1) It rained a lot. (It’s been doing that this year in Atlanta.)
2) The game finally started just before 11 pm local time.
3) Outs.
4) Dillon Gee drove in a run to put the Mets up 1-0.
5) More outs.
6) This:
They’re supposedly playing two games today, but the hour-by-hour forecast being what it is, they may want to wake everyone up and run them out there by about 11 a.m. Then take a nap break, then play the nightcap around 10 p.m. or so again. Seriously, Atlanta weather: there were very specific reasons I chose not to live in Florida. You can quit acting like Florida any day now. Florida sucks. So do the Mets.
It amazes me to hear the talking heads say IOTM should have used Parnell. Parnell sucks and can blow 2 saves today.
I hope he blows two saves today also. I never would’ve thought that Freeman would be this good of a hitter. There is a good chance that he might win a batting title or two in his career.
Why would someone not want to live in Florida? Seriously, the wife and I spent nearly every vacation since 2007 in the Sunshine State, and places like Lauderdale by the Sea are just gorgeous. Seriously, we think about moving there when we retire, and I can’t think of a single reason not to. The weather would be our No. 1 reason to do it, actually.
I can ‘t believe I fell asleep in the 8th inning! Oh well.
Adam M – you’re a better man than I. Made it to the third.
But I think the clip provided in the recap may be all we needed to see.
Is there a more All-Star deserving first-baseman this year? Can’t think of one off the top of my head.
Sun is out in Kennesaw. After a deluge, of course.
Hoping to see Alex Wood and the Funky White Boy Dance he calls a pitching motion. Hey, it’s worked so far …
@3 as someone who currently lives in Florida I would like to back up your statement. The weather and the gorgeous views are the best things about Florida. It’s just everything else that sucks. Especially the drivers. My god people here go absolutely brain-dead once they get behind the wheel of a car.
Florida ain’t such a bad place to await the final curtain: sunshine, beaches, lots of doctors to care for us old folks.
Also, have you driven in Hotlanta lately?
P.S. Thanks for the great recap.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Can Tyler catch now?
@9 – Very much a drag. But we can weather that.
I would like to see the Rev getting some at-bats at the leadoff position.
Always nice to wake up, switch on the local sports station after a particularly painful Mets loss to the Braves. “Freddie Freeman, that guy just kills us!” I hear.
Y’know, I do seem to recall Freddie hitting some serious bombs vs NYM, so…
FF career: 278/347/456
FF career vs NYM: 311/372/588 in 40 G, incl. 9 HR & 35 RBI (his highest HR/RBI total vs any club)
Guess he has been quite the Met Killer. And, he’s only 23. Get used to it, Met fans.
#9
Saddle up, Gerald Laird.
I seem to recall another Brave with a goofy-looking face and sweet swing who frequently killed the Mets.
I guess that explains why Gattis hasn’t played much lately. Guess McCann is back to catching 4 out of 5 days.
Poor Evan. I guess the workload was just too much. Fredi should not have ridden him so hard.
I think Laird will fill in just fine. He’s not an automatic out up there.
He’s no Bear, though.
You know when we talk about “things the manager might know that we don’t know?” Things like “Evan pulled something in the cages and might not be ready to go today” are on that list.
Would really like to see Fredi actually use The Pastor for Uggla once in a while.
Also, Juan Jaime pitched another two and a third innings last night. Only gave up two hits, again with zero walks and five strikeouts. Lightning meet bottle.
Damnit I feel asleep in the 8th. That was probably the least exciting baseball game ever played…except for the final two at bats. I’m gonna say that if I had stayed up to watch we’d have gone 1-2-3 in the 9th, so it’s all good.
P-Nicky deserves a call-up. He’s handled his demotion well, didn’t pout, and has been putting up great numbers.
All the same, he’s a little redundant. I don’t envision Pastornicky and Pena being in the lineup at the same time, and Schafer is already our designated pinch runner.
18-So Fredi wasn’t using Gattis so that he could give him a start when he wasn’t fully healed and then have to put him on the DL?
I think it’s a lot more likely that he injured himself last night taking one of his mighty hacks at a Gee changeup.
@22 – you may be right. Gattis may have pulled it last night. I don’t know. But my point isn’t that I know or not, but that things like who is hurting (but not enough to be DL’d) and who had solid cage sessions or who showed up hungover this morning are things Fredi knows that we don’t know. And those things impact decisions.
My primary, secondary and tertiary point is that there are things we don’t know, and it’s hubris to not admit that.
It looked like he did it on the 3rd pitch of his AB in the 7th inning. Took a long swooping cut at a pitch in the opposite batters box, and then starting leaning back and forth, stretching his obliques. Joe even commented on it being one of the rare awkward swings you see from Gattis.
I don’t mind the Pastornicky call up. The team has plenty of OF options, it has two catchers, it could use a backup MI/third CF. There’s no one you could call up that would replace Gattis’ position; he is sui generis. So it’s really “do I want a marginal, AAAA corner OF (Terdo) or a marginal, AAAA middle infielder (The Rev?)
