So apparently it’s Star Wars Day today (i.e. “May the Fourth be with you”), which gives me an excellent excuse not to particularly recap last night’s game, when Mike Minor pitched okay, but O’Flahbrel coughed up a lead, and the Mets homered the Braves to death. Good things that happened include the Braves roughing up Marcum early, Jordan Schafer drawing four walks (!) in the leadoff spot, Evan Gattis hitting a solo shot, and B.J. Upton and Dan Uggla getting two hits each. Bad things include Juan Francisco getting injured just as the Braves staff seemed to have realized that Chris Johnson had cooled off.
If the Braves keep scoring five runs a game, I like our chances. But losing to IWOTM sucks a lot.
Anyhow… I’m calling this a game thread. It’s Jon Niese vs. Julio Teheran, and Niese is actually a pretty good pitcher, but the Mets don’t score seven runs every game, so if Julio can figure out how not to throw so many gopherballs he should be okay. Just for perspective, over his last two starts, Teheran has gone 12 1/3 innings, allowed just three earned runs, and gotten eight strikeouts against just one walk. He’s given up 18 hits, but 17 of them were singles, and he threw 71% strikes. So he’s actually been good recently.
Anyway, today’s another day. And tomorrow is, too.
Yeah, but tomorrow, we’ve got to face Harvey, I believe.
I don’t mind that. Either we’ll paste him like Strasburg, or we’ll go down to one of the best pitchers in the league. I like that matchup. What I truly despise is slop throwers who own us.
I have to go on a Mets radio show tomorrow so the Braves had BETTER WIN TONIGHT.
Wow Bethany, that’s great!
The weather may work in our favor this weekend — tonight’s game looks very doubtful, so unless they try to play two tomorrow we’ll probably miss Harvey. They won’t skip over Niese.
@3 Promoting the scorebook? That would make sense. Mets fans typically can’t read and only work with rudimentary symbols to communicate.
BTW, though I am disappointed to learn through his podcasts that Sam Hutcheson doesn’t speak with a British accent, after watching the Kickstarter promo video your voice sounds exactly like I thought it would sound.
Don’t look now, but without PED/BABIP help, Melky’s at .235/.281/.277
EDIT: McCann is at .364/.417/.955. I think his swan song with us will be a good one.
Today in Atlanta is one of the worst weather days, relative to the time of year, that I’ve ever seen. It’s May 4, and it’s 50 degrees and pouring. And apparently we’re gonna get 3-4 inches of rain this weekend, so I wouldn’t bet on a game tomorrow, either.
No mention of Frediot or BJ’s lazy baserunning? They lost the game as much as Kimbrel and O’Flaherty.
@8: Agreed. The bullpen has been so lights out this year that a bad night is expected, indeed forgivable.
But lazy baserunning is a choice. Two pinch-hit sac bunts are a choice. In the aggregate, those things are the reasons why we lose, not O’Flaherty or Kimbrel having off nights.
@4, 5
Mets fans have always been kind to me because I’ve got that Bill Buckner scorecard shirt that I made a few years ago.
If I sound like you thought I should sound then that doesn’t speak well of your opinion of me.
EDIT they just canceled the game tonight.
@10 Are you kidding? My mother was a Montgomery-born Auburn girl. Alabama accents are music to my ears. I will brook no insult to the accent!
Game’s been called due to crappy weather. Bah!
And that is an illustration of just how crappy the weather is here today. They postponed the game a full five hours before it even would’ve started.
I’m glad I’m not the only one miffed at BJ’s lack of hustle. How damn hard is it to run full speed? ESPECIALLY when you’re hitting .150?
The good that Wren does will be interred with BJ Upton’s bones.
Wonder if the Dodgers would take Upton and Uggla for, I dunno, a Dodger Dog? I mean, they’re both hot (for them) right now.
I can’t figure out if it’s the exact right time or exact wrong time (current American zeitgeist-wise) to release another version of “Gatsby”.
Wonder what Danny Ferry is doing today?
@11 Hah, good to hear. I’m not fond of my own voice but I guess most people feel that way.
Yeah the forecast for tomorrow looks real gross too.
I’m a sucker for Southern accents too. And it’s always weird to hear your own voice in a recording if you don’t do a ton of music or VoiceOver work. It took me a long time to not feel self conscious about mine.
@7
The friends I ran a 5K with this morning agreed that the weather was way better for the one we ran at 7:30 AM the Sunday before MLK Day….
5 more years of BJ is indeed a dreadful prospect….
