So, yesterday, the Braves lost two games to a AA team. Barring Freddie’s ninth inning bailout on Monday night, they’ve been shut down for three games by that same AA team. There is nothing good that can come for my blood pressure dredging that mess up again this morning.
Everything that happened yesterday sucked. The very best thing I saw all day long was a bit of an inverted W in Matt Harvey’s motion, so maybe he’ll go Tommy Hanson on us soon. Otherwise, I got nothing here. Find a Mets fan and punch them in the face. (And stop playing fantasy baseball; it turns your heart into a traitor to your team.)
Good pitching beats shitty hitting. Hell in the second game it wasn’t even truly good pitching, Wheeler was all over the place. We just suck something fierce right now.
#CurseOfFatJuan?
I sure do wish we could address 3b with someone that doesn’t butcher the position defensively and that could lead off and get on base but there doesn’t really seem to be a player that fits that description available. Ugh…
By no means am I saying Chris is the largest problem on the team but 3b seems like the most realistic fix via the trade market.
Interesting, terrifying fact: Marlon Byrd, as of this morning, has a higher OPS than Justin Upton.
@3 I just shrieked.
Unfortunately, the inverted-W-causes-elbow-stress idea is just another popular fiction. Harvey is going to be beating us for years to come. And probably Wheeler too if he can find the same degree of control. But that’s no big deal, the Mets will still be at best the 2012-2013 Phillies: Lee, Hamels and a few good hitters but otherwise a pile of crap.
@2 trade for Prado!
In all seriousness, I agree. If Jeff Keppinger wasn’t having an awful year himself I could see the team going after him from CWS. I can’t think of anyone else off the top of my head.
Keppinger was a Tampa Bay turf creation. I got to see Byrd hit two bombs off Dan Haren in person, which, you know, haven’t we all done that, at this point. But his ISO is about 100 points higher than his career average. I’ll have what he’s having!
No offense, but if fantasy baseball is what helps fans get some perspective and understanding that your team isn’t the center of the universe, maybe some on here should try it. The end of yesterday’s game threat was…dark.
I have been able to keep my shit together, re: the Braves. Sometimes a team has to play a doubleheader when it’s struggling. Sometimes some of the other team’s players are good, or at least unfamiliar to us, and are also trying to win, and can turn that into results against the struggling team. The Mets overall are a few games better than replacement level, but let’s give them some credit. They’d be a really awesome AAA team!
But soft! what sight that yonder Standings make?
we’re in the East and still hold Number One.
Surprised, fair Brave, must longer we partake
the argued Bunt, the foolish Hit and Run?
Arise fair Sun and kill the envious Moon
we are but lately sick and pale with grief
it seem that He who starts we cannot Hit
nor Cease their mighty Bats with our relief.
One lighter note that came from yesterday was the Upton brother collision. Justin went down like a rock and sent BJ flying. BJ’s brotherly shove as they ran off the field was hilarious.
I could seriously watch this several more times and it would still make me laugh.
http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=28150279
@5: Those of us with longer memories remember the Pulsipher-Wilson-Isringhausen Mets dynasty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_K that managed to put together a combined Mets record of 31-45.
Thanks, Sam, but I’m a little disappointed you didn’t advise sacrificing a virgin or at least an Upton.
Question: If you don’t hit and don’t play stellar defense, are you automatically an Upton; or are you just a starting Braves outfielder?
You have to admit that Harvey looks really good. Will he dominate us for 10 years? Who the hell knows. Right at this very moment he’s damn good. Hopefully he’ll shut down the Nats and Phillies a bunch too. The past history of overhyped Met pitching busts is completely irrelevant – it’s heartwarming, but irrelevant.
If we don’t score a bunch of runs tonight I’m going to have to stop watching for a while. Getting shut down by flame-throwers we’ve never seen is one thing. Getting shut down by a converted shortstop that’s like 0-10 with a 6+ ERA might be more than I can deal with.