Six of one, half dozen of the other, really.
Yeah. Joey Terds isn’t on the 40 man, either.
You mighta called up Mejia for some right handed power, since that’s Gattis’s role most days.
Hey here’s my advice if you slept through last night’s game, and happen to have MLB.tv.
Just watch the 9th inning, but watch it once with the Braves radio overlay, and again on SNY.
Immensely satisfying, and 200% win.
Gattis was 0 for his last 28 as a starter- one hit since the series in Toronto. Dunno if he had the strain then, or if it just cropped up last night.
Don’t tell Costas about their celebration.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2013/06/17/bob-costas-criticizes-mets-for-celebrating-walk-off-win/2431321/
Chipper has nothing on Freeman. Is there a Citi Freeman possibility?
23-Thanks, but I suspect that most of us here have already read our Plato–or, if one prefers, Donald Rumsfeld:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2003/04/the_poetry_of_dh_rumsfeld.html
@23, Of course it’s hubris to not admit that there are things we don’t know. But we do know Gattis’ playing time since McCann’s return has been very erratic, all while he was posting the best OPS on the team and racking up the counting stats.
I’m sure B-Mac and Fredi Laird will do just fine while Evan’s on the DL. Thankfully, catcher is far from a problem on this team.
@5: I can think of a couple. You may have heard of this J. Votto character playing in old Cincinnati-town; he’s pretty good. Paul Goldschmidt’s also having a better year. But Freddie is great, and it’s no shame to trail those two.
Per Bowman, Simmons hitting 8th. No more 10-hole –
Schafer 8 RJohnson 7 Heyward 9 Freeman 3 CJohnson 5 Laird 2 Uggla 4 Simmons 6 Wood 1
@30 “I do not know the things I should not know, but I do know more than the person who does know. Think about it.”
You could also argue that Evan’s lack of playing time made it harder to stay in shape and actually contributed to the injury.
God grant me the wisdom to blame Fredi Gonzalez for the things he can control, the courage to blame Fredi Gonzalez for the things he can’t control, and the serenity not to worry about the difference.
WTF is up with all the obliques? I didn’t even know what an oblique was when I played. I guess all these guys swing so hard that their bodies can’t take it.
I think there was an article on Hardball times where they analyzed if it made sense to match up your worst pitcher vs. the other team’s best pitcher, so you would have a bigger edge in the other games of the series.
From memory, the answer was a resounding NO, it was a lemon strategy.
Probably unrelated, but this did strike me as very Fredi-like when seeing today’s G1 lineup.
You don’t matchup pitchers against pitchers. You matchup pitchers against lineups. The question is who’s ready to go. I don’t know that Maholm vs the Mets lineup is notably better than Wood vs the Mets lineup.
I’m gonna assume Wood will be sent down soon after this start, and this is a way of doing something nice for him on the way out.
Strong guys seem to be the only guys with obliques. Neither Maddux nor Glavine ever had one.
Your obliques are kind of important. It’s also a small, vulnerable muscle group. You use them for swinging, throwing, and you can also hurt them on dives. Even a pitch that’s badly located could strain a catcher’s oblique.
There’s a difference between Florida weather during the summer and Florida weather during every other time of year. Florida weather during the summer is awful. It’s why all the old people with money go back up to New England for the summer. It’s like being dropped into a 100-degree sauna from which there is no escape, and oh by the way, it pours every single afternoon, ruining any plans you might have made, which were probably a bad idea anyway, as you almost assuredly would’ve gotten heat stroke if you had attempted to do anything outdoors. Florida during every other time of year is beautiful (with the notable exception of in the fall when there’s a hurricane headed in your general direction). That having been said, I was just in Orlando for several days, and the weather there was indeed much better than the current weather in Atlanta.
@36
That’s a bit of a reach, Bethany. No, that’s a huge reach, actually.
I will say that I was kind of confused by the fact that McCann was on deck to pinch-hit for Gattis in the ninth last night. I mentally chalked it up to overmanaging and then Freeman hit the homer and I forgot about the whole thing, but it certainly makes more sense now.
From the play by play and the fact that McCann was up to PH after Freeman in the ninth, it’s pretty clear that he pulled it in the seventh. So he wasn’t sitting due to an injury that we can tell.
It’s a big reach to claim he pulled it because he wasn’t playing more. It’s not like he was in traction and not allowed to swing in the cages or lift weights.
RE: Florida, it depends on where you are (and yes, when you are.) Honestly, there’s very little distinction between north-central FL (down to Orlando) and southern GA. It’s the same climate and terrain, more or less. If you’re on the coasts, you get breezes, and that helps with the heat in the summer. Summer thunderstorms are a fact of life across the southeast, as are hurricanes in the fall.
Way off topic: I totally missed that the entire 790 morning show was fired yesterday. Pretty harsh.
Oh hey, afternoon forecast! You’re looking all right now. Night game’s still kinda iffy.
Every time I go to Florida I get rained on and/or mobbed by industrial-strength bugs. YMMV.
