The Braves were firing on all cylinders yesterday, so I decided to basically repeat everything from the game thread: alliterative headline, factoid about our opponents, song by the same band, the whole megillah.
The Brewers don’t have a lot of former Braves. In fact, last night’s last pitcher, Lyle Overbay, appears to be the only one on the active roster. (Pete Orr — whose full name, just to remind you, is “Peterson Thomas Gord Orr” — is at Triple-A Nashville. Like GM Bob Melvin, PTG Orr is an Ontarian.) It was the first pitching appearance of Overbay’s career, and he retired his former teammate Ryan Doumit, with whom he had played in Pittsburgh in 2011.
Overbay only made two starts for Atlanta in 2012, spelling Freddie Freeman at first base. The only other two regulars from this year’s lineup that he played next to were Jason Heyward and Andrelton Simmons; Dan Uggla was still the regular second baseman then, but I think it is safe to say that he is not the regular second baseman now. And hopefully never again.
From the last thread. An epiphany on why Wren is keeping Uggla.
.285/.374/.333/.708 – La Stella through 41 games.
I’m going to do a 180 here inspired by Dusty @21.
We keep Uggla, we just don’t play him. Close to the deadline we package Ugs + Hale + a prospect + some money. I would include Bethancourt or Terdoslavich in the prospect role and trade them for salary relief and a sack of balls or a used mitt or some guy. If the Braves only get 5 million in salary relief that’s 5 more than they get by releasing him. AND they let La Stella get some more AAA time. Penanicky isn’t going to be as bad as Uggla so you don’t lose much in the short term.
JC’d for the first time in my young life:
I’m pretty sure if teams wanted Stephen Drew (including the Braves), he wouldn’t have just been signed in May. I get a player like Roger Clemens getting signed later in the season, but it’s a little looney for a player to hold out until the end of May to get a contract. I don’t care who his agent is. It didn’t work for Ervin Santana, and I can’t imagine Drew feels great about his contract.
Pretty sure it was the teams not wanting to give up the draft pick that kept him from signing, a penalty that goes away after the draft.
Boston would have received a compensation round pick had another team signed him so they decided to wait and see if anyone would.
Yeah, but you can lower your price to compensate for the compensation pick. Every good FA was signed before May 20th… except Stephen Drew. He over-estimated his value, which for every good FA includes a compensation pick.
Stephen Drew is a good player. But he’s injury-prone, and teams didn’t want to commit to multiple years on him, and Scott Boras still overinflated his value.
I wouldn’t package any players to another team to dump Uggla unless they took ALL of his salary. Before you know it it will be the all-star break and we only have 1.5 seasons left of crap to pay for.
At some point they will just send him packing.
Speaking of “JC’d”, where is Mr. Bradbury? I haven’t seen anything here from him in a while.
Will recap for tonight or tomorrow’s game thread include yeast? Wait here for the important answer.
One article at Fangraphs is suggesting the Braves are waiting to clear super-two timeline before bringing up La Stella. That seems like a stretch for a 25 year-old prospect.
The Braves hit the ball awfully hard that inning to have nothing to show for it.
Rockets, rockets everywhere. Right at people.
Hitting the ball hard is a pleasant improvement for these guys.
Simba!
THE REASON!!
A clutch, 2-out hit… amazing.
Way to make ’em pay, JUp!
I couldn’t tell you who these guys are, but I think I’ll root for them instead of our normal guys.
Simba, you silly goose.
Turn it over!
Fredi/Tosca/Horacio are nailing it
That didn’t look really good, always scary when a pitcher come up limping like that with no real contact.
Edit: And I still think it was a stupid decision by Andrelton. You have first and third no out, don’t risk getting thrown out at second let alone getting jammed on a head first slide.
They’ve been pitching around Ramiro Bonds tonight.
JUP!! This team could be scary if the offense has finally become competent.
Scoring in three consecutive innings tonight after the offensive night we had last night? Will this ever stop weirding me out?
Can we try getting Dascenzo and Walker to switch jobs for a day?
I fear Timo has gotten a divorce.
Timo, the old Braves Journal commenter?
So do y’all prefer Ramiro Peña over any other option at second?
I think that’s him. Or was it Rissa? Just got married but offered to get a divorce If it improved the Braves’ chances, as they started slumping shortly after the nuptials. A joke, to be sure, but what a fan!
That might be it for Julio tonight I think. In any case, he’s pitched a good one.
@28 I’m pretty sure that was Timo. The team did start to improve shortly after he made that offer…
Man, I’ve never seen players react so visibly to a foul ball into the stands. It must have looked terrible. I hope the kid it hit will be okay.
Another good inning for T-Rex, are they really aiming for a complete game? I would have been perfectly happy had they pitched for him in the eight and certainly now. He’s around 110 pitches or so I think.
Get the hook, Fredi.
I am shocked Julio’s still in there. I mean, I know he’s pitching a shutout, but seriously…
Must be wanting to give Wood his next start.
Well, nice bounce back start from Teheran.
A shutout! Hopefully not of the pyrrhic variety.
128 is a lot of pitches, but what a game. I just hope he’s okay.
Great game by Julio, but really no reason for him to pitch the 9th. If we were winning 6-1 instead of 5-0, I doubt he would have still been out there.