@9, Those kinds of moments are precisely the thing that had to have animated Wren to get both those guys on the team. Sure, they’re both making yearly salaries in the low teens of millions, but you can fold a lot of that into marketing expenses. Two Upton brothers bashing the hell out of the ball, with Jason Heyward as their trusty wingman, can get a lot of attention and sell a lot of tickets.
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to properly exploit that. Events often overtake meticulous planning.
No, I don’t “have to admit” anything. That’s the voice of defeat talking.
I have no problem thinking that Harvey is going to be a great MLB pitcher for a long time. Sure, injuries can happen, but he has as good a shot as anybody to join the ranks of the elite. In fact, he probably already has.
That said, Wheeler remains a question mark. Hopefully he’ll continue to struggle with control.
I wish Justin had knocked BJ out and insurance would pick up his contract. That’d be the only way we’d get our money’s worth.
Yep, more BJ hate!
The problem with “thinking that Harvey is going to be a great MLB pitcher for a long time” is that you’re assuming that he’s healthy and effective for years to come. No Braves fan should be assuming that about a Mets pitcher. They should be arguing, hoping, praying, demanding to all gods, old and new that the guy do that Dave Dravecky “arm goes with the ball” thing while simultaneously having his skull cracked open by a line drive. He’s a MET! He is unholy. He is an abomination before gods and men. You do everything in your meager power to assure his destruction. Matt Havery delenda est!
Maybe our problem is that we haven’t been praying to enough gods.
It’s likely. You guys probably need to branch out. The more the merrier and all that.
@17, I have room for both. Empirically speaking, I can recognize that Harvey is a formidable opponent, while simultaneously praying for everything you described.
Oh get over it Sam. Being a fan doesn’t have to make you stupid about baseball. Harvey is a good player. The team he is on is irrelevant for understanding that fact, it simply influences whether or not we like it.
I didn’t hear it, so I’m just hearing the blowback, but apparently the morning crew at 790theZone decided to make fun of the ALS victim that used to play for the Saints.
And not just a quip, but a contrived knock-knock bit.
How dark must your heart be to sit down and work on that?
I’m almost universally against someone getting fired for what they said, but my usual “TO ARMS!!” response isn’t working on this one.
DeMino is a talent I’ll miss. Cellini can rot in his own hell.
Harvey is a good pitcher “right now”…”this year”…”2013″…that’s my apparently controversial position.
@22, 790 will be probably be a spanish-language news/talk station in about 6 months – those guys were all going to get fired anyways.
People who root for sports “empirically” are doing it wrong. Sports are about tribal identification and hating everyone outside of the palisades.
Some of us not only have a favorite team, but we also genuinely like the game of baseball. In our more lucid moments we even recognize and appreciate that if it were not for all the players not on our favorite team the game would not exist, or that if they all sucked, it would be far less enjoyable.
The level of hate for an opponent is usually proportional to how often they beat you. I feel nothing for the Mets. We’ve rarely competed directly against them for anything important, and they’ve mostly sucked year in and year out. I wasn’t born yet in 1969 so I don’t hold must angst about that one. The few times the Mets have been good, we’ve usually been dreadfully wretched.
Hate is reserved for the Giants, Dodgers, Reds, Phillies. The Nats could move up my list, but I still don’t think they warrant much bother.
If the Mets are able to build a contender that gives us some trouble in the coming years then I will welcome them into my pantheon of hate with open arms.
Hate, no. Loathing and disgust. Totally different. You can respect someone you hate. You can’t respect a Met.
I’d be happy with winning 130 games a year and annually taking home the WS trophy, personally.
I feel nothing for a Met. Just a void of emotion. I couldn’t even name 5 guys in the Mets lineup. You could make up a list of 20 fake names and I wouldn’t be able to tell you if any of them were Mets or not.
I haven’t been able to take the Mets seriously since Kenny Rogers walked Andruw Jones with the bases loaded in the 11th inning of game 7 in the 1999 NLCS to give us the pennant. That was an awesome LOLMets moment.
