Is it possible to recap a baseball game using an iPad on a beach while drinking beer at 10 in the morning? We shall see. Hit refresh occasionally to find out!
Okay. So here’s how it was.
Top of the first Tim Hudson looked good. Bottom of the first Jason Heyward and Fre-Fre look good. 2 runs against the Twins. All is well! Drinks!
Top 2. Uh oh. Timmy’s looking a bit episodic now. Crap. I have already begun writing Huddy’s career retrospective in my head. I have no patience or faith in faltering 37 year olds. It’s a cruel game. 2-1. Drinks!
Rain! Power outages at the stadium. I will assume this is the beginning of a Cylon invasion. Doubles! In a glass. Not on the field. The field is covered by a tarp.
Top 7. Still 2-1? And Hudson pitched six?! I’m stunned. Also, not precisely sober. Night swimming!
Bottom 9. How are we losing?! I don’t like losing!! Stop it. Stop this right this very minute or I will turn this car around right now!!!
Thank you BamBam.
Top 10. Kimbrel is looking better.
Bottom 10. I don’t have time for this. End them!
Thank you Fre-Fre.
The end.
If any man can accomplish it, it’s you, Sam.
More drinking less recapping!
(wait a minute….Strike that, reverse it.)
Actually, more drinking more recapping. I’d like to see a drunken recap.
The Twins have never won in Atlanta.
I have a Frediot theory.
I feel like one of the reasons Fredi isn’t starting Gattis more often is that he’s SO GOOD at pinch hitting, and in Fredi’s lizard brain, that situational skill outweighs the 3 additional ABs he could get a game.
If you get up a recap that doesn’t look like some Eastern European post with lots of consonants put together then you are a good man, Sam. If you can do it while drinking then you are a great man. I hate typing on the IPad. Of course this is coming from a guy that hits the backspace key more than any key on the board.
Gattis returns to the lineup!!
@ajcbraves: #Braves lineup: Schafer 7, Pena 6, Heyward 9, Freeman 3, Gattis 2, C. Johnson 5, Uggla 4, B Upton 8, Maholm 1
Beating crap teams is necessary, even if it only feels like a relief, not so much a triumph.
#4
It’s 22+ years of revenge.
Bottom’s up!
It is done. Cept for the links to player profiles. I don’t feel intellectually capable an HREF tag right now.
Brilliant work, Sam!
There’s no way Gattis doesn’t go 0-4 with like 3 ugly K’s today. This is what I expect when I beg for a guy to start.
@7 I like that Fredi is getting Gattis a start, but the lineup order seems suboptimal – why go four consecutive left-handed batters (inc. one switch hitter) followed by four consecutive right-handed batters?
If it were me, I’d have gone Schafer 7, B Upton 8, Heyward 9, Gattis 2, Freeman 3, Johnson/Uggla, Pena 6, Johnson/Uggla, Maholm 1
Alright! A Success/Gattis lineup double shot! (No pun intended re: fabulous recap).
Oh, and “Kirby’s domestic violence charge”, nice touch! The Twinks are renowned for their World Series cheater and wife abuser. Who else can we scrape from the bottom of the barrel for today’s game recap?
I’m not in charge of tonight’s recap but I’d certainly consider either “Dan gladdens greasy mullet” or “chuck knoblauchs bad case of the yips”
@12
I’m guessing he knew he was batting B.J. eighth and went from there. I suppose he could’ve hit Johnson second, in that case, and obviously could’ve switched Gattis and Freeman and achieved the effect you wanted still. Johnson’s hitting well enough to put in the No. 2 hole at the moment. I do have to agree with him rather than you on B.J.’s place in the order, though.
I won’t quibble with putting BJ in the 8th spot instead of CJ. Generally speaking, my point was that you could easily slot our righty hitters playing today into the 2,4,6 and 8 lineup spots.
Good luck, Sam. When night swimming, watch out for those dolphins. They’re mean bastards.
