After a fantastic April and a frustrating May, sans the dreadlocks, Ervin headed to the mound to face off against Wade Miley.
DREAD-less was a little shaky in the early innings, scattering 5 hits a couple walks and was the victim of a couple errors by Dan Uggla.
Although he seemed off-balance at first, Ervin had an effective outing getting stronger as he went. He ended up going 7 scattered six hits and gave up just one unearned run. It’s his third outing this season that he hasn’t allowed an earned run.
Gonzalez called the performance “terrific”.
2nd Inning: Arizona scored the first run of the game on a throwing error by Dan Uggla.
3rd Inning: Andrelton Simmons doubled to right, went to third on an D-bags error and scored to tie the game on a fielder’s choice.
6th Inning: Justin singled to right and scored when Evan Gattis doubled to left. 2-1 Braves.
8th Inning. Shea Simmons on to set up the win.
9th Inning: Craig Kimbrel, who came on for the save, couldn’t hang on to the one run lead. A walk, a stolen base, a double and a wild pitch brought home the tying run. Score tied at 2-2. Grrrrr!
10th Inning: JHey hit a shot to right in the 10th, a 380 foot blast. Interestingly, Chip seemed to think this was what is referred to as an, “opposite field home run”.
Arizona’s Montero hits the same shot off Anthony Varvaro, a 379 foot blast to blow the lead and tie the game for a third time.
In the top of the eleventh, Randall Delgado (remember him??) strikes out the Atlanta side. Then in their half, David Carpenter comes on to allow a single, a walk and a single to win the game 4-3, proving my theory that West Coast extra innings games are sort of like rectal exams. there’s nothing good about them except finally getting out.
Potential Headlines for tonite’s game:
“Blown save by Kimbrel”
“Braves’ bullpen stumbles in extra-innings to Diamondbacks”
“Atlanta blew two saves in a 4-3 loss in 11 innings to a team that is only 10 and 23 in
their home park”
“Dan Uggla caught with biological weapons in his locker. Threatened to unleash “hell-fury”
if he doesn’t get to play in Arizona”
“Fredi and Struggla caught in romantic triangle”
“Don’t play your players who suck no matter how much they get paid!”
“Don’t bench the guy who is 11 for 26 in favor of the guy who is 0 for 26”
“Arizona chipping in to help cover Uggla salary”
“David Carpenter heading to the All-Star game”
Funny comment of the game thread:
Rissa says:
Cody Ross, Braves’ killer, scores the winning run.
Dwight Lowie says: He has a shaved head except on the back, he’s got really short hair cut into
the shape of a hand, like someone is slapping the back of his head. I wish that person
was me, repeatedly and strenuously.
Me – MWAHAHAHAHA!
King Felix with 15 SO in 7 innings.
It’s pretty astonishing how much Aaron Harang sucks at hitting, given that he’s 36 years old and has spent a lot of his career in the National League.
Chris Johnson just offered at a pitch that was not only in the dirt, it was two feet outside. Awesome.
Pretty astonishing how bad Chris Johnson is at hitting right now as well
Assuming Uggla is gone soon, CJ assures us that we will continue to have at least two albatross contracts on our roster at any point in time.
Heck of a play by Prado there.
Yikes, Harang is Tommy Hanson bad at the plate.
Aaron Harang is having an atrocious game.
Braves pitchers, THAT is how you bunt.
I”m glad I’m not watching. This team is painful to watch.
Statistically, we’re an 88 win team and we’ll be the worst playoff team, and that’s assuming Washington doesn’t get hot and takes the division from us.
#8
With Harang playing escape artist at this point, I’ll take today’s definition of atrocious.
Let’s get some runs & get to Denver with a road series in hand.
Harang almost looks worse at the plate than Bartolo Colon. He might as well not even go up to the plate with a bat.
I don’t know how this game is still scoreless. Harang’s luck will surely run out at some point.
Not watching on TV but can anyone tell me if Justin showed any passion just then?
YES! JUSTIN!
Some offense! Novel idea. Thanks, Justin!
That was a laser-beam of a HR.
Chris Johnson with another outstanding at bat after the homer by Jupton. 3 more years of him pulling off the ball trying to yank everything
@17
That’s how you can tell he’s off his game. His go-to is patience with his swing. He, above all else, needs to go to the fake DL and get his mind right.
Simmons should never have a 3-0 green light for that fact right there
@18 absolutely. He as been struggling with his mind all year it would seem. Maybe with the contract he is putting pressure on himself to live up to it
Andrelton Simmons pops the ball up way too much. Jason Heyward grounds out to the second baseman way too often. These are the sort of things you would hope that a good hitting coach could help them work on. But it’s hard to see meaningful improvement in either area so far.