Maybe the next quiz question could be something along the lines of BJ will cross the Mendoza line (a) June 1 (b) July 1 C) August 1 (D) Never.
I know he probably will, but watching him is very frustrating….
@15/16 One of the reasons I love this blog (I’m one of those who sadly only learned of it because of the publicity around Mac’s passing) is the fact that commenters like you can make references to Shakespeare and Fitzgerald, and nobody bats an eye and I’m betting most everybody gets them.
@18 I cast and direct VO actors from time to time, and having grown up in Atlanta with a family that’s been in Atlanta on both sides as far back as anyone remembers, there’s nothing I hate more than a bad Southern accent from an actor, and nothing that makes me smile bigger than a good one.
If you’re cynical enough, there’s never a wrong time for Gatsby. But there might be a wrong format. 3D? Really?
Last night during our bullpen meltdown, I decided to distract myself with something more entertaining, and so I re-familiarized myself with the About page of this site. Mac was so brilliant. I miss his wit and perspective.
@22, 3d or no, I can’t think of a time that the doings of the idle rich have ever been more popular than now
@22 & @24 I agree. But Baz Luhrman is one of the few directors whose mise-en-scene does usually look like it’s trying to bust out of the frame anyway. I’ll see it in 2-D, though — 3-D at 24 FPS gives me a headache something fierce. (Didn’t know about the frame rate part til I saw The Hobbit in 48, and discovered it gave me no headache at all. Weird.)
Anyway, Luhrman’s Gatsby can’t be worse than the Robert Redford version. Yikes.
I think this year’s Braves seem to struggle with bad weather conditions. It feels like every game they’ve lost has been during cold, wet or both (I know the first one we lost at Turner Field this year it was 40 degrees and I was miserable). They need to figure out how to play in the cold before October gets here. Since the weather today is another wet, cold day, I for one am glad the game is canceled because these are the conditions under which our team apparently cannot win. Let’s make up these games when it’s warm and sunny instead.
I generally can’t stand Baz Luhrmann. I do almost always find the concepts of his films to be interesting, but I wind up finding the execution to be tremendously off-putting. I’m assuming Gatsby will be another example of that.
@27 I agree completely.
Just flew in from New Orleans, and boy is my liver tired! Thanks for all the recommendations, y’all. Pro-tip: if you want to get shitfaced for free, go to the French Quarter in your wedding clothes.
@27/28 I liked Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge pretty well. Didn’t like Romeo + Juliet much at all. Didn’t see Australia. So I’m no huge fan. I do like what I’ve seen of Gatsby thus far, though.
@26 I assume you aren’t including the Arctic doubleheader sweep in Denver.
So have they announced if we’re gonna lose two today? Or are we only going to lose one? Or is our ability to get even one loss in still in question?
DOOMED!!
How’s the weather in Da ATL?
Apparently it’s not supposed to rain till 5-6. There’s just one game scheduled today.
The way things are going, we should be hoping we can play games at another time.
Gatsby- Great Book/ Bad Movie.
I am not sure Leo can even save it.
Does anyone else here watch Sunday Morning on CBS? Best show on TV.
Whoever runs the @Braves twitter account has since deleted it, but someone took a screenshot of today’s original lineup:
https://twitter.com/forrest_atl/status/331054940179013632/photo/1
I guess they’re really confident in Simba’s range.
Hard to cover that much ground from pitcher’s mound
Per gameday, lineup is:
Simmons, SS
Johnson, C, 3B
Upton, J, LF
Freeman, F, 1B
Gattis, C
Uggla, 2B
Upton, B, CF
Johnson, Re, RF
Hudson, T, P
Baseball Tonight was talking about how scouts are saying we are killing fastballs and that teams are going to start pounding us with off speed stuff in fastball counts.
McCann back tomorrow. Who will be off the 25 man tomorrow?
@40, I think that will then make the pitchers that lead with their fastballs that much more vulnerable. The reality is that still a significant amount of MLB pitchers still can’t lead primarily with their off-speed stuff, and continue to command it as the game goes along. This team will still be in great shape if everyone turns into Jamie Moyer against us. Good problem to have.
I’m kinda glad I can’t watch the games much; I don’t think I could stand to watch the 1,600 strikeouts this team is on pace to accumulate. Instead, I can watch highlights of El Oso Blanco’s home runs and read impeccable analysis from some of Braves Nation’s finest on here. I think it helps in staying objective. It’s a good life.
New thread.