5, 11- Please don’t jinx us. I mean, you’ve said what we’re all thinking about Fredlot’s thought processes (I guess you can call them that), but that’s still ugly to read.
Thank you, Sam.
I love noon games.
@14
“Chillie Mack’s GI Issue”
I think Hudson only went five, but it could be the tequila talking.
Ending lurker mode to briefly post a link that should interest Braves fans. Forbes with a top managers and general managers list from the last 40 years.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briangoff/2013/05/22/mlbs-best-managers-and-gms/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
I still can’t get over the fact that the Minnesota Twins’s first two hitters are named “Eduardo Escobar” and “Pedro Florimon.”
Success!
Rafael Soriano’s quotes after blowing the save for the Nats last night. (He allowed a single, followed by a 410 foot triple over Bryce Harper’s head.)
“I made a bad pitch to him, but that doesn’t mean I lost the game there,” Soriano said. “I feel like we can play a better game than we’re playing right now.”
“With two outs and the tying run at first, you have to play the outfield so the ball doesn’t go over your head,” Soriano said in Spanish.
“It may not have been a catch-able ball, but if we’re positioned the right way, there might have been a different outcome. With two outs, I could tell my four-year-old son, ‘You know where you need to play,’ and he would go to the right spot to make the play. It’s not an excuse, and I’m not speaking badly about anybody, but I think that’s how you play the game.”
Don’t you miss having that guy around? Such a pro..
Thanks for posting, @21. In case anyone has trouble with that Forbes link, click here.
It’s by a business professor at Western Kentucky. Bobby’s #1 on the managers list and Schuerholz is #3 and on the GM list, but in all, I’m not impressed by his results.
My goodness, that was one hell of an AB by Heyward. RBI single on the ninth pitch of the at-bat.
Success leading off has already paid dividends!
Great AB by Jason. Hopefully he’s getting locked in.
Jason Heyward can be so good.
My goodness, Ryan Doumit sucks at framing the ball. That last pitch was probably a strike, but he turned it into a ball by stabbing at it and making it look out of the strike zone.
@24, Ahhh…Bryce-related discord in the Notionals clubhouse. Music to my ears!
Over 20 pitches and no outs yet.
Pena. Dude. You suck.
Well, that wasn’t even close.
That was not deep enough to go with no one out…
I hate that tag attempt.
Way to run yourself out of a big inning.
What the hell Snitker. Stupid.
That was dumb.
Way to destroy what could have still been a crooked-number inning, idiot.
That was so shallow it didn’t even make it into Fucking Sam Holbrook infield fly territory.
Snitkered! Why send him? Willingham was in deep short and only one out?
Are we positive the 3B coach sent Pena? Or did Pena just make a stupid decision?
And… did Bryce Harper get concussed and not receive treatment?
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/05/bryce_harper_runs_into_wall_why_is_everyone_afraid_to_say_that_the_nationals.single.html
Ephesus pitch? Does Maholm pay Bethany royalties?
@31 – It’s really only tangentially Bryce-related, in my opinion. Soriano hung a slider, and the ball was off-the-wall or over it in any game played on a baseball field, rather than a Navy yard. (Okay, it was probably hit 380 or so, not 410 like I said above. But it was to that weird triangle they’ve got in their power-alley that goes back to like 430.) Harper was just the guy who’s head it was rocketed over, and I don’t think he’s in charge of positioning himself.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=27334413&c_id=mlb
Paul has been known to pull that eephus pitch out on occasion. Like against Chase Utley in April: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20095
@45, an Ephesus pitch would owe Homer royalties.
I love Paul’s Eephus.
Way outside.
It feels to me like Heyward, Uggla, and BJ have higher batting averages than they actually do — but I realize that’s mainly because I celebrate any time any one of them gets a hit. That’s at least one, and at times as many as two, celebrations per game!
PENA GIVES IT BACK
Ramiro!
Pena. Dude. You didn’t suck right there. Good jorb!
Bad jorb by Freddie there.
Hey he’s 2-2. His single in the 1st got Schafer in to scoring position for Heyward. And he’s seen 6 pitches already!
