Gonna be a long year.
I thought about stopping right there, but well, let’s look at the ugly truth.
Aaron Harang looked dominant, as he has most of the year so far. And the Braves continued their Keystone Kops routine in the field with 4 errors, a wild pitch, and passed ball, to lose their fourth in a row.
The hometowners managed a grand total of four runners – a walk to Alberto Callaspo in the 4th, a double by A.J. Pierzynski and single to Chris Johnson in the 5th, and a lead off walk to Cameron Maybin in the 9th. Three of those runners were immediately erased on double plays, and Pierzynski couldn’t score on Dorn’s single, and that’s all we need to say about that.
Alex Wood only went 5 2/3, and the pen kept wiggling out of jams. Cody Martin induced a fly out to end a bases loaded threat in the 6th. Luis Avilan and Jim Johnson kept the Phils off the board in the 7th and 8th. But, the way the Braves were not doing anything with the lumber, you just had a feeling that the roof would eventually collapse, and in the 9th, it finally did.
The Phils won it when Freddy Galvis singled to lead it off, was sacrificed to second, went to third on
Pierzynski’s passed ball (which looked to hit him in a bad spot – his glove), and scored on Ben Revere’s grounder that Freddie Freeman booted for his second error of the evening.
Anyway, when a team that is supposed to pitch and play tight defense to have any hope to win doesn’t do one (or both), then you’re going to get a lot of games like this.
First….
….base was where errors were made tonight
JC’ed because I’m proud of myself: I think a good slogan for this offense is “See our ad in Golf Digest” since it helps out the other team’s staff so much.
Thanks for giving a bad game a good recap, Seat Painter.
So why is it that the team couldn’t re-sign Harang?
The pen is scary, the offense is scary, and the starting pitching’s longevity is scary. Scary season.
I was hoping they would resign Harang … he must have wanted too much money !! Which we have alot to spend now … what is wrong with Freddie .. never seen him non chalant in his actions ..sure he was before but he seems bored out there and played like it // striking out ..cant catch a ball
I don’t remember Freddie wearing a batting glove inside his fielding glove before.
Regarding resigning Harang:
1) if we were planning to contend we should have.
2) if we were planning to rebuild we shouldn’t have.
I think the answer is #2. Harang would’ve been a much better option than wandy or Shults but I don’t think we were trying to win. And so….here we are.
Let me clarify: the team as it is constructed is likely playing their lil hearts out, but management decided to fill the back-end of the rotation with refuse, and they did so quite intentionally
I don’t understand why they signed any FA’s. Lose with young guys. At least you learn a few things.
Freddie is in zombie mode over the last several games. He’s our $100M+++ man. Come on, baby – – let’s act like the Frankie Franchise!
Go Hawks!
@10, Haiiiiil yayusssss! Hawks!
What was it Casey said? Something about “you make 4-5 errors and these guys’ll kill ya”.
Sheesh
Gotta tip my cap to the Braves’ medical staff. Uggla’s at .118/.189/.176
I’m not rooting for Uggla to fail, but so long as he’s failing, I’m glad he’s inflicting harm upon the Nationals. My question is, what do the Nationals see in Uggla? Why did they ever imagine he would rebound to be a useful or even replacement player? How much evidence do they need to be convinced he is washed up?
@8, it costs a lot of money to tank in baseball and it’s not that helpful in terms of draft picks. Mentorship isn’t without value either.
What bothers me is not so much Johnny Gomes and AJP, who are useful players and leaders, but EYJ who is a lousy player. He can’t be much better than Eury Perez. Might as well see what u got in him.
When you are rebuilding it makes perfect sense to have these type veteran 1 yr deals. Best case scenario they bounce back and become trade pieces at the deadline. Worst case you dump them mid season or at the end of the year. Otherwise you are just putting Gwinnett in Atlanta and watching a 110-120 loss product
Good points #16 and #17
The Braves stunk up the place the last four games, but they played well against the Blue Jays in Toronto.
Even during the stinky games, there were bright spots: Simba as Hrbek and as a hittin’ fool, occasionally effective pitching, hitting and fielding, and nobody broke.
However, I no longer believe the Braves will win 150 games, although I have not yet despaired of winning 81.
Markakis has been as good as could be hoped for. I hope he’s saving some for the end of his deal.
Markakis leading off tonight. I like it.
I sure wish Jace would get his bat going soon.
Maybe Jace isn’t good.
We’ve got all the time in the world to find out. I also wouldn’t mind moving him to third when we call up Peraza.
I know this season might be a wash, and the player stats thus far are to small which can skew information, but according to our player performances against RHP’s this season, we do not have our optimal players out there.
Chris Johnson should be starting at third due to him being one of our best against RHP this year. We should see if he can keep that up which would make him much more valuable as trade material if he can turn that deficiency around. Also, Collaspo should be at 2nd, and lastly, peterson should be in LF instead of at 2nd.
