.
Ballgame.
Two strikeouts and a bunt. The offense is mailing in another one.
When do we get to say aloha to Mr. Hand?
We’re looking like a team of Spicolis.
Spicoli was better at surfing than the Braves are with RISP.
Why pull Minor at only 88 pitches?
Hell, Spicoli was better at history than we are with RISP right now.
Fredi has to remind people he’s still alive by overmanaging. Problem is, we’d rather not be reminded.
True. At least he was learning about Cuba, whereas Fredi will never learn anything.
Edit: Moylan strikes out a .148 hitter. Clap. Clap. “Oh good. My slow clap processor made it into this thread. So we have that…”
Edit: Moylan strikes out a .148 hitter. Clap. Clap.
But Donnie Murphy’s numbers against lefties are – oh, wait. He’s hitting .133 against lefties.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Baserunner! Woo-hoo!
Runners at the corners with one out. This game is at least tied at the end of the inning.
There we go! B-Mac!
Knew it. Bam.
Welcome back Brian McCann!
bout time
There’s a strange message on GameDay- “In play, run(s)”?
@72, That’s Aramaic for The Best Catcher In Baseball.
In play, run(s)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So many runners, so many hard hit balls just missing foul or being tracked down…something had to give eventually. Now let’s try not to blow it this time.
It’s almost as if it suddenly dawned on them that this Hand guy isn’t any good.
@72,4 I too had the same message–and reaction.
AAG has been less awful with the bat lately.
A-Gon is 5 for his last 7. Wouldn’t it be funny if he got hot and carried us to a World Series victory and got rewarded with a big five-year deal?
Tie game in Pittsburgh.
@79 it’d be better if he did that and then was rewarded like last year’s over-the-hill-shortstop-World-Series-MVP.
Man, I know he’s allowed a few inherited runners to score, but still, what a year O’Flaherty is having. 6 more scoreless innings and he goes below a 1.00 ERA.
DAN!!!
Right Handed Power Bat
This episode of Chipperwatch is brought to you by his two hits tonight. He now has 6507 hits, moving 2 past Tim Raines and former Brave Rabbit Maranville for sole possession of 75th place on the all-time hit list.
He’ll need 32 more hits this year to pass the next fella on the list, former Boston Red Stocking Jim O’Rourke.
Oh, and while I was typing all this out: UGGLA!!!!
I believe John means 2607 hits. Chipper has 4565 total bases, in 40th place, just 12 behind Jim Thome (and among non-moving targets, 23 behind Rickey Henderson).
6,507 hits would be quite legendary.
6507, wow…I believe I was multi-tasking. That and I’m an ignorant fool combined for that number.
Brian J: I’ve been waiting for the moment Chipper moves past Rickey in Total Bases. That’ll be quite the accomplishment.
The more I watch this guy pitch the more I like him!
Cardinals have gone ahead 6-4 in the top of the 9th (Punto double, Pujols SF)
For God’s sake, Fredi, leave Jonny alone!!!!!
¡Alejandro González!
Jim Powell was talking about this thing on Facebook at the Baseball Hall page. You can cast a single vote every day in the month of September for your favorite broadcaster to make the Frick Award short list.
I voted for Ernie Johnson and will do so every day until this thing runs out.
Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/baseballhall
if simply invoking the name of Phil Collins can produce such a result, what can stop us now?
Did anybody realize Chipper is now our team leader in OPS?
Hey, it’s football season.
As a Kentucky fan, everything I write, say or think comes out opposite.
As such, my berating of McCann is directly responsible for tonight’s success.
You’re welcome.
94- Arrrggghhh! Never, ever, EVER say “What can stop us now?”, you fool! Now we’ll find out!
As if on cue, Neil Walker of the Pirates grounds into a DP to preserve the Cards’ 6-4 win.
John, it’s really hard for me to vote for Ernie over Pete or Skip, but… if we’re all going to vote for Ernie, I’ll vote too, so as not to split the vote.
97 – oh ye of little faith, ‘i don’t care anymore’
Recapped.
Linebrink for the Braves save