Worley’s doing a good jorb of putting our hitters on base without wasting pitches.
And Gattis is hit by the pitch, here come the paramedics rushing on the field to check on the baseball. Boog Powell. nice line.
I’d like to apologize publicly: When we signed Pena and guaranteed him a job, I was extremely skeptical. I was wrong. He seems a great guy, and has been a very good player (especially relative to what we’re paying him). Well done Big Bird.
Chris Johnson!
That’s how you an answer an HBP Chris.
Best bench in baseball. I need no stinkin statistics.
The Twins have never ever won in Atlanta
This just in: Dan Uggla still sucks.
Fun facts about Ramiro Pena — hitting left-handed in 2013, Pena is now hitting .356/.420/.600. His career slash line batting right-handed is .128/.174/.128 in 95 plate appearances. That’s right — his lefty home run today is one more extra-base hit than he’s had in his career batting right-handed.
@65 Maybe Pena should just abandon the pretense of being a switch-hitter, then…
Chris Johnson’s swing reminds me of Edgar Martinez.
Yeah, he should hit lefties as rarely as Francisco does.
Maholm is on his to 7-8 innings pitched today. We need more runs to rest KRACKEN.
WOOOOOO!
It would be really spectacular if Bupton has figured something out.
Fredi is rewarded for his faith
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE be the end of BJ’s struggles.
Oh PLEASE let this be a good sign for BJ.
@71, it sure would.
Jordan is an on-base machine.
Backspin bunt past the pitcher, can’t walk it out there much more perfectly.
I think there was even less faith in Success! than Pena.
That was pretty much a perfect bunt by Success. Got it past the pitcher, then it had so much backspin on it that it died right in the middle of no-man’s land. If he could perfect that, he’d hit .750 at least…heh.
Way to go Jason!
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter who the opposing pitcher is when Worley pitches like this, Chip.
If Gattis homers I hope he flips the bat halfway to the mound and runs the bases backwards.
GET OUT!!!!!
Oh, my!
LOL
Wow.
NO PRISONERS!!!!!
GONE
oh my god I love him
BamBam.
So is he running backwards?
Who in the hell is this guy????
Holy shit. I’ve never seen anything like this. Gattis needs to be playing every day. Period. No excuses.
10 homers in 120 at-bats now.
“Anything he wants to hit, he hits.”
Day-uhm.
BJ’s reaction was priceless.
To say this inning went poorly for Worley would be akin to saying, “Eh, it’s kinda windy…” in the middle of a hurricane.
Fredi is going to have to get more creative and find ways to get Gattis at least 4 starts a week.
The ‘business professor’ who wrote the Forbes article linked above is actually a highly regarded Economics prof who happens to be one of my two best friends of almost 40 yrs. I’d be happy to pose any questions any of the readers of this site might wish to ask him.
I hope the Twins never win another baseball game, ever. The Baseball Gods have not been spiteful enough to them.
@98 He needs to find a way to get him in as an every day player. His bat is just too valuable to not ride right now.
@BravesAmerica
Every player with double digits home runs has at least 150 plate appearances, except Evan Gattis who has 128.
Evan Gattis: The Greatest Story Ever Told.
@94 – exactly what I was thinking.
Anybody seen Ray Walston around?
I’m going to start a spec script on “El Oso Blanco: The Evan Gattis Story”. It’ll be a cross between Moneyball, The Natural, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Grizzly Man.
@105 I’d pay to see that movie.
What does Keith Law think about all this?
@99, thank you. I’d love to know more about his methodology. He linked to a journal article that he said contained his research. I’d just like to know his criteria. The ordering on his lists was surprising to me.
BJ’s reaction in GIF form
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18ohai2a9go9ggif/ku-xlarge.gif
@108 Yankees have gotten their share of bad contracts as their players have gotten old. Wren has had a great year with Pena, Success!, JUpton, Gattis and Johnson, We will know more about BJ aas time goes bye.
