Braves quit, Braves quit, Braves quit!
While i try not to lose interest or be disgusted, it is a struggle to find any positives. There were some so let’s start in the 8th inning when Joey Terdoslavich singled, Emilio Bonifacio singled, Phil Gosselin singled, and Freddie Freeman came up to the plate. He took the first strike swinging, then a ball, then took the second strike looking. Clearly it was low and away and the disgusted look on Freddie’s face told me this was all over. Too many expectations, too much emotional strain, too much
disappointment, too much to make this into a real rally,… the kind that championship teams know how to ignite. To my surprise, Freddie took the next pitch right up over the middle and there we were with 2 runs on the board. Wow. That really happened, one small moment of sheer joy. What’s more we had only ONE out, runners on first and second and we found ourselves in the middle of an actual rally.

However, it was just a faint glimmer as Justin and Chris Johnson grounded out end the inning.

Mike Minor came out in the first with a shoulder strain. I’m not sure what to think of Mike Minor…. Does he need to move on? Is he done? Will he recover the promise he had when we drafted him 7th overall in 2009 out of Vandy. Hmmm..

David Hale came in in relief and promptly gave up 2 runs on 4 hits. He settled down in the 3rd and the 4th and the only other Mets run came on a Curtis Granderson home run off David Carpenter.

It was painful, but not as painful as getting blanked. At least we showed some level of professionalism.

We’ve talked about this a lot, but i have not seen a Braves team play like this since the Dale Murphy era…well…that is excepting the September collapse of 2011. We have a core of talent but with only one division title since 2005, we need to seriously rethink our strategy. Mark Bowman writes that changes could include Freddi, or perhaps Frank Wren.