Have you guys seen this quiz on MLB rules? I thought I had a good grasp on the rulebook, but I only got 4/10 right.
espn.go.com/sportsnation/quiz/_/id/4979/do-know-mlb-rules#top
The problem with “thinking that Harvey is going to be a great MLB pitcher for a long time” is that you’re assuming that he’s healthy and effective for years to come. No Braves fan should be assuming that about a Mets pitcher. They should be arguing, hoping, praying, demanding to all gods, old and new that the guy do that Dave Dravecky “arm goes with the ball” thing while simultaneously having his skull cracked open by a line drive. He’s a MET! He is unholy. He is an abomination before gods and men. You do everything in your meager power to assure his destruction. Matt Havery delenda est!
So many words, so little to say. I’d point out that someone can simultaneously argue, hope, pray, and demand to all gods, old and new, that Matt Harvey get injured, and yet still assume that he won’t, and that no rationale being would confuse the prayers or assumptions of a fan with an actual ability to shape the course of events – with the agency to control Matt Harvey’s fate – but it would do little good.
@13
The best laid plans of mice and Wren?
Lineups posted.
Heyward benched today, presumably for rest since he’s batting very well this month.
Chris Johnson remains at 3rd despite sucking at bat and in the field. Pena must be hurt,
Pena injured his shoulder diving for a ball in LA. The announcers talked about it when he didn’t PH yesterday. He’s clearly hurting.
Just hoping to weather through the injuries and the slumps.
Maybe it’s time to give Pastor some love at 3b. He was horrible at SS last year, but he may be better than CJ @ 3rd. Also, CJ’s OPS since April is .750, which is in line with his career norms and is about what Pastornicky projects to be as well.
Changes in the middle of the order:
Schafer 9
Simmons 6
Freeman 3
J. Upton 7
McCann 2
B.J. Upton 8
Uggla 4
C. Johnson 5
Medlen 1
Too many Uptons and C. Johnsons, but just the right number of Heywards. We may score tonight.
@39
If you hate everyone on the team, why bother watching?
@31, I only got 4 too and I feel like I know most of the rules. That’s a pretty hard quiz.
@ 37 – Pastornicky “may be better than C. Johnson at third base”? I don’t think there is any question about that. I think Brian McCann could play a better 3b than Johnson.
@ 40: I don’t hate anyone, but I don’t pretend the Uptons, Heyward, or Uggla are playing above replacement level since May 1 either.
The team has other options. We could at least explore whether someone else might possibly play better at present.
@31, I definitely didn’t know that a runner could pick up another runner and carry him around the bases. Not sure if that knowledge will ever be practically applied…but at least we can dream of a play where McCann scores while riding on Heyward’s back.
@30 that was game 6 of the 1999 NLCS
Anyone know anything about Avilan? Seemed like a good option for either of the games yesterday, unless he’s banged up.
@31 I got 3, though I do feel like some of the questions are deceptively written. Neat stuff.
I used to think London soccer was pretty tribal…
not by these standards…
@37 his arm couldn’t do SS last year, 3rd now?
@31. surprisingly i got 7 of 10. but yes, tough questions
Probably a good time for Heyward to sit tonight. He’s 1-12 with 7 K’s against Marcum. Then again so is Chris Johnson, but with 5 K’s
Anyone missing this act? Juan Fransisco is 3 for 30 with Milwaukee. 12k’s .100/.216/.200
I wouldn’t mind giving Pastor a look at 3b. Even though he’s struggling I think Chase Headley should be on our radar.
51- Any word on his defense? Chris’ has sucked large, heavy rocks since Juan left. And every time I suggest Pastor Nicky, someone points out that his defensive rep is really, really bad.
39- And a deficiency of Gattiseseses, but we can’t help that.
47 — I agree, I think they are written to lead you to choose the wrong answer. Also got 3/10.
The whipping boy stood on the upper deck
Whence all the fairweather fans had fled;
The sun now lit the rainstorms wreck
His team just 7 games ahead.