Lol, Freddie. Did anyone see Freddie on cam just now? That dude cracks me up.
BJ’s looking for the film crew. Wondering why whoever’s directing this ridiculous movie couldn’t have him at least hitting .240 instead of .140.
Success!
@111 Yes, fucking love him.
@111 – you’re talking about Freeman? Yeah, that was pretty funny.
Freddie Freeman is such a goofball. He’s been photobombing the dugout camera this last half-inning.
I wonder why pitchers have such a problem throwing strikes to Success.
Who was the relief pitcher who used to run and open the door from their little room to get on camera, whenever the broadcast would show someone warming up? I remember one time he was in compression shorts and undershirt and still threw the door open.
@118
I believe that was none other than Grybo himself.
Something has gone seriously right for Schafer.
I mean, for real, he’s hitting like peak Kenny Lofton right now. His average will go down, of course, but he’s hitting a lot of line drives and all the plate discipline metrics say that the basic skills have changed.
Johnson is so bad at third.
Fatjuan makes both those plays.
Schafer is only 26. He might have learned something by being cut by Houston.
I think it’s pretty evident that he has learned a lot. He rarely swings himself out of the shoes to hit the ball out like he did the first season.
Alex, just spoke to him and passed on your request. He wanted to know more about you and Braves Journal. You should hear something from him before too long, either through me or directly. If you want to give me your address I will pass it on and he’ll probably contact you directly via email.
Gameday’s Scout says, “Caleb Thielbar may prefer to go after Dan Uggla, whose OPS is .659 this season, with the slider rather than facing Jordan Schafer, whose OPS is .845.”
Simple and incomprehensible at the same time. Kind of like having a backup catcher tied for 4th in the NL in home runs.
@123 Success! reminds of the story about lectures on Italian architecture in WW2. First was a straight textbook lecture and second referred to where German snipers would hide in buildings. Soldiers scored much better in second lecture
Since May 18, BJ is 4/13 with a HR. That’s got to mean something, right?
@126 In fact, JUp and Oso Blanco have now combined for 24 HRs on the season, which is more than any other two NL players.
@128 I would love to think so, but BJ has so many moving parts to his swing, I imagine it’s a constant battle for him to stay in a groove hitting-wise.
There’s that stupid bare-hand crap from BJ.
Great game by Maholm.
@130 For those of us following along via the online box score, what did BJ do?
No just a single to center on one hop, and he fielded it with his bare hand. Just, ‘cuz.
Well, we’ve got our new Chad Durbin.
Yeah, I don’t think Rasmus is the answer to the Braves’ problems. Frank Wren needs to go out and get some relief help. (By the way, anyone know what’s going on with Ayala?)
That was an incredible catch by BJ.
Ayala is making rehab appearances at AA.
FYI – Here’s more good news. Did you know that the Braves only have (1)! road series the rest of the season against a team that is currently over .500? That would be a 4-game set in St Louis. Our opponents winning % is by far the lowest in the NL for the rest of the season at .458 (next is WAS at .474). And we’ve still played 6 more road games than home games.
I wouldn’t judge Rasmus too harshly based on today, he’s probably nervous and amped up as all hell and at the same time told to pretty much throw it straight down the pipe with a 7 run lead.
He had really good numbers this season in triple-A.
I don’t know, I think he’s fine. Major league debut, butterflies. He’s also been a one-inning reliever, and we’re just assuming he’s a long man because he’s the last man in the pen.
Also, Tom Glavine’s got a good point that these hitters know he’s only going to throw fastballs. I saw one change up to that last batter, and other than that, it was all fastballs.
Well, that was a wonderful homestand.
@135 Hopefully we’ll get Ayala and Walden back within a week or so; that should go a long way to shoring up the bullpen. In the meanwhile, I applaud the Braves’ attempts to try out Carpenter/Rasmus etc. to see if anyone in our system can step up and provide some interim bullpen innings.
