Atlanta Braves vs. Colorado Rockies – Box Score – May 05, 2012 – ESPN.
Second verse, same as the first. Well, mostly the same. The Rockies opened up a huge lead and couldn’t hold it, and the Braves eventually won. This one was a little less tight at the end.
The Rockies got six in the first two innings against Mike Minor (not his fault) before the Braves scored an “unearned” run on Old Man Jamie Moyer in the third. The Braves cut it to 6-3 in the fifth, with Chipper Jones doubling Minor homer and Brian McCann singling in Chipper. Game on.
The Rockies got two more off of Minor (not his fault) in the bottom of the fifth, and then the Braves exploded. Leading off the sixth, Matt Diaz and Jason Heyward hit back-to-back homers. Tyler Pastornicky singled to chase Moyer. Juan Francisco pinch-walked, and Michael Bourn singled to load the bases. Chipper singled to score two, cutting it to 8-7, and Freddie Freeman drove in the tying run on a groundout. Just like that.
In the seventh, a hit by Diaz and a walk by Heyward put two on to start, then they moved up ninety feet on a bad pickoff throw. Pastornicky grounded out without being able to score them. Martin Prado pinch-hit and was hit by a pitch, which won’t help those flulike symptoms any. Bourn’s baseses loaded walk gave the Braves the lead at last, and Chipper singled in two. Freddie Freeman’s sac fly finished the scoring with the Braves leading 12-8.
Chad Durbin allowed a homer in the bottom of the inning to make it 12-9, and Eric O’Flaherty and Livan Hernandez combined to let the tying man come to the plate before getting out of the eighth with a double play. Prado walked and scored on an error in the ninth, and Hernandez finished it out for the save. Cristhian Martinez, who pitched a perfect sixth, got the win.
Medlin, Venters and Kimbrel are rested for today’s game. Maybe we will not need 4 or 5 relief pitchers. Chipper needs to get more than 5 rbis in a game to show he still knows how to win and be. Does he like batting second?
I didn’t realize this went on. The Prado HBP seemed intentional and Prado sure seemed to think so. We might see some fireworks in today’s game. Too bad Chipper will probably sit. Favorite quote from the piece below:
“I don’t know why he’s so paranoid. But to be honest with you, every pitch he throws is 78 [mph]. So it’s not like we really have to relay signs.”
http://tinyurl.com/bww5qxs
The pitcher who plunked Prado had no idea where the ball is going on any of his pitches. I don’t think it was on purpose.
@3 I honestly felt bad for Rogers. He clearly had no control and his manager left him out there to be the goat.
Hahaha. Fun game. Woulda be more fun if I didn’t own Minor on a couple fantasy teams, but when the Braves come from 6 down, that stuff doesn’t matter too much. 🙂
Not mentioned above was the absolute BOM Heyward crushed that was just barely foul (or not foul; no technology available to be able to determine it for real). I was really impressed that after that call plus the delay for them to review it, he was able to fight back from 0-2 to get the walk. It was clear they didn’t want to give him anything over the plate, and he refused to offer at the pitches outside. That AB really helped set up that inning.
I heard Moyer just told the entire Braves roster to get off his lawn while shaking a broom at them.
Possible video footage of Moyer at home with his family after the game
Did Moyers set the record of oldest ML player to get a hit? I think running the bases was his downfall last night/
With 7 of the position players above 800 OPS and five above 700 OPS, with only Jack Wilson hurting with the bat, how substaniable is the hitting?
from the last thread:
For a moment there, I really thought beege and Sam were going to start a great friendship.
———————
Was watching the Big 10 Channel (need to see what the enemy is up to). They were showing Minnesota v. Penn State baseball.
The Minnesota baseball coach is seriously proposing that the Big 10 move their baseball season to the summer (foregoing any chance of playing in the College World Series).
I don’t like the idea, but I can see where it would be nearly impossible to compete on a national level with southern and coastal teams.