@ 37
LOL
@46 – mocking ALS victims will get you canned.
@46, I heard about it, then listened to the Rude Awakening guys and Leo Mazzone talk about Miss Utah and pageants on 680 and wondered how any of them could keep a job. People pay to have their products associated with this?
@50
You want a glimpse at how that type of stuff got started Evocoteur is a fairly solid documentary that just came out on Morton Downey Jr. Quite a story.
It’s a targeted market, targeted to numbskulls who still listen to drive-time/talk radio. It’s not a particularly…modern, demographic.
Excuse the mobile link – but I saw this & thought maybe it was the swing where EOB hurt himself. Even if it wasn’t, I thought it was amazing (that is one powerful swing):
http://m.mlb.com/video/28118081
What did Mazzone say about Miss Utah? It couldn’t have been worse than her answer, right? Right?!?
#46/52
The business model for dum-dum morning radio that passes itself off as “edgy” apparently works.
But occasionally, the cynical/stupid act runs out of “ideas” & it begins to make fun of the disabled, or it goes the racist/mysogyny route. That’s usually when sponsors at least threaten to jump ship & people get canned.
I blame Howard Stern. I kinda see him as the Led Zeppelin of morning radio. He’s pretty much the best who’s ever done it, but his spawn is weak, yet omnipresent.
So I guess that would make these Atlanta boobs… the Whitesnake of morning radio?
I think Miss Utah answered the question as she perceived the panel wanted it answered.
@54, generally the opinion was that WTF are you listening to her for anyway, and they should just axe the questions for a lingerie portion because, they are girls, and not only are they stupid, guys don’t care what they think.
No kidding – first time I’ve ever heard them but get the opinion that’s pretty close to normal. Without hazarding an opinion, I was just surprised that this was not only permissible, but de rigeur.
Whitesnake may be too high praise. How about Warrant?
Have the questions always been so political? I mean, I can’t imagine the contest in the 70s asking them about the Watergate scandal.
I don’t know if I can remember the last time I saw a player wear actual glasses on the field like Alex Wood is today.
@59, I think so, and also more complex. That question that is the source of all this Miss Utah hubbub was pointlessly layered.
One might think this was all part of a design to generate embarrassing content for shows and sites that get ratings and traffic by mocking people. If not, well, that’s the result anyway. “Beauty pageant contestant says something stupid and let’s make fun of her” is a social media thing now.
Three up, three down. Looking good! (Knock on wood!)
Yes, I do believe the Miss USA Pageant has an interest in generating material for the mocking of beauty pageants.
@61, Getting close to the brink here, but I strongly suspect grafting a “serious question” figleaf on to the G string of a booty contest is a fairly cynical ploy to pretend that it’s not about what it is so painfully all about.
@63, Once you learn that Donald Trump co-owns the Miss USA pageant, it will free your mind to understand that anything and everything is possible to promote it.
Hey, this Harvey is good.
Uh oh, Wood. Two walks to start the second inning is a bad idea, even if it’s only the Mets (and the bottom of their lineup to boot).
Even the Mets can score runs if you give them a bunch of free baserunners.
Edit: And just after I complained, he busts a guy inside so hard that his bat spontaneously combusts and he has to drop it while swinging. Pitch angry, Wood!
Wood appears to be painting the corners but is getting no calls. That’s not something you need on top of nerves in your first ML start.
Worked around things pretty good. Nice job, Woody!
Wood is good when he attacks the strike zone.
I’d like to congratulate myself on my 42nd anniversary of not watching a single “beauty pageant” ever. I’m awesome.
Wow, reading about those Atlanta radio hosts is pretty sickening. On one level, it’s completely wrong to do that. On another level, that I think most people should be understanding of, is that you just can’t do that on public radio. You would think radio hosts would be aware that in 2013, no one is going to tolerate you doing that. Forget “we’re too PC as a culture”, that’s just dumb.
My MLB.tv feed paused. When I reset the feed, the Braves were already sat down for that inning.
Craig Calcaterra tweeted a tv spot he did with that radio guy, where the radio guy was arguing that Ozzie Guillen should be fired for his insensitive remarks regarding Castro. Funny.
Anyone watching this on tv? Do we have any prayer of scoring? Following online it’s not looking like we are enjoying our at bats.
Sounds like Wood is getting squeezed. Come on kid, just get out of this inning.
20+ pitches per inning isn’t really helping in Game 2 of a doubleheader
Chris Johnson, I hate you.
Oh for cryin’ out loud…
That was not pretty, CJ.
Chris Johnson, folks.
Goddamn, Chris. You have to just throw that to first right away.
If Johnson had gone straight to first he’d have got him. But I think even he was surprised to have caught that ball.
Two outs and the guy goes to second. Just so dumb.
@82, He must have forgotten there were two outs.
With 2 outs the play is to first there. What is Johnson doing looking to second?
Yeesh, CJ. With the runners going, why would you even look at second?
Poor Alex Wood. Had strike three on Byrd, the friggin’ ump would’t call it, and then the Chris Johnson show.
