Well, this weekend is not off to a great start.
The Braves have found warmer weather in the upper Middle West, true, but both their bats and arms have nevertheless gone cold. Today the Tigers trotted out Rick Porcello, the same guy whose ERA before this afternoon was over 11. The Braves on the other hand marched into battle behind last season’s hero, Kris Medlen. Sadly, the Tigers managed to win anyway.
How bad do the Braves hitters look right now? Jose Valverde dominated the three guys he faced in the top of the 9th, and it wasn’t really close. Jose Valverde, folks. The same guy who didn’t have a job when the season started. It was like 2007 out there for him.
Still, the lineup did not get shut out again, for which we can be thankful, I guess. Yet aside from a crooked number in the 3rd, and the requisite Justin Upton solo shot in the 8th, the offense did little or nothing. 10 of the 27 outs recorded by Tigers pitching was by strikeout. That’s better than last night, obviously, but still bad. It’s particularly bad when you consider that three of the four Tigers pitchers had K/9s last season below 6.5, and that Porcello, the starter, came into the day with a K% of 4.8%. No, that’s not a misprint: the man is not striking anyone out right now. Well, except for 5 Braves.
Oftentimes, of course, 4 runs is enough to win the game, but not against this Tigers offense, and certainly not today. Medlen looks like a pale imitation of his 2012 self right now. He’s neither getting enough swing and misses nor ground outs. Today that bit him: he gave up 5 runs in 5.1 innings on 10 hits, 2 walks, 2 home runs – and just 3 strike outs. Hit unlucky and homer-prone does not a good outing make.
Neither was the bullpen particularly great. Jordan Walden looks like he has settled down, and is actually becoming one of the more dependable arms out there. Luis Avilan, however, doesn’t look right. In 7.2 innings this season, he has 4 BBs and only 3 Ks. Such ugly peripherals will bite you in time, which is what happened in the home half of the 8th: he retired only 3 out of the 4 hitters he faced, and the out was only due to the fact that the opposing manager likes to give away outs. The other three Tigers hitters doubled, doubled, and walked, respectively. After the dust settled and Cory Gearrin entered the game, the Tigers had tacked on 2 more runs.
This is not the end of the world, by any means. Â The Tigers are a very, very good baseball team. The Braves are meanwhile road weary; they have played almost 2/3s of all their games away from Turner Field. And hey, there remains considerable room for improvement, especially once Brian McCann and Jason Heyward come back healthy . But after a 12-2 start, the Braves have sputtered to a 3-6 mark.
Tomorrow night the Braves will take to national television and attempt to avoid being swept. Let’s hope Minor and the gang bring their A game. They’ll need it.
I’ve liked Fredi’s decisions for the most part this season, but this team needs more life. Every Uggla at bat, then his error trying to stupidly use his bare hand, followed by B.J.’s flyball drop, and finally punctuated by Infante’s “steal.” What does it take for Fredi to get mad, argue blown calls, and show the team that it needs to wake up on certain days? Ugh.
Fredi is like a lobotomized and neutered Bobby Cox.
Good observation on our early schedule. Makes me glad I didn’t watch either game, so I can just chalk our struggles up to road-weariness and not think of it any further.
I knew the Braves were in for some regression after the 12-2 start, but did they really have to regress so far, so fast? I’m pretty sure I’m suffering from whiplash.
A lineup I’d like to see…
1. Heyward
2. C. Johnson
3. Jupton
4. Freeman
5. Gattis
6. Uggla
7. Bupton
8. Simmons
I’m ready to try Pastornicky at second and leading off. I’m also ready to leave Detroit.
The Braves sure killed that “least amount of runs allowed in all of baseball, by far” thing quick, huh?
They’re regressing fast.
If major league players making millions of dollars need the manager to throw tantrums to “inspire” them not to play badly, there’s really no hope. Fredi may not be John McGraw but blaming him for everything bad that happens to the Braves is ridiculous. Baseball teams go through bad stretches and this is one. But the Braves have some issues that may not be so easily solved. But they certainly won’t be solved by having the manager act like an idiot. But I guess it would make fans feel better.