Oldest to get a hit:
Charley O’Leary, 58 years, 350 days
Nick Altrock, 53 years, 21 days
Minnie Minoso, 50 years, 288 days
Jamie Moyer, 49 years, 169 days
Jack Quinn, 49 years, 78 days
Julio Franco, 49 years, 25 days
Moyer is the oldest non-stunt player to get a hit.
From MLB.com
“Rookie shortstop Tyler Pastornicky was relieved to learn a 20-year-old woman was not seriously injured when she was struck by a foul ball he hit in the seventh inning of Saturday’s game at Coors Field. He signed a few baseballs for the woman.
• Jonny Venters has not pitched since feeling some discomfort near his left shoulder during Wednesday night’s game against the Phillies. But the left-handed reliever played catch on Saturday afternoon and believes he will be fine during a scheduled bullpen on Sunday morning.”
@10 ML Draft could be a problem. Do many Big 10 teams ever make it to Omaho and how many B10 players get drafted?
@13 – not many. That’s probably the reasoning behind the Gophers’ coach’s reasoning.
His is probably a pretty accurate assessment.
And where did the “edit” option go?
No more drinking and posting for me, that’s for sure.
Braves are 7-2 vs NL West, and all on the road so far. Not bad. Let’s go for 80%.
I think we have to dust someone now.
How many sports are there where an announcer can use the term fisted and not get fired?
Thing is, our announcer uses that term over and over and over again.
Come on Beachy, you can get out of this.
Andruw Jones for the trivia?
Freddie smack!
Freddie “Boom Boom” Freeman!
FREDDIE!!!
Wait, we’re allowed to take the lead first?
Haha, okay, maybe that’s the best revenge for being HBP.
@18 – Maybe boxing.
If Freddie keeps getting these fat pitches he’s getting early in the count, I really don’t care how much he walks if he puts them where he just did. Good lord.
FREDDIE!!!!
Love it when the HBP guy cracks a dinger next time up.
Stupid Fredi…
The squeeze is the dumbest play in baseball.
Fredi gotta Fredi
If not for that a..hole on our bench, this team would actually be fun to watch right now.
Man. So stupid.
Four runs is not enough of a lead to do that.
Well, I guess his recent run of competence had to end sometime.
*Sigh*
I’ll gladly give up that play for the chance to keep hitting against a guy who can’t throw strikes to the pitcher. Still hate to see it.
Perhaps I’m being obtuse, but isn’t calling for a suicide squeeze with your pitcher hitting and the opponent defending against the squeeze somewhat… dumb?
The worst part of the failed squeeze attempt was that Francisco just stood there not even trying to stay in a rundown for the half second it would have taken for Pastornicky to arrive at 2nd safely.
Bad execution
Hit him, Brian!
Beachy must be on the Uggla forearm workout regimen.
UGGLA!
Well, the tough ones are out of the way…
Comparing day and night:
Beachy: 1.19 ERA
Minor: 5.97 ERA
Hudson: 6.55 ERA
Delgado: 5.14 ERA
Jurrjens: 9.37 ERA
Also, I hate being 1 minute behind the world…
@46: Reminds me of the 2011 Tigers. Or is that our offense?
Good job Fransisco!
Minor and Hudson were victimized by hot days in Coors; Beachy, who has certainly been fantastic, has also gotten lucky to get a cool day where the hard hit fly balls are dying in center field. I’d add that Hudson, Beachy, and Minor have all posted solid FIPs and xFIPs. I’m just not that concerned about the starting pitching.
It’s often said that pitching coaches have a much bigger impact than do hitting coaches. While that may very well be true, this year has taught me that you can sure as hell tell the difference between a very good hitting coach and a very bad one….
@51 I think the youth this team has expounded the problems that Parrish had. A more experienced team might not have tanked like we did with a bad hitting coach.
We only had three young position players on the team last year, and Freeman did fine.