I think Spike Milligan had the best idea about that poem. To revise your version:
The whipping boy stood on the upper deck
Whence all the fairweather fans had fled:
– Twit.
Nice. Let’s score some runs.
@51
And yet I have no doubt that FatJuan will do his best Gregor Blanco impression this weekend to raise his middle finger to his old team.
That last called third strike for Medlen was Maddux-like.
James Gandolfini, RIP. wow.
Chet flippo and Slim Whitman too
Braves Girl Canicka should enter a beauty pageant.
UPDATE: SUCCESS!!!!
Holy Cow, Chet Flippo died? Hadn’t heard that.
That sucks.
If Meds picks up his offense, he has a shot at winning this game.
The Uptons have the long foul-ball act down pat tonight.
BMac is not fast.
Twit
CHRIS?!?!
Chris Johnson silences his critics!!!
Pretty sure my screen is broken… it shows Braves runs.
LOL!
Chris, you don’t always suck. Thank you.
Lol…
@mlbbowman: Confirmed the Braves first round selection Jason Hursh signed for $1.7 million. The AJC’s Carroll Rogers had it first
@RealCJ10: @mlbbowman Wow! Big ups to you for giving Carroll credit. Wonder if DOB did the same? Ha, what was I thinking? Of course he didn’t. Lmao
nice job by the whipping boy CJ; I was surprised at the lack of power from him so far.
Chip…that last Medlen pitch (5th inning, game 4) was the first pitch from a Braves started with a lead in this series.
Joe…that’s only the 3rd time this season where the braves have had a 3run inning or more with Medlen on the mound.
For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT give this lead back now, gentlemen.
That was not pretty.
I hate this team right now. I hate myself for caring about it and building up my hopes.
Goddamn, Kris.
Nice hustle there. That totally should have taken 15 seconds for someone to retrieve.
At least he didn’t spike himself.
Prosperity: can’t stand it.
And thusly did Kris Medlen pitch himself back into the pen.
Nice job boys.
I don’t think making an error puts him back in the pen. His pitching has been fine. He literally had to make 5 outs that inning.
His pitching has been strong.
He had to make five outs and it was his own fault.
Success! Now can the offense work a second time today? I know that’s asking a lot.
So this is what a leadoff man looks like.
THOU SHALT NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT ANDRELTON SIMMONS BUNTING!
I’m complaining. The sac bunt from 2nd to 3rd is one of the worst plays in baseball. With Jordan Schafer as the runner, it’s sheer insanity.
If Justin hits into a DP, my office chair will take flight.
91- Especially since this gives the Mets incentive to intentionally walk our only currently productive hitter.
Hooray, Justin only failed!
Bunt off, Fredi.
Anything else you want to do to help out Marcum, sir?
@90: when Simmons came up, there were no outs and a runner who could score on any base hit.
When he sat down, there was one out and a runner who could score on any base hit.
Why would you do that intentionally?
I doubt Simmons would’ve produced anyways but Fredi limits our chances at big innings far too often.
Thanks Jordan!
So is this just seeing whether the LolMets or LolBraves can more effectively give this game away? Is that it?
Success!
Jordan Schafer just scored because of that bunt.
Thanks for the shift, Jordan was about half way home.
It’s nice on a wild pitch to have the runner start almost as close to home as the pitcher.
BJ is apparently the good Upton these days.
BJ!
Would have scored anyways, bunt was pointless.
(kidding, sort of)
@96, I’d like to think Sam is self-deprecatingly satirizing his role as Fredi apologist supreme.
We all know that FF & BM walked because a runner was on third.
If BJ would have doubled him in anyway, the bunt did not ruin the chance for a “big inning.”
@100, Marcum has thrown a wild pitch in 1.8% of the major league innings he’s ever thrown. If that’s honestly the percentage Fredi was playing, I want to be the dealer at the blackjack table he’s playing at.