It’s April for god’s sake. They’ve played 23 games.
A bad week this will be, I fear.
Didn’t see either game, but I did spend a lotta time in bars listening to George Jones. Will watch Sunday. Promise.
The REAL test is still to come – the Braves face a brutal road trip in early May, three in Cincinnati, four in Frisco and three in Arizona. We’ll know where we stand after that.
We won’t be standing at all if Bupton, Dunggla, and Heyward can’t get above the Mendoza line.
@11
I’m not willing to say we will know where we stand until maybe September
Watching in between flights on my phone, it looked like Medlen was pounding the zone but couldn’t get any swinging strikes. If I had to rank in order of growing concern, I’d go: Heyward, Medlen, Simmons, Uggla, Bupton
@14
Yep, this season his SwStr% is down to 6.6%, which would be a career low for him. It is also significantly lower than last season’s 10.1%, which is the kind of number he needs to put up if we want to see last season’s success (or anything approaching it) replicated.
Get Heyward back, get BUpton on track and let it play. This is the same team we saw earlier this year, but showing the down side of the feast or famine lifestyle. A lineup of
Simmons is an all glove, no hit shortstop. We knew this coming in, but a lot of us got over excited about a few random at bats in the WBC.
@16
I believe it has more to do with his respectable hitting numbers throughout the minors and the league-average offense he provided in a third of a season last year. I couldn’t tell you thing one about what happened in the WBC. He’ll hit better than this — he quite literally always has.
He always has *at A and AA.* He’ll get better, I think. But the expectations of Simmons going into this year, with literally nothing but an injury shortened month and a half under his belt above AA, were over the top.
Simmons has raised his OPS 70 points in the past week. He has almost as many walks as strikeouts (8/9). The popups are going to turn into groundouts and hits and two weeks from now no one will be worried about him, at all. BTW, according to bRef he has already been worth .5 WAR. Uggla, on the other hand, has negative WAR, and there is no guarantee that this is not just the player that 33 year old Uggla is. Getting old is a bitch.
Is there a lot of precedent for such an immediate drop in production on a free agent deal? Could there be some kind of coaching Uggla was getting in Florida that he’s not getting now? The split between Marlin Uggla and Brave Uggla is just so pronounced.
Uggla’s first year in Atlanta was his age-31 season. Now he’s 33. There’s a reason why so many folks warn against giving multi-year contracts to guys on the wrong side of thirty: the decline is often pronounced.
This is Uggla’s wRC+ starting in 2010, his last season in Miami:
2010 135
2011 110
2012 103
2013 84 (so far)
It’s likely that his skills are just declining.
By the way, the number that is really concerning with Uggla is his K%. This month he has struck out in 35.3% of his plate appearances. Only Colby Rasmus, Chris Carter, and J.P. Arencibia have struck out more.
His strikeouts have been going up over the past three seasons, and they are now at a perilously high level. I can’t imagine he’ll be even an average-hitting 2B if that K% stays that high.
I was a huge proponent of the Uggla trade, but it’s time to put Pastornicky or Pena in that spot.
—————————————
If my batting average is approaching the Half-Mendoza line like BJ Upton’s is, I’m not half-assing it to first on a slow roller that I just might beat out.
Afraid this Upton is going to prove to be a mistake.
Related to the subject of Uggla’s age-related decline, remember that debate we had about Mike Morse? He has 8 home runs this year but has still managed to be a negative WAR player. His OPS+ over the past four seasons: 133, 147, 113 and now 105. He’s only 31, but that age 29 peak is way, way beyond reach already.
Yeah, Uggla is just what he is; a moderately good player that is getting old. HOF caliber players decline gracefully into their late 30’s. Inner circle HOF players continue to contribute even into their early 40s. Dan Uggla is not one of those.