@53 But Uggla was coming away from a situation where he had a very involved hitting coach, and Parrish was definitely hands off. Alex performed as well as he always did, as did Chipper. Martin is a young player, relatively speaking, and he’s also got a bad case of OCD and I’m sure the hand’s off approach didn’t help him either.
@52 Heyward’s, Prado’s amd McCain’s problems were injury related. Uggla’s are unclear. BTW, I am glad we did not resign aging AG. FF had good rookie season.
Heyward’s problem was swing-related, as he has rebuilt it and is very much a different hitter this season if you look at batted ball profiles. Prado’s problem was more approach than anything; he was struggling even before the injury, and his plate approach this season has so far been very different.
To Parrish’s credit, though, part of what’s happening is regression. Wren banked on it, and so far he has looked prescient.
Here’s the thing, though — “hands off” doesn’t describe a philosophy, it describes not doing your job. I’m surprised the relative merits of Parrish versus almost any other hitting coach are even debatable. Hurt, healthy, old, young, new to the team, longtime Brave — virtually everybody is hitting better this year than last year, and an alarming number last year had seasons among the worst of their careers.
Freddie!!! Gold Glove defense right there.
Good job, Cristhian and Freddie.
@57 I’m not arguing that Parrish was even passable at his job, he wasn’t, and I’m very glad he is gone.
DANNY! Nice to know that the offense is still working. Four runs in the 8th isn’t safe in Coors.
What a terrible call.
Wren didn’t bank on regression — he identified a problem as a coaching matter. Also, regression is a concept that works for an individual player hitting in some bad luck, or a team’s W/L record varying from it’s expected W/L record, but has very little bearing on the phenomenon of a dozen or so players ALL experiencing similarly timed changes in performance level. That’s not chance, or luck. There’s a reason.
Odds Durbin pitches the ninth?
@63
Except there was bad luck. Try not to turn my argument into a defense of Parrish, I was actually agreeing with you and provided a mere–and I mean mere–caveat. Still, to deny that Wren was banking on some regression with Uggla, Prado, and Heyward is absurd. He was proactive in firing Parrish, but he was smart in playing it conservative when it came to making other moves. I seem to recall quite a few people around here getting upset about that conservatism, too.
Martinez goes for the modified Gene Garber save. (He came in with the tying run on deck in the 7th, so he should qualify.)
More on “luck”:
Name 2010 BABIP Career BABIP
Heyward .260 .305
Uggla .253 .295
Prado .266 .314
Not all of that was luck, of course, and I think if you look at batted ball profiles–as opposed to looking simply at results–you’ll see that the Braves swung more, struck out less, hit fewer line drives, and hit more ground balls last season than in previous years. So yeah, it’s very likely that the new hitting coach is helping, and that the old one hurt. I agree. But I also think it’s very possible that there has been some better luck with balls in play.
Medlen, Livan and Martinez now have a save each.
Great outing by Beachy, great hitting and a very welcome sweep in that stupid ballpark.
@67 Does BABIP understand that hitting is contagious?
J/K
68- Well, they do say that losing is a disease.
And it’s not like Wrigley is that much less stupid; it’s just been grandfathered so that we can’t complain about it as much.
I think you’re conflating regression with real improvement based on a change in coaching approach and effective attention. And I don’t believe there was team-wide bad hitting luck — we batted well over 6000+ times last year, and it’s statistically inconceivable that any sort of significant random variation would extend that long. That’s equivalent to looking at a player with a 12-year career and saying he was a much better (or worse) hitter than what he hit for his career. It doesn’t happen. After 6000+ plate appearances, you are what your record says you are.
The Braves’ team BABIP since 2010: .301, .284, .310. A cursory analysis might call that bad luck. Except that the variation is COMPLETELY explained by the change in line drive percentage: 17%, 15%, 20%. We’re hitting nearly a third more line drives than last year. Luck is what happens once a ball is hit, not how well the ball is being hit.
Recapped.