It’s not like the Braves could beat Harvey anyway.
Gonna need an explanation on that one…how did a runner score from 2nd on a fielder’s choice? Was it first and third instead?
Mets announcers want the fielder’s choice to be scored a hit for Byrd. Because… stupid, I guess.
They’re also praising the “hustle” to score that run, as if it wasn’t a clear error on Johnson.
The runners were going on a 3-2 pitch. Johnson fielded the ground ball, looked at second like an idiot, threw to first but it was too late. Meanwhile, the runner from second (who was running on the pitch remember) rounded third and came home while all of this was going on, and beat the play at the plate. I think it probably should’ve been a hit rather than a fielder’s choice BTW, based on my interpretation of the rules.
@89 3-2 count so runners were going on the pitch. Johnson dropped back to field a tough hop, then thought about going to second before finally throwing to first. The extra time allowed the hitter to make it safely, while the runner from second never stopped around third and got in just under the tag at the plate.
Edit: What ^ he said.
Yeah I mean, Chris Johnson sucks. But I recall you can’t rule an error for slow play, so, why can you rule a fielder’s choice for slow wit?
Sounds like a mental error on CJ, but the scoring rules don’t allow for that. Surprised it wasn’t ruled a hit, given how liberal Atlanta’s official scorer is. Remember the ball a few days ago that went through CJ’s legs that was ruled a hit?
Yeah, I’m looking up the rule now, because I’m curious, but I am 100% sure that can’t be an error, by rule.
EDIT: It only says you can’t rule it an error, not that it has to be a hit. I think most of the time, the official scorer would just “the hell with it” and rule it a hit, but if in the scorer’s judgment the batter would’ve been out at first if CJ hadn’t looked to second, I don’t see any reason why it can’t be a fielder’s choice. It’s true that he certainly didn’t deserve a hit.
Although I don’t think he deserves a hit for CJ being stupid, it does seem to strain the definition of a fielder’s choice:
Doesn’t seem to allow for a fake throw to be a fielder’s choice.
I look forward to Matt Harvey’s Tommy Hanson career path.
Success! Now let’s get one of those big two-out hits against a good pitcher I’ve heard tell about.
Chris Johnson has done much better than expected offensively, but with his defense, I don’t see him on the team for very long after the AS break. The problem is that sometimes Braves pitchers allow ground balls and sometimes they get hit to 3rd base.
Braves may not score in today’s first game.
I think Chris Johnson is my least favorite Brave.
Even for the medium, the Mayhem in the AM sh*tshow was terrible. Once you brushed aside the ham-fisted, dunderheaded casual bigotry, you were left with such thorough input as “Paul Johnson is a genius.” I can get that on StingTalk.
Mazzone basically plays “Dirty Old Man” on the Rude Awakening. It’s pretty bad.
So why did Wood hit if he wasn’t going to even come out this inning?
@98
You could definitely argue he didn’t actually make a choice to go to second and that, in fact, he didn’t make any choice at all, which would lean toward the solution of giving a cheap hit rather than a fielder’s choice. I probably would’ve gone with the cheap hit myself, admittedly.
If you take out Wood now, why not send up Hudson or some other pitcher with a bit more experience at it to bunt.
I notice that as the inning began, the Braves’ broadcast chose to show Rasmus’ Gwinnett stats, not his 2.18 WHIP and 12.27 ERA on a .182 BABIP in the majors.
Rasmus needs to pitch in the home run derby.
Well, Johnson was able to field that cleanly…
@105 – Because Fredi really knows his personnel. Why waste a pinch hitter when you’ve got the greatest bunter since Tommy Hanson already due up.
So Wood was allowed to hit for himself in the bottom of the inning, but was replaced in the top? Oh, Fredi…
Andy Reid of MLB. Best case…
So this is going pear-shaped…
Hits just keep on coming for this kid. I’m not a fan.
Rasmus: Good at giving up homers. Good at giving up bunt hits. Good at throwing the ball away on pickoff attempts.
Ok, so nobody has really woken up yet I guess.
@103
Rasmus is my least favorite brave 🙁
Meh, not like we were going to win with this lineup he put together
That was actually an error on Freeman. (And I think that’s the correct call BTW.)
With this lineup, you kinda knew they’d need a few breaks to win this. But to wreck the bullpen and get blown out… just really rotten luck.
This game isn’t out of hand yet. You could still pull this guy and give yourself a chance.
But he’s going to pitch in to the 6th and leave trailing by 4.
It seems like we haven’t played the Mets well this year.
It’s nice to know my low expectations for one Cory in the bullpen can be so easily transferred to the other.
The problem with saving your pinch hitters for later is that the assertion is predicated on Cory Rasmus and his 9.82 HR/9 keeping a game close against Matt Harvey.
If this gets out of hand in the next two innings, I’m all for leaving Rasmus in until the last out or his arm falls off. Not necessarily whichever comes first. A 5-0 loss, a 15-0 loss … all the same.
Which one is Feldman and which one is Haim?