Uggla has always been a slugger who feasted on opposing pitchers’ fastballs. As he’s aged, he’s lost a half second on his swing (creeping into a full second) and that means fastballs he crushed as a 29 year old he’s missing, swinging through, getting under and generally not doing anything productive with.
The first sign of a player on this path is, oddly enough, a spike in his walk rate (such as we saw with Uggla last year.) The league “book” on him is don’t throw him fastballs in the zone, because as a 20-something he crushed those. So people don’t come in on him. When they do, he fouls them off (to start) and they go nibbling again. Eventually he draws a walk. That only lasts as long as it takes the league to realize that he’s fouling those fastballs off rather than hitting them with authority. At that point, they start hammering him in the zone and he will walk less and K more. It’s not a pretty future path for Uggs.
In case anyone noticed, Saturday’s game put Fredi into a tie with Russ Nixon for 5th on the number of games managed by an Atlanta manager @ 347. Nixon posted a terrible 130-216-1 mark in 1988-90, being replaced by Bobby Cox. Whatever one thinks of Fredi’s managing style, he has thus far, won 57% of his games. Nixon won 37% of his.
More after Sunday’s fray!
But, guys. BJ has SO much pressure with this new contract and all. Upton’s are set for generations–there’s so much pressure now!
I’m starting a new kickstarter for Eephus League this evening and I’m so nervous I think i’m going to be sick. The Braves need to pull out a win tonight for my personal wellbeing.
23- Wish granted, for tonight anyway, sort of:
Success cf, Pastornicky 2b, JUpton lf, Freeman 1b, CJohnson “3b”, Gattis c, Uggla “dh”, RJohnson rf, Simmons ss.
This is basically the problem with Fredi. He eventually does the right thing (Success and Pastornicky in the one and two spots), but only after it is obvious to anyone with a brain, and he always partially counteracts it by doing something equally stupid (Uggla at DH against a righthanded pitcher instead of Juan, who has an OPS+ of 128, to say nothing of the fact that Juan should be at 3B with CJ at DH).
That awful taste I just burped up was the memory of how I felt about Fredi in September of 2011.
The Braves need to return to hitting homers because otherwise Fredi’s trying to win games with his managing and he’s accomplishing the exact opposite.
Alex Wood broke Tommy Hanson’s M-Brave record for scoreless innings yesterday (he’s at 18.2 and counting). He threw five, only allowing 5 hits and 1 walk against 6 Ks. The only knock is that he wasn’t terribly efficient, needing 89 pitches.
@30
I didn’t realize the Schafer/Pastornicky 1-2 combo was the thing we’ve all been yelling at Fredi to do. Does that really sound any less silly now than it would have three weeks ago?
A month ago, everyone on this board was apoplectic that Jordan Schafer was going to make the team out of spring training. Now they want him starting in CF and leading off?
33- Yesterday, McCarver noted that he’d asked Jim Leyland why he was giving some scrub on the Tigers another start and Leyland said, “If you hit, you play.” Uggla has not hit and it was entirely predictable that he would continue to not hit in the 2-hole. Fredi’s reasoning as reported by DOB is insane (“Dan hit real good in the that spot when I managed him in Florida”). So yes, some of us thought it was probably a good idea to try a guy who might hit (Pastornicky), rather than someone who can’t (Uggla). And Schafer is both lefthanded and, to this point, he has hit. Might as well let him play.
34-I don’t think anyone WANTS Schafer starting OR leading off. But for fuck’s sake, Heyward is on the DL and BJ Upton is a black hole right now. Somebody has to hit in those spots. Fredi has already said he won’t hit CJ there, so against a righthander, this is the best option available. As unfortunate as that may be.
Kickstarter is up!
I’m more horrified that Schafer has, by virtue of not being a complete black hole, outperformed two of our highly touted outfielders.
