Well, that was just mortifying, wasn’t it? Nothing like losing a game twice in grim fashion, once when your titular ace gets beaten like a rented mule by our latest bete noir Lobaton, and once in the 9th when the previous one, Harper, drops a walkoff two-run shot way out of the park to add some extra sauce to what should have been an ordinary waxing.
After the Braves fell behind 6-1, Christian Bethancourt of all people decided to at least make it respectable. Doubles in the 7th and 8th were critical to two and three run rallies that tied the score to get Julio off the hook, and in the bottom half he was on the receiving end of a fine throw from KJ to get Michael Taylor at home and keep our 2012 bete noir Uggla from getting another notch in his belt.
Cody Martin went out to pitch the bottom of the ninth, which when you need Cody Martin to pitch two innings just to get you to extras speaks for itself. When 2010 bete noir Escobar reached in the ninth, it felt like a plot from a Dashiell Hammett novel and the rest was just a formality when Sam Spade, disguised as Bryce Harper, stepped up and picked a curve out of the dirt to smash the falcon leaving Kasper “€œThe Johns” Gutman and Joel “Fredi” Cairo to seek the stuff smallball dreams are made of elsewhere.
Here’s hoping Brigid “€œJulio” O’Shaughnessy gets some mercy and comes back a fully reformed pitcher soon.
Nice, spike, but it’s the Maltese Hawks that evaded capture last night.
The Reds signed Jose Constanza, and now we all know that the pics that Jose must’ve had belonged to Frank Wren’s men.
Despite giving up 8 runs in 12.1 innings, Kimbrel in 9 for 10 in save opportunities.
More funny than anything, not trying to make a bigger point.
Maybe we could call up ManBan and have him pitch the 6th through 9th.
I know Teheran can have great stuff, but is it time to admit the kid is not the super Ace that many thought he would be? The inconsistency is bothersome.
He’s had two ace-quality years and he’s 24. Let’s not go crazy here. He’s basically Stephen Strasburg without the durability issues.
@5, exactly.
Also, if nothing else, I think Kimbrel’s issues in San Diego ought to give the commenters who believe that we shouldn’t have traded him a slight bit of pause.
@5 Im not saying he isn’t good or even really good. Given those last two years I expect more than a 4.74 ERA and the inconsistent nature of his performances this year. Especially in a year when the Braves need him to be that guy more than ever.
We don’t need Teheran to do anything this year other than stay healthy and eat innings.
There are a few signs that Teheran won’t be an ace-caliber pitcher, but then again, there are ace-caliber pitchers with more or less the same stuff/peripherals as Teheran. A month’s worth of bad ERA isn’t itself enough of a reason to really worry, but while he can’t make his outfield defense better for when he can turn some line drives back into flyball outs, he can at least try to regain his command so that he can ultimately avoid hard contact.
Well, Im going to worry. Guess yall know more about baseball than me anyway. I certainly hope I am wrong.
It’s a little disconcerting to know your team essentially has one reliever you can trust (minus a certain home run to the guy making the most on our payroll this year), and he is apparently battling something that made him unavailable to pitch yesterday and for who knows how long. I was mentally prepared to root for a bad team this year, but I was not ready to wince every time I see the bullpen doors open. I am a Braves fan; I don’t know how to handle watching bad pitching.
We really need to give Bryce Harper the Barry Bonds treatment right now.
Chip and Joe even think Fredi is dumb
Listening to the worst announcing team in baseball, no mention of my favorite thing about that play: Bryce was in his trot.
Oh, Alex.
Here we go again.
ugh.
I hope we can Fredi at the break. I’d like to give Bo Porter a shot
Ozzie’s done his time.
Maybin should have caught Harper’s flyball.
@18, Osbourne? That, I would pay to see.
Harper hit the ball 435 feet
Into the pocket of Maybin’s glove.
Bryce Harper is pure evil.
I agree Maybin should have caught it, but it was a difficult play. He just missed hitting it out. He should have been walked. That’s a home run in most parks
Who is the better defender, Melvin Upton or Cameron Maybin? Obviously we know who I’d rather have, but I’m speaking only about defense.
I think Maybin, but he’s dropped some balls this year
Do you want to know what the real tragedy is here? I am at my mother-in-law’s house, where I can’t watch the Braves game, and I have to watch Wandy Rodriguez blank the Rays.
The Braves have their second baseman.
Bethancourt, you moron.
They’re letting Zimmermann off the hook here.
@27
For Trevor Cahill
Andrelton’s not whacking the ball today, is he?
Common denominator on today’s challenges: umpires have trouble adjusting to how great Simmons is.