And to be clear, I’m not second-guessing the things I can’t and don’t know anything about, like Wood’s fatigue level. Perfectly valid if he needed to come out after three. But it’s objectively chuckleheaded to let him hit for himself in that instance, especially when scratching a run or two off Harvey is a difficult but necessary precondition to winning this game.
Stuff like that is why Fredi gets no benefit of the doubt on this board when he makes calls for which the “perfect strategy” statistical proof is more opaque.
@121
Eh…we’re 4-2 against them. That’s not really that worthy of complaint. Of course, get swept today and we’re .500 and it suddenly is worthy of complaint.
Stop being spoiled babies and root for your team! Hopefully Harvey pops an elbow next inning!
@126 I’m not sure you should lose 2 games to this Mets team.
As long as we’re approaching this thing as a scrimmage game, can we at least avoid getting no-hit? Thank you.
@123 Agreed – you hate to consider a 2-0 game a lost cause, but we’re going to need the back end of our bullpen to eat some serious innings today. Go get ’em, Cory Rasmus.
Welp. Don’t think we’ll be getting any off Harvey today.
The problem with putting all our remaining games with the Mets in the “mortal-lock win column” is that you have to understand that they have 2 complete stud pitchers and we’re going to face them several more times. We face them both in the same day today. You can’t win if you don’t score…and there are going to be times we are going to be hard-pressed to score against Harvey and Wheeler.
Same is true of the Marlins staff to some extent.
Dividing our offense into two somewhat shitty teams is also a good way to get swept in a DH, which is probably what’s going to happen.
Looks like they changed the CJ brain fart to a single BTW.
Oh, good lord. Matt Harvey and Zach Wheeler aren’t quite Clemens and Johnson just yet. They’re not gods.
@134, they’re really good and they throw really hard. Nothing else matters. They may not have spectacular careers, but at this point in time they are tough matchups for anyone.
They are much tougher matchups than what other teams face when we roll out Hudson or Maholm or Medlen…
Krussell, isn’t it a bit early to call Wheeler a “complete stud pitcher”? The dude hasn’t even thrown his first major league pitch yet, and is projected for roughly a 4 ERA this season after posting a 3.93 ERA in 13 starts in AAA this year.
Also – Nolasco has a career ERA around 4.4, and is only at 3.6 this year courtesy of some better-than-usual luck for him.
That said, I’ll grant you that Harvey (and to a lesser extend Fernandez) are tough matchups for the Braves.
The Mets booth managed to piss and moan until the scorer changed the ruling on the Byrd play. Idiot.
I’m not punting this game yet, much less the next one.
I’m certain that Harvey and Wheeler will join Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson in an unhittable rotation for the next 10 years.
@136, stuff-wise he’s a complete stud. My point is that we aren’t going to be facing a bunch of Steve Trachsel clones just playing out the string when we play the Mets and Marlins umpteen more times this year. We’re gonna see a lot of their minor league top prospects. It’s not a given that we’ll just eat these guys up.
It might be worth noting that in our last 26 innings, Freddie is batting .636 and the rest of the team .103. Freddie has done a wonderful job masking some problems that aren’t yet fixed.
Andrelton has about as much chance of hitting Harvey as a one-legged man has in an ass-kicking contest.
The only drama here is how deep Harvey pitches – will be dictated by how long the no-hit bid lasts.
I’ve watched Harvey a lot. I think he’s a Top 3 starter in baseball right now.
The mets and marlins don’t have top prospects that are better than the regulars or they’d be playing now.. Dumb schedule and rain aside, Atlanta should win two of every three.
I give up. You guys can pretend that Harvey and Wheeler and Fernandez all suck if you want. We can’t hit Dillon Gee so it’s not like it takes a Bob Gibson to shut us down.
As Mac might say…DOOMED!
Well, we just hit the free pizza mark.
No hitter. No hitter. No hitter.
Let’s start by getting a hit here. If we do, there’s a decent chance that the Mets’ll pull Harvey at some point. We’re still in this game, theoretically, especially if the Mets have to go to their bullpen.
Yep, that pizzeria is praying that the Braves don’t meet the Reds in the playoffs.
Maybe we shoulda let Harvey run the bases there.
NOW what are you going to do, Cory? There’s two outs, they aren’t going to bunt again.
Way to go, Jason!
How do you score that?
Basehit. Thanks, Lucas Duda!
Yay! A really lame hit!
LOLMets!
Now that the no-hitter’s out of the way, let’s score a couple runs!
Honestly, Collins would have to be a fool to pull Harvey just because he lost the no-hitter. The Mets’ bullpen is execrable.
Well fuck.
Fredi, you moron.
I’m SHOCKED at the result of that decision by Fredi. Shocked.
Oh, goddammit.
I’m really not sure why you’re doing that down by two. Down by one, maybe.
If the Georgia legislature hurries, they can make calling for the hit and run a felony before the nightcap.
Gameday just said Harvey threw a 91mph slider. Nasty.