34- I’m not apoplectic (except at BJ’s broken give-a-damn). Schafer’s riding a hot streak, unlike nearly everyone else on the team. Being lefty can’t hurt. Similarly, I’d rather be playing Pena, but Pastornicky needs at least a little PT to see if he’ll ever be part of our plans.
211 BA and 276 OBP for Braves leadoff hitters this year, 126 and 252 for #2 hitters. If I’m Success, I’m feeling pretty good; that’s a bar even he should clear.
… but not on this at bat.
Hey look, a runner in scoring position for Justin Upton!
Uggla can’t do that.
Good luck to the Braves tonight Fister pitches moves like jagger. Anyways Go Braves let’s connect on some of them !!
Seriously though, I had no idea Fister was this nasty. He’s so big that the behind the plate camera angle is actually frightening.
Well, if that’s the way we treat runners in scoring position, see how many more we get!
We might strike out 20 times tonight.
Good lord, those were ugly swings from Gattis and Uggla.
I have had enough Dan Uggla to last me the season.
Sucks to be us right now.
This was my one fear for this Braves team. If we do make the playoffs and meet a good pitching team this is exactly what it will look like.
Holy hell, if Porcello and Sanchez beat them up, Fister is going to reach otherworldly levels.
And just imagine we missed Verlander and Scherzer.
At least we dodged the Tigers’ two best pitchers. Their 3 thru 5 guys made us look bad enough. Verlander might strike out 25 and pitch a no-hitter against us.
As long as Minor keeps pitching like this we have a chance.
Is Minor the team’s ace at this point?
I think Minor is our ace. He’s the only starter that throws hard enough to make it a uncomfortable at bat.
@54 Minor’s been the ace all year, really.
@49 The problem is ALL playoff teams have good pitching.
My expectations for BJ and Uggla weren’t all that high, but man they sure look worse so far.
Just catching up. Sounds like Minor’s pitching a solid game. Fister’s pitching one better, though.
Hate to say that last week I called an outfield that includes Reed Johnson and Success but not BJ, but…
I thought that I would never see/ an inning without one “Strike Three!”
Two groundouts and a can-of-corn fly aren’t much of an improvement, though.
God this lineup sucks.
At this rate, this will be the first game in history for a pitcher to retire the first 27 batters he faces, yet have his team lose in the bottom of the 10 inning…all in under 2 hours.
Did Miguel get tricked into putting a toe ring into his ear?
@61 You jinxed him!
Hopefully I jinxed the rest of those things, too…
61- Remember that Harvey Haddix did that for 12 innings against the Braves before losing in the 13th. Although it did take longer than two hours.
And sadly, the perfect game is now out of play.
I’m officially tired of us throwing high meat balls to Omar.
Ballgame.
Ballgame.
Ballgame. (And he’s on my fantasy team, too. He should go 0-4 with three triple plays or something.)
Yeah… goodnight folks.
Dang it. This road trip needed to end days ago.
Those were a couple meatballs from our ‘ace’.
lol @ posts 53 – 56
good lord the braves suck
When hitters are not hitting well and pitchers are not pitching well, nothing good will come out of any game.
The Tigers were only .500 coming into this series.
And they’ll probably be .500 again soon playing real teams.
Gattis’s OBP is now below .300.
Juan Francisco needs to be getting more ABs.
This team we’re playing is going to make a lot of teams look bad. Our “ace” would be lucky to their 4th starter. Their lineup is full of .300+ hitters. Plus we’re rolling out a lineup that would struggle to win in AAA. I will admit that I’m ready for Heyward to come back. Even when he wasn’t hitting he still makes us a better team.
Yikes, poor Freeman.
A single Justin Upton? What are those?
Our starting pitchers are not that bad, they are just not as hard throwing. We are so ready to have McCann and Heyward back. I guess we can now think about sending Gattis to Gwinnett.
HOPE
I think Chris Johnson likes playing for the Braves.
DOOOOOOOMED
“lol @ posts 53 – 56”
Despite the three-run home run, I’ll stand by that. Who else do you trust more than Minor, at this point? Hudson, Maholm, Medlen? I don’t think so.