Is it really necessary Fredi? But great job Julio.
And we beat Gallardo, which is not supposed to happen.
Was it Glavine or Maddux who has a 72 pitch complete game?
Well at least his arm still looked strong in the 9th. He was hitting 94 a couple of times
I always hate when managers chase stats — trying to get a starting pitcher through 5 innings so he can get the “win” even though he obviously needs to be pulled, basing their bullpen usage on the save statistic, etc. But at the same time, I like that the Braves aren’t married to strict pitch count limits, and are willing, with the right pitcher under the right circumstances, to let him exceed conventional pitch count limits if he is dominating and has thrown a lot of “low-stress” pitches. So I guess I just advocated for both sides of the argument. Hmm.
@42 I mostly agree with you, except I am thinking if this is really necessary since we are only in May.
I don’t think those pitches with men on first and third were low-stress. That’s really what worried me.
@40: I had to look it up to believe it. Maddux had a 78 pitch complete game in ’97 against the Cubs. Glavine had a 79 pitch complete game in ’93. Incredible. Looks like Glavine didn’t strike out a batter or walk anyone in his game:
http://reconditebaseball.blogspot.com/2007/08/0-bb-0-k-complete-games.html
I hope Les Breastfeeders have an extensive catalog. Hopefully we’ll need more of them.
Just watched the line-drive by Carlos Gomez in the seventh that hit the fan, and I agree that I’ve never seen players react like that to a foul ball. Does anyone know the status of that fan?
Another thing about that: why doesn’t ESPN show THAT from Gomez? They show the home-run-pimpin’ and his crazy antics, but they don’t show how bad he felt about hitting that fan (during and after the at-bat). Freaking media.
Update: Looks like the fan is doing well. Thank goodness. Of course, the conversation in the AJC comments is about putting netting up around 1st and 3rd.
I was at a Rays game tonight, and I was sitting in probably around the same spot that fan was struck at the Braves game. I had not seen my friend in a while, and so him and I were chatting it up the entire game. There were several points I thought 1) I’m a really douchey fan that’s not watching the entire game and 2) I’m probably going to get nailed in the face by a line drive because I’m being a douchey fan. I would have deserved it. Now, when it comes to kids, you maybe shouldn’t buy tickets in those spots. Send them farther down the line or behind the netting at home plate.
@26, 27. Ha! No divorce (yet) but at a meeting and away from my wife again for three days now. Considering how this is working out for the Braves, I should at least go travelling until October.
Like how 21% of the Brewers’ losses in 2014 have come against the Braves.
“Lee pitched 6 2-3 innings in a win over Cincinnati on Sunday. He said his elbow began to bother him after he threw a career-high 128 pitches in an 11-hit, complete-game loss against the Braves on April 16.”
I am just saying.
@48 Distance makes the heart grow fonder and apparently the Braves offense more effective. Take it from an old married guy, she’ll understand. There is always skype.
You look at that Padres lineup and there is no way you would think it would score almost as many runs as ours.
“Now, when it comes to kids, you maybe shouldn’t buy tickets in those spots. Send them farther down the line or behind the netting at home plate.”
So there’s netting but there shouldn’t be some more netting? I agree with those who say it should be extended, at least to the end of the dugouts. How is making several hundred of the best seats in the house a kid-free zone a good solution?
Is it a rule that people here act as if the world is coming to an end every time a Braves pitcher throws a complete game?
It wasn’t even that long ago that starters had 300-inning seasons. Now the league leaders are what, usually around 240?
The problem with both solutions (more netting or no kids) is it makes those “best seats” less “best”. One of the great things about sitting behind the dugout is the opportunity to interact with the players and frequently have them toss a ball up to you. Sometimes (especially before the game) you can toss a pen and ball down to them in the dugout and they will autograph it and toss it back. If there is netting between your seats and the dugout then that aspect of the seats is removed. Likewise not allowing kids. Players typically are more likely to interact with the kids sitting behind the dugout so those are popular seats for kids. I don’t know what the solution is (maybe helmets for the kids who sit there?) but I don’t think banning kids or adding netting are either likely to happen. I was at the game last night sitting in club level basically right behind that kid and when he got hit I honestly thought he was dead. I’ve never seen anything like the immediate spasm/seizure his body went through being caused by getting hit by a ball. He didn’t make a sound until he was halfway up the concourse stairs. Scary stuff and I do hope we get some sort of official message that the kid is ok.
Jesus, that sounds awful. Having a player throw you a ball is definitely the crowning moment for a kid sitting in those seats, and it would suck not to be able to do that. They’d have to get creative. Retractable netting? I dunno.
I’m not saying “ban” kids from those seats. I’m saying that parents should consider not purchasing those tickets and purchasing home plate tickets instead. I certainly wouldn’t expect baseball stadiums to police that, and they shouldn’t.
Really good look at the upcoming draft:
http://tomahawktake.com/2014/05/20/handicapping-2014-mlb-draft/
Well, by making any zone kid free it becomes better by definition. All that’s lacking is an open bar at that point.
@58
I hope we take Marcus Wilson or Derek Fisher. We can probably get the kid form Alabama in round 2.
Recappery.