I don’t know what you guys think the big deal is with Fredi. Having a watermelon for a manager is really only going to hurt you in tightly contested games. And it’s not like we’re going to run in to many of those in the playoffs.
We need to make stuff happen. (where stuff == outs). Be aggressive…be be aggressive…
#166
Harvey hit 100 MPH on his 1st-inning strikeout of Heyward.
I’d like an animated GIF of Jason sliding into first while Harvey flips the ball to nobody and the ump dances out of the way like a matador.
C’mon yall…Harvey sucks because he plays for the Mets and it’s impossible for them to have good pitchers. Wheeler will be even worse.
In all seriousness…it’s like facing 9 innings of Kimbrel. No. Thank. You.
We always fail at the hit and run. So let’s do it more often.
@155
BTW I think there’s a fairly high chance that Harvey knew that the 1B wasn’t covering, so he lightly tossed the ball over there in case the 2B happened to get there in time in a desperate attempt to keep the no-hitter. For that reason, I wouldn’t have even thought of giving an error on that.
You’re right. Matt Harvey is unhittable. Ever. And Zach Wheeler, who has an ERA in the high 3’s in AAA is even better. They should probably forfeit every game those guys pitch to save face.
This one’s circling the bowl..
Yes, Matt Harvey is pretty much unhittable right now. That’s not really up for debate. Will he always be unhittable? I dunno.
Wheeler’s minor-league stats are almost exactly the same as Harvey’s (and not that far from Tom Seaver’s). Hence, the hype.
Yet Matt Harvey is 4-1. He’s apparently not a god.
We’re failing this game in so many ways it’s honestly remarkable.
David Carpenter really living up to his official title of Garbage Timer.
Why on earth would supposed Braves fans be this into a lug of a Mets pitcher?
Sam, I agree with you about Wheeler, given he hasn’t thrown a pitch yet, but you’re probably gonna have to drop it on Harvey. He’s clearly one of the five best pitchers in the league right now, and any one team’s chances of beating him in any one game are not good (though not non-existent, obviously).
Harvey staying in. Game the fuck over.
@181, because he’s probably the best pitcher that doesn’t play for the Tigers. It’s ok to appreciate someone that’s good on another team. They won’t revoke your fan card.
If Carpenter finds a way to walk Harvey here, he’s going to find himself in Richmond.
Yes, I realize we don’t have a team in Richmond anymore.
LOL, did Chip just ask if Harvey would continue?
@181 Pointing out the objective fact that Harvey has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this year (second only to Wainwright in WAR according to fangraphs) does not necessarily make someone “into” Harvey. Though I personally will fully admit being into him when he’s not playing the Braves, since he’s a big reason why my fantasy team is in first place.
Hmm… Is there anything going on between Carpenter and Harvey? Early in the count, he threw a ball up and in that pushed Harvey off the plate. Then after he got Harvey to swing and miss at strike three, it looked to me like Carpenter was glaring at him as he walked back towards to the dugout.
#181
Because this guy is a bad-ass, and I respect that kind of talent.
I should get out my fishing rod, because there’s a whole lot of carping going on in here.
**heyooooo**
Did that lighten the mood any? No?
So if Harvey starts imploding here, does Collins dare go to Parnell?
Harvey is a pooka, a benign but mischievous creature from Celtic mythology who is especially fond of social outcasts.
Nope, that joke just floundered. Us cod-carrying fans aren’t perched on our seats just for the halibut.
On another team, I think this is what you’d call a rally.
Fredi, what part of not making outs are you not getting?
Why is Simmons hitting for himself?
Wow, he scalded that one.
Man, such a shame that Gattis is hurt. Now would be a great time for Justin to break out of the slump.
He was clearly bunting for a base hit…like, very clearly. I mean, let’s have a little self-respect here, yeesh.
@198- Well, he shortened up on the second pitch, too, so..
Yea, this situation is tailor made for El Oso. Let’s hope Justin can do his best impersonation.
@199 Yea, I liked the first attempt. Wasn’t thrilled to see him potentially sacrificing on the next one.
COME ON BMAC
First pitch right down the middle. Really hurts me to see that taken.
Shoot.
Dammit Brian.
Laird is hurt. Probably down to one catcher on the roster for tonight’s game.
SUCCESS!!!!!!!
Success!
@205 They acted like he rolled his ankle. Some really bad fortune.
Success!!! Nice! Come on, guys!
Success!
That’s a start.
What happened to laird.
Why on EARTH did Collins not wait until Upton was announced before he pulled Harvey?
Come on, Justin! Let’s relive April here!!!
Snap out of the funk, Justin.
@213
A good question
Dammit.
You’d be stupid to do anything but pound Upton with fastballs. He can’t catch up to anything.
Well, at least he didn’t ground into a double play. He was close to doing it that entire at-bat.
Shame they didn’t leave Harvey in to finish us off.
Come on Jason, you can do it.
YES YES YES ahhhhhhhhh. Thought Justin might make it. COME ON FREDDIE
Okay Freddie…. FINISH THEM!
Oh god, our hopes rest in the hands of Chris Johnson.