@77 Rick Porcello is their #3 starter. I respectfully disagree…
El Oso Blanco’s bat was just hibernating.
AHHHH GATTIS LUCK
@80—I think he took exception to that.
Uggla tried, Uggla tried…
UGGLA LUCK!
Uggla tried to kill the rally, but the Tigers didn’t let us.
goddamnit uggla, you lucky sob
We’ll take that.
Fork Uggla…
Wow, that’s encouraging…but Mac would say the Braves are just doing that to tease us.
Uggla’s turned into a lesser version of Zombie Chipper, really.
Hell, I’d take singles and no power from Uggla at this point so long as he could hit 250.
Porcello is their 5th starter.
Weather.com says to “expect dry conditions over the next six hours” in Detroit. I think everyone at the ballpark would disagree with that statement right now.
99- They can expect dry conditions the same way that we can expect a competent offense. Not ragging on our pitchers- Detroit’s really good and stuff happens.
Anibal Sanchez, Doug Fister, Rick Porcello, and Max Scherzer are not better than Tim Hudson, Mike Minor, Paul Maholm, or Kris Medlen.
Juan Francisco needs to be getting more playing time
He’s 6 for his last 25, with 13k’s.
Success is coming back down to earth.
A productive out from Tyler. And Upton comes up again with RISP.
Sanchez, Fister, or Scherzer could all have better seasons than anyone on the Braves’ staff, and it wouldn’t completely shock me.
102 And he has an OPS+ of 168. Uggla? Try 77.
Damn you Fister. How dare you to hit our best hitter!
I know he’s trying to pitch inside, but we need a little payback for this crappy series.
Correction, Uggla’s OPS+ is down to 75.
102- 6-25 looks downright Williams-like on this team; in the last 7 days, we’ve gotten worse BAs from Freeman, Gattis, Uggla, Pena, and BUpton.
Leave Uggla alone. He’s still figuring it out.
Wait a second, they have Brayan Pena as their backup catcher? Wow.
It’s no fun to watch our guys struggle, but I recall someone wise repeating that quote the other day about it not being who you play but when you play them. May I suggest that 16 of 18 on the road, culminating in a 25-degree doubleheader, etc., may be as responsible as anything else? We’re still in this one, and every team is gonna face their own such gauntlets at some points during the season. With another 10-game road trip coming up soon, I’ll be happy if we can play .500 for the next two weeks. Greener pastures, or at least more favorable schedules, await down the calendar.
Freeman hasn’t looked good since he returned, has he?
There are a lot of hitters on this team that aren’t deserving of playing time.
@114 Not really, no.
Bench everyone! Pitch no one.
Hitting machine.
Meanwhile, Chris Johnson keeps on hitting. Last time I checked Prado was still around the .200 mark
Gattis has some seriously ugly ABs.
Is Chris J the only one paying attention to the hitting coach?
With the way Gattis is hitting now, it is starting to feel as if the “McCann or Gattis” debate will settle itself by the time McCann is ready.
This team deserves Mark Lemke commentary right now.
We need to score quickly. Rain is picking up
Jeez, Reed. Another ugly AB.
Reed’s just shown that Gattis’ problems are not unique to him; ugly at bat in the same way.
Interesting…Reed Johnson gave everyone in the clubhouse a “suffer in silence” t-shirt. Wonder what prompted that.
On a side note, the title sequence to the Game of Thrones might be my favorite ever.
I wouldn’t mind the k’s if half of them were close pitches. This bunch makes Frenchy look patient from time to time.
I will duel anybody who says Freddie Freeman isn’t an asset at first. That was an astounding pick.
That pick by Freddie was as amazing as Pastornicky’s throw was awful.
Edit: so bad it looked like Uggla.
I love Freeman.
Can we trade Uggla for Infante?
The good news is…Kimbrel will be well rested.
“Failure”
nice one schafer, bunt to the pitcher….god, evrything is terrible
F-ing Fail.