Finally saw the replay of Gattis’ slam…looked like a can of corn to right that he didn’t hit squarely. I guess that’s why it didn’t go 60 rows deep.
And FWIW, we’ll miss Matt Harvey (again) in Flushing this weekend.
Welcome to the big leagues Cory. 3 ks in 1.2 innings isn’t bad. Otoh, you may not have the same success here blowing away every hitter with the occasional mistake thrown in. ML hitters generally find a way to hit your mistakes.
@137
Yep. We have played the toughest part of our schedule and we are in first place.
September is a crazy soft month for us.
1. We are not going to find anyone willing to trade quality bullpen arms to us before July. Too early in the season for teams to be selling assets like that.
2. If/when they do trade for relief help remember you have to give to get. So don’t complain too much about losing prospects there.
3. Rasmus can’t be judged on a game where he was told to feed them fastballs.
@146- fully agree on point 3. I still say in the minors he can get by most of the time throwing only fastballs – not so much with the big boys.
I wouldn’t trade for relief help. The back of the bullpen is the place for fungible assets. Surely we have several other AAA/AA guys that can fill these roles.
I agree that Rasmus did what he was supposed to (with the Flourimon walk excepted) – throw strikes and make them hit the ball (which they did).
I snuck into the break room for the last inning and a half. Two things stood out:
Evan Gattis this home stand: 3-6 3 HR, 7 RBIs. Wow.
AND
Dale Murphy on the post game show said what El Oso Blanco was doing was “Gattistrophic.”
Which is just so full of win I may have to take tomorrow off just for hearing that.
@142 Why are we disappointed whenever a Gattis HR does not go over 400 feet?
@150, I’m just amazed that his mis-hits go out. I’m not sure we’ve actually seen him really get into one yet. That’s something I want to see.
@146: I doubt your 1 is correct; the relief market is probably pretty thin right now, but it’s certainly not nonexistent. Just as one example, the Fish have no reason whatsoever to want to hang on to our old pal Mike Dunn. If you go knocking on the doors of every team already hopelessly out of contention, you could probably scare up a quality arm or two. I agree with your 2, though; someone we like will probably have to go the other way to get a deal done.
“Gattistrophic”? Dale Murphy is charming and funny. I’d love to hear just him and Joe working games.
Unless Varvaro, Gearrin, and/or Avilan blow up, our bullpen is still not too bad. If Ayala and Walden come back strong, I don’t see a huge need to make a deal anytime soon.
I think I dislike Joe Simpson more than I do Carey at this point. But I admit to having a very low opinion of both of them.
@146 You can get relievers right now. The Braves may opt to see what they have in house first, but they could certainly shore up the bullpen. As it is, I imagine the needs by the AS Break will look a little different than they do today. The team may be looking for 3B help in July. Admittedly, the production from the hot corner has so far been surprisingly excellent, but don’t be surprised if that doesn’t continue.
So what is the outlook on Cory Rasmus? Not a great debut, but where do people see him long-term? Who else in AA and AAA could be the next ace reliever? After decades of developing relievers, I’ve become convinced that the question is “Who’s next?” instead of “Is there a next?” when it comes to relief prospects. I mean, who the heck was Venters before he became Everyday Jonny? Kimbrel was definitely a prospect, but O’Flaherty and Martinez were Rule Five’d by the Mariners and Marlins, right?
Going further back, Remlinger was a throw-in, Chris Hammond had no back, and Darren Holmes, IIRC, was released by the Rangers. I mean, we are certifiably “awesome” at building bullpens. Who’s next?
@154 If they need 3b help, they just ned to bring up Joey Terds.
Brave Marine, thanks for getting in touch with him. Can you give him my Bravesjournal email address, alexbravesjournal at gmail dot com? Thanks very much. I’ll be happy to tell him more about the blog, and I’ll be eager to hear more about his methodology.
I mean no offense to him personally, but I just don’t think that Jerry Manuel is the 10th-best manager of the past 40 years, nor that Danny Murtaugh is better than Walter Alston and Earl Weaver. Thanks again.