Why in the hell did Justin hold up on that?
Damn. Walking one of the lefties that they brought the lefty in to face.
Justin would have been hosed.
Yeah Upton would have been out by 40 feet. He was rounding third as the ball got back in to the first baseman.
Yeah, but he held up at first when the ball was hit, which was really stupid.
Need a walk
@229 Not knowing the number of outs. Don’t think it made a difference, though.
Gosh, I do some work for a couple of minutes and come back to find we STILL haven’t been no-hit defeated yet. Does anyone around here read the script?
Come on Chris… just a basehit will do.
Swung at ball three, Chris.
Somebody just turn Chip’s mic off, Christ. Jumps out of his seat at a foul ball where the batter didn’t even leave the box.
Well, we completed the ultrafail for the game. Get totally dominated then almost come back.
Chris Johnson sucks at everything.
@236 We do get another turn you know. Apparently you are allowed to score in it and everything. And an inning where you put a 3 spot up against Superman has to qualify against some kind of success, right?
Black hole at 3B.
@238 Well, I blame the crappy MLB radio interface, because I thought that was the 9th.
Grybos or no, I love that all three runs get charged to Harvey. From no no to 7IP, 3ER.
Do we need to go through Chris Johnson’s stats on the season? Not sure why everyone hates him.
EDIT: Well, when he’s at the plate anyway.
I think it’s funny how worked up people get about Chip’s announcing. I wonder if they would feel differently if he wasn’t a Caray.
Personally I find him innocuous and I feel like he provides a common fans view of a game.
Great job, Walden!
can’t say I like our chances with the hitters that are coming up, even with the mest bullpen.
Attaboy, Dan! Let’s go!
Safe!!!
Gonna be hard to get Freeman to the plate this inning. Someone else is going to have to be a hero.
GAAAH.
Come on BJ, be a hero.
*sigh*
Drat.
Oh well. Winning one of those first two games is probably good, given we should’ve lost both.
Also, the storms are closing in on the Perimeter here. Hopefully they’ll be gone in a couple hours.
@242: I don’t hate him so much as I don’t think he should be starting for a contender. His .324 average is luck and not skill, he doesn’t walk much, his .136 ISO is below average and, oh yeah, he’s one of the worst defensive infielders currently working. The Braves need to replace him.
It’s about to rain for a good bit here. Miserably humid out there too.
Delgado is starting the game for the Dbacks today.
In case anyone was curious…
Randall Delgado has made one appearance with the Diamondbacks this season and owns a 5.91 ERA and 57/35 K/BB ratio in 64 innings over 13 starts at the Triple-A level.
My disliking of Chris Johnson is probably irrational, but I just can’t believe he’s hitting .320, because whenever I watch him bat, I swear he’s either striking out at a slider in the dirt or hitting into a double play. And his defense is unfathomably bad.
Translation: You don’t like him becuase you expected not to like him, therefore you’ll use stats that predict what he should’ve done rather than show what he has done to gauge his performance thus far. Got it. As I predicted at the start of the year, he’s the winner of the 2013 Chad Durbin Award.
Chris Johnson had like 20 bloop hits in April. After watching him for a bit I’d say you can get him out with anything that curves.
@243
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of broadcasters working in the bush leagues who can provide a “common” view of the game. At this level, I want an elite pro, and Chip is not it.
@258: Tell me more about how Chris Johnson will sustain a BABIP higher than Ted Williams.
I am sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Chris Johnson is not a quality regular. He’s maybe a platoon partner/pinch hitter.
@258 There’s almost zero chance that Chris Johnson will be this year’s Chad Durbin, because Durbin succeeded for the entirety of 2012 in having a low ERA despite crappy peripherals. After a hot April, Johnson’s BABIP luck reverted to normal and he’s been putting up a low to mid .700’s OPS to go with his steadily awful defense. As mention by many other people on here, he is not a quality major league starting position player, and his stats reflect that. If anyone can hit an “empty .300”, it’s Chris Johnson.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that Johnson is Ted Williams, it’s just that his hitting accomplishments are constantly framed in a tautology of he sucks so if he isn’t sucking he’s just being lucky, and if he is sucking he’s not unlucky, he just sucks.
We’ll be needing a new game thread…this one didn’t get it done.
Jason Heyward has 1 rbi more than Jordan Schafer.
Bring back Francisco .. ever since he left C Johnson relaxed and cant hit a lick … where was Gattis oinch hit in game ..I tell ya Freddie aint got a clue.
Is it true that, over the course of the year, his numbers will go down some in all likelihood? Yes. (Though he’s hitting well over .300 now, so even if he dropped to .275 by the end of the year, it would be difficult to claim that he sucks.) Does that mean that every single at-bat by Chris Johnson should be whined about as if Jeff Francoeur is at the plate because the guy who’s hitting .320 obviously sucks? No, I’m afraid not. A high BABIP does not mean that somebody sucks. What he actually did has some weight. The number of people who don’t care about what actually happened and only view things (even things that already did happen) in terms of what should have happened never fails to stagger me.