We all know Peraza will be the 2nd baseman eventually so we need to start playing Peterson at other positions to see if he can handle it and hit. He could be our next Martin Prado in that csse
CJohnson hits better than he fields, but then he cannot catch a cold.
Agree with Jace playing third. We won’t know if he’s good for a while. Hes probably better than he’s shown so far, but it remains to be seen whether he’s a versatile backup or a starter
Dammit that ball was stung. That Phillies CF is good.
That was quick.
Come on, Shelby.
Even Simba made a error.
Simmons is terrible. Wtf.
Et tu, Andrelton? I guess if you’re going to throw one away, you ought to throw it all the way away.
No harm done. Score a run sometime this series, boys.
Or just get on base again sometime soon.
Nolan Harang and Cy Buchanan are tough, coop. We may need to steal home.
A win would be a nice consolation to a feckless Hawks performance
Andrelton’s still good when he doesn’t have to throw.
I should have asked the Braves to make Buchanan throw more than eight pitches in an inning.
Yes one thing about all this “contact” is that it can make for quick innings if you hit em at people.
Simba’s baaack. And Shelby’s good, even if IWOTP.
markakis just worked a beautiful 9-pitch walk. Simba erased that effort
Yep, but the perfect game is gone.
I used to love baseball.
Just as the Braves weren’t going to win all the rest of their games, I keep telling myself they can’t lose the rest, either. It’s just hard to believe that’s true when our offense has managed to get two hits in 13 innings against the Phillies.
Jace hits em at em
Markakis really is a good defender. Not exceptional due to limited range but good.
AJP has butterfinger hands. It is not exactly something you want in your catcher.
KJohnson looks good at third. I hope he gets a few more opportunities to play there.
I’m ready for EYJ to become a full time pinch runner.
Sutton was seriously just discussing the Lincoln Douglas debates during his purported play-by-play. The mind, it boggles. It’s not that he does bad play-by-play per se. It’s that he doesn’t do any at all.
I don’t really like it when the shortstop makes an incredible play against us. I much prefer us to do it against the other team.
That was a great play.
But did he do the Lincoln-Douglas debates justice?
Why does it seem like we’re getting everyone’s web gems?
Which I have next to no idea of what happened, thanks to Grandpa Abe Simpson.
We need to have some sort of contest to see who can guess how far into the season we’ll be before the Braves repeat a starting lineup. With the way the roster is constructed, I think it could take quite awhile for us to see a lineup that’s already been used once this season.
Miller’s really pitching a great game. Too bad his offense missed the plane to Philadelphia.
Freddie caught one!
And we scored! Please don’t go homer-happy, Simba.
20 innings between Braves runs? This season is going to be really long.
For a second I thought we’d gone back2back. That would’ve been nice. I guess we’re looking at another 2-1 final
His control issues finally made an appearance.
Wat just hoppen?!?!?
We scored one of them run thingies! And another one! Will wonders never cease?
Andrelton opened the floodgates.
My mlb.tv died, and I missed the explosion. What happened?
We scored 2 runs. And johnny Gomes just gunned out Ruiz on a possible double
coop, we got this thing called a lead. I’m not sure what that means.
Always nice when the other team contributes a TOOTBLAN.
Woohoo, Gomes!
Nick Onbaseis
I think one thing that should become a constant in this lineup is Markakis in the lead off spot.
It has been nice seeing his at bats tonight.
Please tell me Simba didn’t try to jerk that one out. Please.
Andrelton hit it off the end of the bat. He was reaching for it. Really hoping it was because he was fooled, and not because of his homer…
simba is thinking “damn. Just missed that one.”
On another note, AJ pierzynsjki and Gomes really do seem clutch. And I know that’s not a real thing.
AJP is not a defensive wizard, but he’s got a hot bat, doesn’t he?
Got the top of the lineup guys.
Vs. RHP
Markakis followed by EY Jr. playing CF, but you make EY Jr. bunt everytime Markakis is on 1st base in front of him. Worst case, Markakis moves up, and EY Jr. gets out. Best case, Markakis moves up and EY Jr. ends up safe on the bunt.
Vs. LHP
Markakis followed by Maybin playing CF because he can actually hit LHP’s.
After that, Freeman followed by whatever we can toss together.
Runs!!!
@45, See I probably would have loved that if I’d been listening.
I see Jim Johnson is still our 8th inning guy. He should make it interesting
Here ya go then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates
That was bad luck, JJohnson. Get the next guy.
Johnson’s really mystifying em
The Jim Johnson set up experiment needs to end. How many 2 strike pitches does he have to throw down the middle before he changes his strategy?
@77 I don’t think he has a lot in his arsenal right now or a great idea of where it’s going.
That wasn’t pretty, but it worked; and Johnson held it together. Good job, Jim.
Nm.
And Andrelton is swinging for the fences again…
I’m afraid so,
Good win. Give ’em heck tomorrow.
wainwright injured in an at-bat… will the DH be initiated tomorrow? ha
Yay, a win. Let’s try to keep this .500+ thing going.
We are over .500 far later into the season than most imagined 🙂
Recap is up.