First half of the double header today. Braves lost by one because Justin Upton got a bad jump on a Jason Heyward double in the eight and didn’t score from first, and then Chris Johnson did not support the “I have a reverse platoon” breakdown and whiffed to end the rally. Which was weird, because I’m not sure how the Braves even got three base-runners, much less three actual runs in, as they were going up against Matt Harvey, the greatest pitcher to ever deign to set foot on the planet Earth. I guess Matt Harvey is just that kind of a god that he would even allow us to feel like we had a chance. Such a kind and generous god. Lords be thanked for his graciousness and generosity.
Game 2 starts in an hour or so…
Don’t know if you missed offending any mainstream denominations there, Sam, and on an overcast night in the thunderstorm belt. Ballsy, dude.
You say ballsy, I say prissy.
Isn’t it good to see Andrelton leading off again, Bethany?
Sam’s dare: “Stupid, but ballsy.”
Simmons leading off: merely stupid. Fortunately, this stupid idea worked.
See, Andrelton? Was that so bad?
@3 You jinxed it!
Walk!
Andrelton is the man who walks.
Reinforcing his leadoff man credentials with the steal!
Again, Jason gets ahead then strikes out.
And Justin gets ahead and grounds out weakly.
BJ hitting fifth? Really?
I’m reaching the maximum frustration point with this offense. How can this much talent go so cold for so long?
We’ve got a bunch of guys that are late on everything. Justin was late on a changeup last night. It’s easy to see what the problem is. Apparently quite a bit harder to fix it. At some point we’re gonna see everyone in the lineup hot at the same time…right?
My wife dated Recker in high school. Is it wrong of me to root extra hard for Maholm to strike him out?
@15, Are you kidding? It’s within your right to root for a season-ending injury!
Way to go, Dan!
His name is Doublin’ Dan.
@16 Simmons kind of cut Recker’s legs out from under him on a play at the plate last month at Citi Field. I made her watch the highlight on MLB.com haha
Neat seeing Chipper in the stands, although he look a little disengaged from the action when he started clapping after Wheeler struck out Maholm.
That’s two walks for Andrelton, folks.
So happy to see Andrelton having some smart ABs.
Forget Eddie Yost. Andrelton is the man who walks!
And Jason pops out on the first pitch.
Maddening contrast.
Slow down Simmons!
Should have been out, what, at least twice?
Thanks for that double dose of LOLMets, Mets! Whew!
Bahahaha, the Mets almost let Simmons score on that.
Also, Justin needs to be dropped in the batting order.
And Justin as well.
@28, Yes, would have been out both times if either Met had caught the ball.
That should be a caught stealing, with two missed catch errors.
They are pitching around Freeman like he’s the only threat in the lineup. Oh wait, he is.
In the epic contest between Andrelton’s terrible baserunning and the Mets’ terrible defense, it’s the defense that wins out… for now.
@32: Do they ever charge a CS if no out was recorded? I mean, there’s as much logic to that as a regular ROE, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it scored like that.
So sad that there’s no one in the batting order to protect Freeman.
Wish BMac were hitting in front of BJ.
At least we’ll be getting into the Met’s pen pretty early in this game.
That was a better at bat than I expected from BJ, but we still haven’t scored.
@37 – I think the same thing pretty often, when they make a guy work the first time or two through the order.
But then in the 4th and 5th innings, they have a habit of going down on 11 pitches.
Like the Lincecum game, for example.
@34, pretty sure that a CS is assigned if you are picked off and still reach safely due to a bad throw or catch, so I guess that counts.
Shit, teams should steal 3rd every chance they get against us because I’m not sure CJ can get to the bag in time.
Get thee behind us, Satin!
That looked like a gift call, but I’ll take it.
@41 – He never knows whats going on on the field. He’s been caught sleeping on first-to-thirds on hits to the outfield, and on runners tagging up, too.
In keeping with tonight’s thread, well stated, Brian J.
line drive in score book for CJ. (NOT THE EEPHUS SCOREBOOK)
Cute, boys. Now cut it out.
BJ shoving Justin there was hilarious. Hope they’re both okay.
Have yourself a night, Andrelton!
Simba is kicking ass in this game. Time for someone else to chip in.
Leading off, Andrelton Simmons.
How many pitches has AS seen tonight?
Jason gave us a glimmer of hope, and now he’s back to his early season form.
Oh, Jason.
Heyward sure can ground them to second. Slightly right or left, not so much. Just to second.
We saw 14 in the 4th, and 9 in the 5th. And now Wheeler has a chance to complete 7 innings.