@132 Love the joke!!!
Sad…Bryan Pena has hit a ball harder than any player on our team tonight.
Thanks, Omar. Just rub it in.
-_-
Seriously. At least let their great players beat us.
What the hell? Infante had zero home runs before this series, didn’t he? He keeps making up for throwing errors with home runs.
So sick of Infante playing well against us. Please, please, please quit rubbing it in…
Seems like a good time to cut out. Not as good a time as whenever it gets released that Fredi is hitting T-Pasty 2nd, but good enough.
This team looks like garbage. I think they played better in June 2006.
v_v
the pain. make it stop
Gearrin’s just being a team player. Gotta make everyone else look good by comparison.
Such unfathomable levels of suck.
Watch the Tigers look bad again immediately after the Braves leave town, when they’re forced to play a team that isn’t awful.
…and that is that.
Amazing the difference with these two lineups and how the hitters have different approaches. Tigers use the whole field while the Braves roll over everything.
Crappy road trip, get us home
This road trip has officially become stupid.
Four straight games of a gas-can bullpen.
To change the subject, will Hallion get suspended or disciplined in any way? Watching the replay, Price didn’t say anything, he’s just walking off the mound, and that jackass is barking at him. Who cares whether or not Hallion dropped an F-bomb (of course he did, and then he is stupid enough to call Price a liar to the press?), why was he baiting him to begin with?
The Braves had 55 runs allowed all year coming into this series, and now it’s 80.
25 of 80 runs given up in one series. Braves go from least amount of runs allowed (by far) to ‘meh’ in one series.
Man this sucks. The highlight for us is a couple of nice catches by !success.
Bobby is meeting the team at the airport with a leather belt.
To me the Tigers are the best team in the AL. We didn’t belong on the same field with them this series (although we weren’t at full strength). Now we have the Nats coming in with their three aces lined up and we are tired and scuffling in all facets of the game. Time to right the ship post-haste.
I’m boycotting watching this team anymore until they win another series. Can’t stand their current antics.
That ball almost hit Freeman’s back foot. Yes, he still swung at it.
Edit: sums it up. Freeman swings at crap and then takes one down the middle.
159- Who on this team does that not describe?
Edit: Chris Johnson just did exactly the same thing as Freeman.
2nd Edit: Gattis too.
Lol
Disgusting. I’m now dreading the Nats series.
Six over .500. I miss when it was 11 games.
@162
The Nats aren’t playing worth a crap, either.
That’s Alburquerque in a nutshell: wild but nasty.
we a bunch of pansies … they hit our 3 and 4 hitters and we have chance at retaliation and we act like a bunch wussies
Who made this brutal schedule?? Wasn’t this suppose to be the World Series preview…some audition this is .
“The Nats aren’t playing worth a crap, either.”
They at least won one of their past four games.
And Uggla walks, displaying a skill that eludes most of our lineup and that would make all those K’s more endurable.
4 HBPs, none of their guys put on the ground, weak…
Hmmmm….even Jeff Locke and Scott Diamond would look good in this rotation right about now.
Look at what you made me say, braves!
(not to mention wainwright or harrison…or feliz)
We should really do an “all traded braves team” roster, I’m pretty sure they could beat this team right now.
#170 … Amen … bunch a wusses
Valverde still sucks. Simmons smoked that ball.
How it’s possible to be a wuss for not cowardly beaning another player with a ball, someone’s going to have to explain to me.
And a lost weekend comes to a close.
Tomorrow: Tigers lose 3-0.
@174 it has nothing to do with being a wuss or coward, you have to put in the other teams mind that there are consequences for going inside or hitting your guys. Taking away some of the inside area means more balls will be over the plate. If you look at batting average charts they are far lower on pitches inside than pitches over the plate.
Now let’s sweep the Natpos.
Everyone look up! The sky is falling!
Recapped.
@ 177 — thanks for explaining that .. to the ones on here that dont get it …