The most obvious pinch-hit situation imaginable, and Harang, living on the edge all day, hits for himself. Evidently, Fredi trusts this bullpen as much as we do.
Why not hit for Harang there?
I know they went extras yesterday, but there’s just no excuse for letting Harang hit here. He’s pitching terribly, it’s a tight game with a very important insurance run at second, and Harang is an awful hitter even for a pitcher. Garbage managing, Fredi.
Why let Harang swing for himself? He’s at 99 pitches and has really struggled to get through the last couple of innings, we could really use an insurance run, and we have Gattis on the bench. That makes no sense.
Or, what all of you said.
I really hate Fredi Gonzalez right now.
Frediot.
That really worked out great all around, Fredi. Pay your salary back for the week, you just lost your team the game, you moron.
I hate the circumstances leading to that decision more. If the bullpen wasn’t a dumpster fire, we’d have had a chance to be up 3-0. I can’t blame Fredi for not trusting nearly the entire lot of pitchers out there; there’s been a lot of meltdowns lately.
Fredi should get hammered for this, but he won’t. Well, except for in the Braves Journal recap.
29: That’s based on a deep misconception about starters and relievers. Fourth time through the order, any replacement level arm is better than the starter. Even if you think your pen is the worst in the league (it’s not), pinch hitting for Harang is mandatory there.
Not the smartest of decisions.
When have they seen enough of Avilan? He has been ineffective most of the season
@31
It’s human nature. He’s got to make the percentage decision tactically (which would have been to PH for Harang, I agree), but at this point, Fredi probably views all bullpen arms not connected to the torso of Kimbrel or Shae Simmons as the piece of cheese that delivers an electric shock when touched.
And again, a good bunt. Amazing that we’re going to be tied for first (assuming the landing is stuck on yet another meltdown) when this team has so much fundamentally wrong with it.
Avilan shouldn’t be in here. More great managing
And David Hale, who’s been dependable all year, gets to come into the game and give up the lead. If these past few inning were a psychiatric test, Fredi would have failed miserably.
David Hale should have started this inning. Gattis should have pinch-hit last inning. Instead, we have two men in and runners on second and third with one out. Awesome.
Fredi under managing and over managing at the same time. I guess he was the only one who didn’t see Harang getting awfully lucky for 6 innings
There are multiple options, but really, it’s a Hobson’s Choice, because they all suck.
This is definitely one of those games you can blame on the manager. The fact the D-Backs hadn’t scored before this inning was due to dumb luck.
This team is really just not great this year, and unfortunately there’s no obviously easy way to fix things. There are areas that can be improved (i.e. bullpen), but another player here or there isn’t going to make this team suddenly win games against struggling teams—games we’ve been losing all season.
With as bad as some of our relievers have been, Hale should have been out there at some point in the last week. He’d been so effective, but relievers are always wild when they haven’t pitched in a week.
This team is going nowhere. The bullpen is a dumpster fire, especially Avilan, and the offense continues to be sporadic at best with very few adjustments apparently being made. They had a chance to create some space with the Nats and Marlins struggling, but here we are with a tie at the top. Something has to change but I don’t feel like anything is going to. Win 87 games and hope it is enough shouldn’t be the team motto
this one’s on me.
I turned the game on up 2-0 and should’ve turned it off as soon as the first guy got on base.
I’m better than that.
Why is Gattis not pinch hitting here? Save him for the 9th with nobody on. More Fredi being Fredi
I like LaStella, but it’s Gattis time
Send Schafer
We have seen 4 outstanding ABs in this inning. Where did this offense come from? Atypical of what we’ve seen this season.
Um, Gattis now?
Gattis must be at the airport
He swung at 5 balls
Ouch.
I wonder if we lead the league in leaving the bases loaded.
I’ve screamed more at the TV/radio today than I have in years.
For the love of all that’s holy.
Wasn’t expecting THAT from Pena. Wow.
A typical Heyward ground out to 2nd
I was expecting that from Jason.
Good thing Gattis is still on the bench. This might have been the worst managed game Fredi has ever had, as amazing as that might be
We lost a series to the Diamondbacks. How embarrassing.
I hope Fredi realizes just how royally he screwed the pooch.
Sooner or later all you Fredi worshippers will see the light.
But our team kinda sucks so it’s not totally his fault.
Can’t defend this one.
Recap up