On this date in history, the Braves traded George Crowe for Corky Valentine and Bob “Hurricane” Hazle. A journeyman who got a two-month supply of fairy dust in the last weeks of 1957 and was out of baseball within two years. He didn’t do much except win us the pennant. And that is how a 26-year old rookie from South Carolina turns into an immortal.
88 Comments
Advertisement
Use code “Journal” for a 5% discount.
I think every player in that video revealed a limp when they slowed to a jog/walk.
I love Red Schoendienst. He’s one of the most injured guys I’ve ever written about.
My first glove was a Red Schoendienst model.
Slump-breaker!
Now THERE’s an at-bat!
What an incredible AB by Heyward!
Damn it. Lagares is a really good center fielder and he’s made a lot of those plays. But Freddie damn near made it 3-0.
Holy schnikies! What a catch.
Freeman crushed that ball, too. Let’s get more runs and get into that squishy bullpen.
Dang, spike. My first glove in the early 90’s had Ken Griffey Jr.’s signature.
ten pitches, ten strikes, 4 outs so far for Erv
19 pitches, 19 strikes
Whoa
Andrelton is pretty good.
That was absolutely preposterous. Good God, Andrelton.
Got a future in this game, def.
No wonder the other teams wanted to draft him as a pitcher!
As impressive as it is to see Andrelton continue to peg guys out at 1st even after slipping and falling on his ass.. I’d just as soon he stay on his feet going forward.
He had one of his almost-outs last night, too. Leaping to catch a throw from Gattis over his head, he still managed mid-air to get his glove underneath his spikes to make a tag. Just applied to late, unfortunately.
You guys I have some information to share.
If you use… an official streaming service… to access your baseball, and you’re frustrated because you live in a certain market and the Official Streaming Service does not want to show you your favorite team, $2 a month buys you a subscription at
http://www.adfreetime.com
and, shall we say, an enhanced ability to watch your favorite team on an Official Streaming Service regardless of the certain market you live in.
End plug. A workaround for this was probably the last piece in my getting-rid-of-cable puzzle and I can verify that this works.
Did anyone catch this last night? There are some pretty funny comments. “Well, maybe the flag shouldn’t have watched its home run.”
Good Lord. Ervin Santana is pitching like Aaron Harang, which is to say, like Bob Gibson in 1968.
What’s going on here, exactly?
How bout that! We could see holes in the flag from our seats but we didn’t have any idea how they got there. Figured the stadium crew forgot the mothballs in the off-season.
Success was not successful.
Meanwhile, Santana…
And now Heyward! Nice little rally!
I’d say Jason Heyward is seeing Wheeler pretty well.
Heyward wanted to put to rest all of that discussion about him being in a slump. He’s succeeding.
Finish him!
http://thisdayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mortal_kombat_finish_him.png
Runs runs runs runs!!!
Freddie Clutchness.
We can score without a home run! Amazing what not having an automatic strikeout in the 2-hole can lead to.
We also often do better against hard throwers than against slop-throwers. That’s why we can kill Strasburg but not Roark, Wheeler but not Colon.
Historically we’ve haven’t hit well against Wheeler, but we definitely own Strasburg.
Jason, you are one hell of a ballplayer.
I’d love to see that one with the new MLB defense toy.
If we don’t let him go for the shutout, that would be stupid.
So hey, this Santana guy’s pretty good.
He was gathering his bat, helmet and gloves on the bench. He’s done for the night.
I know it’s his first time out there, but it’s not like he’s in dangerous territory with the pitch count. I wanted to see him try for it.
IWOTM.
Really chaps my ass that Fredi took him out.
Yeah, there is precisely zero reason on the face of the Earth for Santana not being in the game right now.
He had an outside chance of throwing a Maddux* in his first Braves start. (*A complete game shut out in under 100 pitches. He left with 88 pitches through 8. That pace would have him at 99 through 9.)
Oh good, now Kimbrel doesn’t have to sit around in the bullpen doing nothing, and Fredi gets to do some managery things after all. Good!
Not sure how many pitches Santana threw in his last rehab start, guess Fredi didn’t want to stretch him too far in early April.
I’m sure Fredi will say that it was a chance to keep Santana’s pitch count down with all the injuries and get Kimbrel some work. But you always hate to see a pitcher in a groove leave a game.
This is un-freaking-believable! Every single part of this is totally unnecessary.
Closers are always at their sharpest when they are taken by surprise and come in mid-inning to games they didn’t expect to get in to.
Who the hell cares about keeping Santana’s innings down? Why would we even be trying to do that?
Lovely.
I’m literally about to throw something through my window.
oh no.
This is all on Frediot.
Welcome to the Braves, Ervin!
Oh no. I’m officially worried.
If this goes according to plan, they’ll tie it on an Evan Gattis passed ball.
What happened?
We took out the guy who had a three-hit shutout on 88 pitches.
Whew.
That was unnecessarily exciting.
Who doesn’t love Fredi?
Santana looked awesome tonight. Amazing pickup.
Well that was scary. Don’t tempt the baseball gods.
Well Well…that was nerve racking and it’s only April. Help Me!.
Never in doubt!
ESPN’s box score says Uggla’s batting average is higher than his OBP. How is that even possible?
My window is safe…until I have to watch Carpenter try and save a game three days from now because Kimbrel is too overworked.
Just like they drew it up.
Honestly, I had no problem with the decision to take Santana out. We’ve lost 2 starters for the season already – I’d prefer to err on the side of caution with a four run lead and a great bullpen than stretch Santana too long on his first day back.