(If we’re playing this post hoc justification game, Schafer scores anyway on B.J.’s hit and there’s a 30-ish percent chance Uggla’s batting with just one out now.)
Also, for anyone watching the video feed, how’s Schafer running? The announcers thought he pulled something yesterday but I didn’t hear anything more about it.
I don’t want to jinx anything, but I think they actually might have fucking fixed Bupton.
Edit: Schafer went full out on his double, he was going to third on any kind of bobble. He got to full speed instantly on the wild pitch so I doubt there’s anything wrong.
108: Without the extra out, Johnson would have had a chance to hit following the Uggla strikeout, and we might be looking at a 7-3 lead.
Better give Medlen those same inside strikes that miss the plate, Rackley.
108- Sure didn’t help. If you trust Simmons so little as to have him bunt in a situation where it would do minimal good if executed perfectly, why is he playing more than Rafael Belliard did?
On the plus side, BJ chose a good time to resume his long march toward the Mendoza line.
I thought he pulled something yesterday, but he looks just fine today. Looked good on the double and the wild pitch.
Uggla, again, taking called strike 3 with 2 RISP does get my goat…
JH would have started if Success was hurting.
#116 – wasn’t a strike, neither was the strike 3 called on Justin.
If you trust Simmons so little as to have him bunt in a situation where it would do minimal good if executed perfectly, why is he playing more than Rafael Belliard did?
Because the mid-90s Braves had Jeff Blauser, while the 2013 Braves have Tyler Pastornicky.
@118 – GameDay has both of those pitches catching the corners.
edit
Nice route, Magellan.
@120 — Gameday is wrong, the “strike” to Upton was closer to the batter’s box than the plate.
Success better not get hurt, he’s our MVP….
no, but seriously, he’s been a pleasant surprise
Sam, trust me. They were both inside.
Yeah the called third strike to Justin was six inches inside. It’s still in the realm of “too close to take” though, imho. Especially when you’ve been wrung up about 10 time lately on close third strikes. Be more aggressive and swing the g’damn bat.
I believe you. I’m just telling you where GD placed them on the grid. (I’d rather Justin not swing at bad pitches and wait for the umpires to stop screwing him over.)
It’s the type of pitch that you would drool over if you are a RH power hitter…the kind of pitch that gets sent deep into the night, if you are looking middle in and ready to swing. Justin was clearly doing neither. You can’t really condemn him for taking it…but I just wish he wouldn’t watch so many meatballs like that go by.
Off the plate again on that third strike, though closer.
No word on Avilan?
That was outside to Schafer also
Nice outing for Medlen. Guessing he won’t go back out with 100 pitches already.
Nice game, Kris. A little insurance wouldn’t hurt.
Nice recovery by Medlen.
Papelblown.
He’s back out for the 8th
Well never mind then. Back for more.
Medlen has totally passed the eye test tonight. My hunch is that Beachy starts out in the pen and is the next man up if/when one of the current five gets hurt or turns into a pumpkin. If it ain’t broke, etc.
Which was pointless.
Nice hustle from BJ there. Am I the only one who thought he could’ve gotten to that bloop?
He could’ve at least made it close. If he dives and misses, it’s not like the batter would’ve taken second. Mets announcers were dogging him for lack of effort.
Nicely turned.
Y’all realize it’s rained here every day for like the past month and that outfield is probably still half swamp, right?
Everyone has looked like they’re half-speeding it in the outfield all night; my guess is the TV cameras aren’t picking up what a soggy track this is.
Jack one JH, give Kraken the night off
#143 – You may be right but Schafer and Uggla clearly were running harder than BJ on that play.
Chip is trolling for sure by saying Chris Chambliss.
Chambliss made the All-Star game once in his career and it was as a Yankee.
Kimbrel makes things all better. Now let’s win this series tomorrow!
Good win. Thank you. Let’s win the series tomorrow.
When I was a teen I read a story about someone having a heart attack near home and runner behind him picked him up and carried him home. The days before CPR.
Recapped.