Nice job after the first, Alex.
Alex Wood has settled down quite nicely.
Lo and behold, a quality start.
Thanks, Bryce!
The Natspos defense is rearing its head this inning.
Oh, for God’s sake – Uggla is going to kill us with his glove, too?
Dan giveth and taketh away.
That was a clown play, bro.
Pineda with 16 SO through 7 innings.
I like this Callaspo kid. Today.
Fredi fell asleep.
Damn, I love Andrelton. He let that drop just to see what he could get away with.
Your daily reminder of the infield fly rule.
And now your daily reminder that our bullpen sucks and/or blows.
ugh, bullpen
Imagine how long that inning would have gone without the TOOTBLANs.
Time to move on from Cody Martin..,. The shine seems to be off that penny
Bullpen delenda est.
The Kraken could not pitch the seventh through ninth everyday, but then it doesn’t seem we have anyone in the pen who can get outs anymore. Oh, woe.
It took a total team effort to lose that game, but we did it.
Martin, I would guess, is going through a dead-arm period related to being used very heavily in the early going, since he’s about the only guy in the pen who won’t walk the leadoff man.
But that sucks all the same.
There was lots of conversation on this board about how bad our offense would be and how bad our starting pitching would be after teheran and wood, but there was scarcely any worry that our bullpen would be the worst aspect of our team.
Speaking of which, Rafael Soriano is available still, or so I heard. Id take a flyer but I hear he’s a clubhouse cancer.
I would too, actually, but is he owed draft pick compensation? I think he is.
Honestly, we knew the team would be bad, and spending on the bullpen is virtually always inefficient. Since we already agreed we were giving up on the season, I have no problem with our bullpen being crappie.
As Martin Gandy pointed out, we literally traded 7 relievers this offseason: Kimbrel, Walden, Carpenter, Shreve, Schlosser, Hale, and Varvaro. Kimbrel isn’t looking too good, Walden’s hurt, Varvaro’s already been DFA’d, and I guarantee that none of us wanted to see a whole lot more of Pickles Schlosser.
If you’re going to punt the season, you might as well have a crappy bullpen.
I still like Martin a lot but do not care for his current bullpen role. The guy was doing nicely early in the season when he was being used as a long reliever/middle reliever. He does not have the arsenal to be a setup man, so why should we do it? We just take the chance of ruining his confidence now when he could be valuable to us in the proper role in the future.
We should just March out Johnson for 8th innings because who really cares about his confidence. Plus, if he turns it around and starts pitching okay, we can trade him at the deadline.
Wow, poor Cody Martin. We’ve taken a fella who’s got some serious ability, and we’ve put him into one high leverage situation after another, and he’s going to be Joey Devine all over again. I hope he can endure.
I had not realized we traded 7 relievers. The only person out of that list (besides the Kraken) that I could see us using would be David Carpenter, but even Another David Carpenter has struggled with the Yanks.
Even if we could have any of these guys back right now, I probably wouldn’t trade them for what we got for them. If it’s Craig Kimbrel or Matt Wisler, I’m probably taking Wisler. If it’s Hale or O’Dowd, I’d probably take O’Dowd, especially if Bethancourt or Pierzynski goes down. If you look at the Heyward trade, was it Heyward for Miller and a portion of Jenkins with Walden landing the other portion? If that’s the case, then I’d probably take that portion of Jenkins for Walden.
Even with all of these frustrating losses, we’re still probably not that far off from contending. I know the eye is towards 2017, but I think we might be good next year. Uggla’s $13M is off the books; Minor might be healthy; Folty, Wisler, Peraza, and Banuelos have another year of development; no one is line to get a huge arb raise (Wood?); and none of our core players should be hitting in a season of decline (CJ?).
Also, was Arodys Vizcaino ready to come back before he got nailed for PEDs? Would that mind he could be bullpen help in the second half of the season?
Cody Martin has 4 pitches, all of which are league average. As a mop-up/long-relief arm whom other teams see once or twice a year, he’d be David Hale. As a regular late inning reliever, he’s going to get devoured. Just not his strength.
If he can improve a couple of those pitches, he’d be a pretty good 4th or 5th starter.
After years of turning the Peter Moylan’s and Mike Remlinger’s and Eric O’Flaherty’s into gold, has our luck ran out?
@59, Right. Before we compose any tragedies, let’s remember we left Cody Martin unprotected, and every team in baseball passed on him.
Cody Martin is a capable pitcher. He’s just not anything like a shutdown reliever. Neither is anyone on our team except maybe Grilli. The guy we got for Varvaro, Aaron Kurcz may turn out to be. Keep an eye on him.
Recapped.