Sacrifices are the usual way.
If it hadn’t been Ruben Tejada batting, I might’ve gotten worried there!
Go earn yourself a nice big contract, Santana.
@62 Sac flies. They count against on base percentage but not average.
@64, agreed. There is absolutely no reason in the world to push it with a 4-run lead in April. Slap him on the ass and thank your lucky stars that he had such a great day.
@62 – He had a sac fly. Slugging uses AB’s, so a sac-fly doesn’t hurt you. But OBP uses PA’s, so a sac-fly is a PA in which you failed to reach base.
@67 Roger that. Thank you Grst, learn something every day.
I don’t see what pushing it with one more inning for a guy with an 88 pitch three hitter. He threw over 100 pitches in his last start. Unless he looked fatigued in his mechanics or something it was a boneheaded move.
If you guys wanna hang onto thinking taking starters out an inning before you should has anything to do with maintaining health, you be my guest. It hasn’t at all worked for us yet, though. I don’t think it has anything to do with anything other than being a wuss, and while we’re saving our supposed workhorse starter’s innings for precisely no reason whatsoever, we’re needlessly using Kimbrel for 20 (or whatever it was) pitches, and he’s the guy who we should actually be trying to save. It’s absurd on every possible level.
We won, so I’m gonna try and calm down now.
I hope Fredi will learn from this and realize he can not trust Jordan Walden for the ninth inning regardless of how big of a lead it is. This is not the first time and I hope this is the last time I see Walden pitching in the ninth inning for the Braves.
It was his first start of the year. He had a delayed spring training because he took so long to sign with a team, which means that he waited longer than all of our other pitchers to build up his stamina in games. I just don’t think there’s any reason to push it.
Somewhere out there is an alternate universe where Santana went 8.2 and left the game feeling a twinge in his elbow. I’m glad I don’t live in that universe. It’s April. It’s his first big league start this year. It’s OK to play for the long haul.
Kimbrel hadn’t pitched since 4/4 so I don’t think overwork is an issue right now. I can see the argument for just beginning the inning with him, but that’s about it. “Walden with Kimbrel behind him and a four run lead, we’re going to screw this up!” said no one ever. It was a fluke that the Mets got three off those guys. But whatever. It’s a W and no one got hurt. That’s the kind of day that puts you one step closer to October.
Somewhere out there is an alternate universe where Craig Kimbrel took a line drive off the face in that inning. Better we should’ve used Avilan instead of him after Walden crapped the bed.
Somewhere out there is an alternate universe where Freddie Freeman breaks an ankle because a Met stepped on him rounding first. Guess we should’ve taken him out for the ninth inning, too.
And for the record, I wasn’t actually worried that we were going to lose going into the ninth, I was just pissed that we had taken Santana out. Had Walden done his freaking job, I’d have dropped it (though still thought I was right). I only became volcanically angry when Walden sucked, forcing us to use Kimbrel, and then Kimbrel sucked, causing us to almost lose.
@76 That’s exactly my point. I am not too bothered with Fredi taking out Santana but more about having Walden in there. He has proved last year that he can no longer handle the ninth inning “pressure” even if it is not a save situation.
So baseball tonight didn’t even show Andreltons highlight. Braves got all of about 30 seconds. Now on to 30 minutes of Yankees/Red Sox.
@78 ESPN is going down. It’s just a matter of time.
Santana was on a 100-pitch count in today’s game and would have been a hell of a way to make a statement to the team to let him finish the game. I didn’t like the decision then, still don’t. He hadn’t even reached the pitch count that was set for him.
@77, Jordan Walden pitched two scoreless innings this year going into tonight and was hitting 97 on the gun this evening. Shit happens in a single inning sample sometimes. If my criticism of Fredi is that he’s too orthodox about using particular relievers in particular innings without regard to leverage – and it is – making blanket statements like “Jordan Walden can’t pitch the ninth inning because hurr durr pressure” off a one-game sample size just sets us further back into the bullpen-sabermetric stone age. You’re not helping. All we’ve wanted for six months is a world where Fredi felt daring enough to use Kimbrel in a high-leverage 8th, and now we’re freaking out about needing strictly defined bullpen roles because “ninth inning pressure”. This is why we can’t have nice things.
@76, conflating predictable unnecessary risks with freak occurrences and using the inevitable existence of the latter as an argument to refuse to hedge against the former is where I lose you there. Of course freaky things can happen any time someone is out there. You can’t hedge against that. You can hedge on a situation like “starter who is 2 weeks behind everyone else’s stamina pitches over his head first time out,” get out while you’re still ahead, and turn things over to the best end of an ace bullpen.
Sutton and Powell were not happy Erv went to the ice bath early. Closest I’ve heard them come to criticizing Fredi.
“I don’t think he’s going to get the chance [to finish the game] but I hope he does.”
“Well, that’s not the house we live in.”
“No it is not.”
or thereabouts.
Dammit, Marlins!
So, the Marlins were up 7-6 in the 8th inning. And then they brought in Carlos Marmol, who proceeded to hit a guy, give up a single, intentionally walk a guy, and then give up a grand slam.
Carlos, don’t ever change. Except for when you’re facing the Nats, maybe.
Santana would have pitched the first complete game by anyone this season, and he is behind schedule. Regardless of pitch count, they wouldn’t make him warm up 9 times. Not in his first start.
Still wrapping my head around the fact that it would’ve been the first complete game.
No one pitches complete games any more. There you go.
@81 You are not remembering last year. And you are reading too fast because I never make judgement on one game sample.
Recapped.