Pena plays well at 3rd base if Roadrunner slumps.
Tom Hart
@tom_hart: Last time Evan Gattis went to NYC he ran out of money. Had to beg for food scraps at airport. Braves at Mets Friday.
When does Road Runner not slump? Btw, Kudos to Wren for the Pena and Schafer pickups
Francisco and Johnson both run hot and cold, like a lot of our high-strikeout, high-walk lineup. But I think we’ll be able to get league average production in aggregate out of them.
The Success/Gattis double shot was in fine working order today. Woo hoo!
Some people slump and some are jut bad hitters. Juan faces only RH’d pitchers since he can’t sniff lefties. Even facing primarily righties he’s working on his 3rd straight sub .300 OBP seasons.
Which kind of fan are you?
http://tinyurl.com/mn2sj3v
I’m the single F bomb fan, for sure.
Looks like the Braves knocked Worley all the way to triple-A.
Natinals just took the lead in the top of the 10th.
Remember when Danny Espinosa and Stephen Strasburg said that the Natinals were a better team than the Braves? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
@165, I’m #2 (single F) and #12.
Utley probably headed back to the DL
http://ht.ly/liLcM
Washington looks like they are going to pull it out in the 10th – thanks to a Harper homer in the 6th and double in the 10th natch.
@107 I’ve been wondering that myself for a while now. I don’t expect Law to serve up a mea culpa any time soon, but he has to be aware of how silly his stubborn skepticism has made him look. (Or maybe in his head he’s revised history so that he foresaw Gattis’s success. :P)
This is why I don’t like Jeff Passan:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/marlins–alex-sanabia-proves-it-s-time-for-pitchers-to-step-up-their-cheating-game-194818228.html
He evidently thinks the stain on Kimbrel’s cap is pine tar. But he doesn’t just offer this as a personal speculation–he acts as if it’s established dogma that it IS indeed pine tar. It’s like if someone saw you talking to some random woman and wrote an internationally-circulated article proclaiming that you were having an affair. He ignores all these other possibilities and presumptuously assumes that the truth of the issue is whatever happens to support his point, then writes about it in such an annoying matter-of-fact tone.
@129 – agree that BJ’s whole swing mechanics require godlike timing to be successful on a consistent basis.
I hate that whole “striding in before the stride” thing.
Just give me Barry Bonds’ ever-so-slight toe-tap with his back elbow locked firmly at his side so that the hip-turn and bat are one. Why would anyone do anything else?
I’m the “Non-reaction fan”. I just sit there quietly, absorbing everything until I spontaneously combust.
If you haven’t seen this video yet, watch it. This is why Venezuela fell in love with Evan Gattis.
When it comes to big-game failure, I guess I’m the “non-reaction fan” because my girlfriend tells me she knows that things are bottoming out when I get quiet.
But there was a time when I was the “take a walk” fan — just bolt from the badness. Where? Anywhere…
There’s this longtime co-worker with whom I’ve attended some Mets/Braves games in Flushing, and he stomps and tromps and beats his chair like a 2-year-old. It’s kind of funny, especially if you’re rooting for the other team.
@ 172
Quite the opposite:
Pardon the salty language, but he is a pompous asshole.
That video remind me of the two things I miss most about working in Latin America. One of them is hearing baseball called in Spanish (and the American Spanish broadcasts are NOT the same).
Yeah, I want that announcer to replace Chip. I don’t even care that I barely understand any Spanish anymore.
It has happened.
Someone wrote a ballad about Gattis.
@178, on the other hand, Law said this in response to Joe Lucia:
I don’t think Law’s actually pompous, but his Twitter persona is clearly snarky — it’s the role he plays. However, Rosario would not be a bad outcome for Gattis, and Law endorsed it, even if he did so while noting all the shortcomings in Wilin’s game.
@181, I hate grotesquely facial-haired hipster douchebags, but I don’t hate that.
SSS alert obviously, but right now Gattis is showing an above average glove according to fangraphs.
Recapped, finally.