If you’re going to be mad at Chris, be mad at the ridiculous error he made that allowed the first run, when he tried to go to second to get the last out of the inning when all he had to do was throw to first.
Is Pena hurt ??? would like to see him everyday 3B
Johnson had a great April, .915 OPS. In the two months since it’s been .730 and .750.
A .740 OPS from the worst defensive third baseman I can remember seeing is not going to get it done.
That’s not projecting based on batted ball profiles. That’s what he’s done for the last 60 days. .740 OPS after his hot start. You can live with that, just not from Chris Johnson.
@266 – Gattis is on the DL with an oblique strain.
I actually want to like Chris Johnson and was very happy with the fast start. As the weeks wear on though, I’m more and more convinced that his hitting will not be able to cover up for his rock for a glove for the entire year. I would love to be wrong, but it’s not looking good.
Does anyone else think that Tad might be a bit of performance art, on the part of someone like Sam, meant to lampoon us?
As I predicted at the start of the year, he’s the winner of the 2013 Chad Durbin Award.
So it seems other folks are not the ones coming in with a preconceived narrative and then interpreting events to fit it. Got it. Meanwhile, Chris Johnson, in 401 career MLB games has been worth… 1.7 fWAR. Over the past three seasons, among qualified third basemen, only Mark Reynolds has been more worthless – and he’s now not a 3B. So that makes Chris Johnson the worst regular 3B in all of baseball from 2010-2012.
I’d love to see how I am using stats to “predict what he should’ve done rather than show what he has done.” Because I’m pretty sure this is what he has done: he has been a replacement-level player, and sucks.
Though he’s hitting well over .300 now, so even if he dropped to .275 by the end of the year, it would be difficult to claim that he sucks
Nobody gives a shit about batting average when it’s empty and comes along with horrific defense and base running.
Does that mean that every single at-bat by Chris Johnson should be whined about as if Jeff Francoeur is at the plate because the guy who’s hitting .320 obviously sucks?
Interesting comparison. Between 2010 and 2012, Jeff Francoeur has been the 14th worst regular position player in baseball. Chris Johnson? The 16th worst. I’d say it’s pretty fair to complain about them equally, because they both suck.
“As I predicted at the start of the year, he’s the winner of the 2013 Chad Durbin Award.”
“So it seems other folks are not the ones coming in with a preconceived narrative and then interpreting events to fit it.”
____
Ooooh, snap!
Justin Upton is at 642 over that span. Andrelton 605. BJ 627. But Johnson’s 740 (OPS+ ~104) is clearly the problem here.
And Johnson has sustained a 340 OBP or so pretty consistently through the first and second half of his total games played. I could go for some of that “emptiness” from the rest of the lineup.
Chris Johnson’s defense is horrible indeed, but I hardly see his .320 average as “empty” in comparison to three regulars who have been posting sub-.200 BAs, Andrelton who has an empty BA that’s a full 70-80 points lower, and the pitcher’s spot, which adds up to a five spots in the batting lineup worse off than CJ. Taken in that context, we should be thankful we have a guy who is actually putting the ball safely in play a third of the time.
I already admitted that his defense is terrible, and no one was talking about baserunning. We’re talking about people acting like he’s an automatic out everytime he comes to the plate, which he’s clearly not. His batting average is pretty relevant when we’re talking about a situation when all we need is a hit, since it’s a measure of how many times he gets a hit out of how many at-bats he has.
Everyone not named Freeman is the problem.
Nick / Spike – Chris Johnson has been worth 0.6 fWAR so far this season, which is acceptable for this point in the season (puts him on track for close to 2 WAR for the whole year). If he could keep up his current .820-ish OPS all year, he would be a 2 WAR kind of guy and I’d be very happy with that. The problem is that he won’t finish with 2 WAR, or anything close to it.
To be clear: CJ’s current batting line of .324/.362/.460 is great. I would be happy if any player on the Braves hit like that going forward.
Part of that is because WAR is a counting stat and he is down 50-100 PAs relative to other starters, and that gap will likely widen since there is a defensive replacement who doubles as a LH PH option.
//And assuming CJ’s season going forward is written in stone is at least somewhat belied by the fact that he is where he is today.
The remainder of Chris Johnson’s season is not “written in stone”, but let’s be real here – he’s a career .755 OPS guy over 1500+ PAs, which matches up with what he’s done the last couple months after his hot start. CJ is what he is at this point in his career – you can expect around .280/.320/.430 with Brook Conrad-level defense. Feel free to give CJ credit for a productive first month, but don’t make the mistake of believing that one month should change our expectations for the rest of CJ’s season.
That works both ways – he was brought in here to be the short side of a platoon with someone who could play passable defense. Well it turned out that guy “unluckied” hisself off the team, and CJ was pressed into, and performed very well relative to his projections, a role he wasn’t expected to fill. He’s been a bright spot, actually, in terms of earning his keep and if he’s no more than his projections going forward, then shame on the Braves for getting into a position where they have to run him out there every day as the starter.