I believe someone requested this: http://notsportscenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/MetsLoseNoHitterLOL.gif
Jason just can’t seem to keep it going for more than a week or ten days.
He’s just so rarely average. He’ll be out of his mind for 10 games, and then hit .210 for a month.
57- Oh, come on. That was a perfect flip to Harvey the Invisible Rabbit covering the bag.
The Mets are like the anti-Nationals as far as pitch-counts go. They seem to have no issue with letting their kids throw 100+ pitches.
I feel like Justin throws in to third when he should throw in to second an awful lot.
Careful, Paul.
Nicely done.
Will they walk Freeman on purpose again?
Way to make him work, guys. Not like you’d want to get into that crappy bullpen.
Seemed like a break there.
Ooooo Brian, yes you did.
We’ve gotten every single break in this game, and we’re still shutout.
Lucky, BMac.
#89 for Struggla
Would take another CJ lob wedge into short right.
I thought our patience in the early innings was going to pay off later in the game, but we’re still in a familiar state of suck.
I’d take a lob wedge to CJ if I could…
We have a first baseman who can hit, a shortstop who can field, and not a heck of a lot else. Oh yes, we’re seven games in front. Must be the pitching.
@73, pitching, pitching, pitching.
@73, we have the best pitching in the league. So there’s that. I don’t trust it because it’s mostly the soft-tossing pitch-to-contact type of starting pitching, but so far I can’t argue with the results.
So far, we’ve played 24 innings of baseball against the Mets in the past 22 hours, and we’ve scored in 2 of them. That’s…kind of sad.
Shoot.
No, THIS is kind of sad. Giving up a 400′ home run to a .150 hitter.
I hate Chip…he is just such a douche
I cannot repeat the words that just flew out of my mouth.
iceberg…allow me to join you in your above-average level of hate for Mr. Recker.
“IWOTM” needs to be temporarily retired until we figure out how to avoid curling into the fetal position against them..
Who the fuck is Anthony Recker? It’s not bad enough being shut down by rookies schmutzes, but seriously? Who the fuck is Anthony Recker?!
Sweet…Gearrin is warming up. A soft tossing righty to offset the soft tossing lefty
“It’s too bad, but Recker’s name is sadly not descriptive of what he does to major-league pitching. It works all right as a description of what major-league pitching does to him, though.”- BP 2013 description of Recker (projection 224/ 296/ 369, 7 HR in 250 PA).
@83, see @15
But “Mets LOL” is still in effect.
SUCCESS!
Success!
Holding his hammy. Hope it’s just for show.
I think Schafer hurt himself. Bunting leads to no good.
@87 Always.
Simmons reaches base four times in one night. What a strange, strange world we inhabit.
Simmons is pretty much telling all of us to STFU tonight.
I do so love Andrelton Simmons, especially when, as he boasts, he does everything.
Mother of GOD with the grounders to second…
Oh, joy. A “productive” out.
The expected grounder to second was, ahem, a productive out.
So Jason grounds to second. Weird.
OK…JUpton you are freaking due to light one up. Let’s go damnit.
If Justin could get hot while Freddie is still on this tear, the results would be glorious.
For all that is holy, put the ball in play here and get a damn RUN.
EDIT: THANK YOU.
Well that’s something.
I’d walk Freddie were I the Mets.
Yeah, like that.
Freddie or Barry Bonds ?
Come on, BJ, make them pay. If you don’t, Freddie may not see another strike this series.
This looks like a job for Gatt… on the DL. A job for Succ… already pinch-hit. A job for… ANYONE but BJ!
Well that blows
Alright, guys. Your job now is to get it back around to Freddie before the end of the game.
Just think, if they had walked Freddie in the delayed game we’d be staring at a sweep at the hands of the friggin Mets.
Aren’t there still two more games left in this series? Even with a loss tonight, we can still get the series win. Being swept in a doubleheader, though, is no fun.
BJ is 0 for 26 with RISP and 2 outs. The interesting thing about that stat is that every single person on the planet could also do that.
Didn’t realize how well Cody Martin has been pitching this year. He had a 2.82 ERA with MS with 71K in 67 innings. He just made his debut with Gwinnett and threw 7 shutout innings, 7Ks, 2H and only 1 BB.
@109 You’re right, my bad!
I’m not going to be able to write this up tonight. Too much bourbon to deal with the fact that a couple of rookie nobodies shut us down all day. (No, children, I will not now, nor will I ever, “respect” any player on the Mets, because that is fucking wrong. It’s like diddling a five year old wrong. You should be ashamed of yourselves.)
Anyway. Tomorrow morning.
LOLBraves
BJ. I just…. I can’t.
That one hurts.
Bunch of clowns…they deserve to get booed like they are
lolBraves
Good grief, BJ…
@113, please at least summarize the play that just happened. After more bourbon.
Well shit.
Um. Wow, BJ.
Oh bite me Braves. That is pathetic.
Sad.
We just put Satin on the base paths.
We have met the enemy, and he is us. Pull it out if you can, folks. I’m done.
Varvaro spun & threw to 2nd to pick off the runner. The toss was missed or got thru somehow, which wasn’t such a big deal with 2 outs.
But BJ must’ve thought he could throw out the guy going to 3rd because he whiffed on a 54-hop throw. It got past him & the guy scored from 2nd on a double-error pickoff.
@126, Varvarro’s throw was pretty wide of Uggla.
Bj’s error doesn’t make a difference due to Varvaro’s inability to get anybody out.
I get that it’s tough to play 3 games in 24 hours.
But wouldn’t you think you’d get tired at the END of that? These guys have been garbage since the first pitch of the first game.
Just.. stay home tomorrow, guys.
This is painful.
We suck. What a miserable week of baseball.
Everybody on this team is stupid.
It’s time for a lot less Uptons. Like 100% less. I want an Upton-free lineup tomorrow.
Shouldn’t that tiredness be affecting the ROAD team more?
At least Varvaro is being a team player and easing BJ’s mind by making clear that run was going to score regardless. What a guy.
Edit: Also, before anyone hyperventilates, remember that this horrible, shitty, no good, worst team ever is comfortably in first place.
When was the last time we threw someone out at home? I feel like that hasn’t happened in a very long time.
Also, I hate the Mets. I hate losing to the Mets. And I hate that we haven’t led for a single pitch in 26 innings against the Mets in the past 23 hours.
@136 Gattis, I think.
I would buy a ticket to boo this team.
Gag me with a frigging spoon.
Guys, just forfeit and spare us all the rest of this game if this is going to be your level of effort.
DOOOOMED!
I think they’re all still asleep. The offense is DEAD.
HEY FREDI, I’m sure your guys love it when you leave them out there to wreck the game when it’s clear they don’t have it.
This has been an inauspicious start to the whole “easy” portion of our schedule. I am so glad we have a lot more home games and a lot more games against sub-.500 teams coming up.
If we stay on script then this is where we rally for a couple of innings only to fall just a little short.
Well, at least the Nats are down again, so we are still up 7 over both the Nats and Phils if that holds up
Thank goodness that the division sucks.
Billy Beane’a tantrums in “Moneyball” have nothing on what I pulled off in the top of the eighth. Glad I was at work and not home with an impressionable 11-month-old around.
Who on a coaching staff is most directly responsible for players’ conditioning?
Isn’t there a conditioning coach?
Edit: yes, Phil Falco is our Strength and Conditioning coach.
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/team/coaches.jsp?c_id=atl
Why did Fredi leave Varvaro in to get completely shelled in the 8th if he wasn’t going to pitch the 9th too? I know it doesn’t matter tonight since we can’t score, but our manager is a window-licking waterhead and it drives me nuts.
@151, I was thinking the same thing* but anymore I just keep quiet.
* Also was wondering why Gearrin wasn’t brought in to bail him out if he was going to pitch the 9th.
I’m really glad I stayed up last night to see Freddie win us that game. That has been our only bright spot in this whole mess.
I swear I just saw a fan in the stands wearing an Armando Reynoso t-shirt.
Just don’t know how much more of this crap I can endure. That was just downright shameful.
Walden’s shoulder must not allow for a heavy workload. He kicks ass when he goes out there once a week.
7 games up on 2 teams after getting swept in a doubleheader. These bats will wake up and we will go on a roll again and be 10 on each in short order.
Feeling good this morning, the Sumatra is just right.
What is the Sumatra? The only Sumatra I know is the island in Indonesia where I’d like to send Fredi, our starting outfielders, and a few other guys.
I remember Walden’s elbow being fragile when we acquired him; that’s why we got him for our own timebomb Tommy Hanson.
Hmmm, when Gattis told Fredi that “you need me on the team to win”, I didn’t know he meant it literally…
0-2 with Oso on the DL
Gattis wasn’t playing much anyway so we’ll hardly notice his DL stint. I wish we could DL the entire outfield.
Sumatra is where they grow the really good coffee.
Recapped. Ish.