The March of the Ex-Braves continued last night, as Tim Hudson outpitched Mike Foltynewicz and Mr. Out, Buster Posey drove in three in a 4-2 loss at San Francisco.
Folty gave up a wind-aided two run shot to Posey in the first, then settled down to go 6 2/3, with a career high 8 strikeouts with just one walk. If he can keep up that pace, then unless Evan Gattis turns into Babe Ruth, then we will have fleeced the Astros.
Freddie Freeman hit a completely meaningless (for this game) solo shot in the 9th. We can hope that it signals Freddie is on the verge of one of his hot streaks.
Anyway, just keep repeating – “It just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter.”
Thank you, Seat Painter.
The Williamses will win tonight. They’re due for the W.
Well, the road trip isn’t going as well as we’d hoped.
At least Mohawk never beat the Braves.
The nice thing about the Braves inability to win on the west coast, is that at least the games are so late most Braves fans sleep through the futility.
@2 I fully expected the Braves to be swept by both the Dodgers and the Giants, so I’m pretty pleased with the one win so far. Also, on this trip we have become Callaspo and and Stults-free, so overall I’d say things could be worse.
This team needs to get to Phoenix. I like watching the Braves pick on people more their size; it’s way more fair that way.
Literally perfect. Thank you, Seat Painter.
Awesome! Well done sir.
Jason Heyward is having a Jason Heyward season at the plate, OPS-ing respectable .760 in May after another putrid April. But what has happened to his defense?
Baseball reference puts him at 0.0 dWAR through 45 games. Fangraphs puts him a tick below average in the field. His UZR is on pace to be the worst since his rookie year (by far)
Can defense slump?
One thing about having only one good hitter is that when that hitter slumps, the team has a helluva time scoring. As goes Freddie Freeman, so go the Braifs.
@97 from previous thread
Um…that literally would not help us at all right now. Our rotation is perfectly fine. I guess you’d slot Medlen in the Williams Perez spot when he came back, but they’ve been pitching well, too, so it’s not like that’s a no-brainer. Medlen would be very close to not having a spot in this rotation when he comes back if he were on this team. And there’s definitely not enough spots for both Medlen and Beachy.
Cheif Nock-a-Homa has been obtained by the Giants and will make a spot start tonight.
Medlen and Beachy will most likely be relievers or retired. It hurt me physically to lose Medlen, as he was my favorite Brave, but I don’t think we could pay him even $4 million knowing there’s a great chance he never starts again or gets hurt trying.
I was reading an article on the Astros by Rany Jayzerli over on Grantland, and in it he mentioned that the way to take the last step in a rebuilding program was to go from ignoring the bullpen to working on it. I think that’s what Hart is doing this year – throwing all sorts of options out there to see what, if anything, sticks to the wall. Then, in 2017, we drop the hammer and fill out the pen with real major leaguers.
At least, that’s what I’m, hoping for.
Until last night’s mini-plosion, Jim Johnson had only given up 1 run in all of May (11 innings). He’s really been having a good season. Hope he keeps it up so someone can overpay for him at the deadline.
@7 — I don’t see why not. People have outlier hitting and pitching seasons all the time; it’s always seemed strange to me that people evaluate defense as this reliable thing that never changes.
Can Pierzynski lose his starting job yet? He’s not hitting, he can’t field, and he’s actively interfering with talent evaluation for the next good Braves team.
It’s beginning to give me Francouer flashbacks, where every time it seemed like the Braves were about to give up on him, he’d have a decent game and we’d have to watch him flail around for six more weeks.
@9 Nowhere did I even hint that I’d use Medlen as a starter this season. In case you haven’t noticed, he’d be a massive upgrade over at least six of our seven bullpen arms.
@11. My criticism of Hart all along has been that Medlen at four million per year over two years is not a risk AT ALL when that money is otherwise going to be flushed straight down the fucking toilet, a la Stults, Callaspo, EYJ and AJP.
And in fact Medlen currently has a healthy ligament, has had no major setbacks, and is on track to join the bullpen or rotation of a division leading team at around the all-star break. But hey, if you guys don’t think he could help this team, maybe I should just take your word for it.
@16, agree with you on this one. I am certain, Medlen could have helped us in either role for the second half. And I really would have loved to have him as a Brave.
@16 Your assuming that Medlen would be any good. I think that it has been shown that is a very iffy proposition. Medlen is signed for 5 million this year with a 1 million option next. Hart was right not to commit 6 million to a guy that might give you 1/2 a season of relief pitching. The odds of him becoming an effective starter are slim.
@16
As a rule of thumb, I just pretty much absolutely would not sign a guy who has had two Tommy John surgeries until somebody who’s had that happen proves that you can come back from that and actually fully recover. I don’t care if it’s Medlen, Beachy, or some random guy that we have no history with. Stults was way more likely to help us this year at the time we signed him than Medlen or Beachy was.
I’m not sure who has been saying that defense can’t slump, but it definitely does. Hard to say exactly what’s going on with Heyward without watching him every day, but he definitely made a horrible run-allowing error the other night. (He “made up for it” by getting the run back with a game-tying home run in the ninth, but it was still a bad error.) Started looking at where he was going to throw to hold the runners on a single and forgot to field the ball.
Edit: It was more like a rough couple of weeks in the field than a season-long thing, his numbers were up before then.
Might not be quite the Beachy but Beech has been pitching really well in Rome lately. Does anyone know anything about him?
http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=t432&player_id=656220#/career/R/pitching/2015/ALL
I think our biggest need right now is a catcher, then another bullpen arm or two.
A real catcher would be nice.
Good news on that front — they signed Ryan Lavarnway to a minor league deal.
I remember when he was an untouchable Red Sox prospect. Boston’s gotten worse than the Yankees recently at hyping up their homegrown mediocrities.
At this point, shouldn’t we stick Bethancourt behind the plate ever 4 out of 5 games and see what happens? He and AJP are on the same level as far as hitting goes at this point, and Bethancourt is way better on defense.
Bethancourt appears to have one tool and that’s his arm. His defense just looks lazy behind the plate and he hits like a pitcher.
I like Jace Peterson, he is getting on base some and playing good defense, but it concerns me that he is struggling to keep his slugging percentage above .300.
With his speed, the doubles should become more frequent, even if he has no power.
He’s what we could’ve hoped TLS would’ve been, plus with defense.
Wisler tonight: 8 1/3 IP, 0 R, 7 K, 2 H, 2 BB
I could get used to that.
The G-Braves’ run support for Wisler: 1
He’d better get used to that.
Wow. Great outing. Was he facing the A-Braves?
Getting awfully sick of weak grounders to second. If the plan is to have a contact-oriented, low-strikeout offense, shouldn’t they be, you know, good at it?
Freddie! Sucks! Lately!
Will Markakis hit a HR before the ASG?
If Freeman, AJ and Gomes are going to struggle, we need Markakis, Uribe or CJ to provide some power.
@32 if you want to maximize contact, you sacrifice quality of contact. But you force the defense to make a play, and they’re human so they may mistakes. I’ve seen a weak grounder become a 3 run error. Several times. Let’s build a whole offense around that.
Wheeeee!
Exactly what John was talking about right there. Well played, Blofeld. Very convenient.
Andrelton’s sneaky groundball is just fine, thank you.
Nice DP. Sigh.
There’s your run Williams. Now play nice and share it.
Nice play, Freddie. Don’t forget your glove.
DEFENSE PRESSURED!
Unlike Posey, Jace was not out at second base. And I’ll take the end result.
Terrible AB freddie
Freddie’s lost.
Freddie should pull a David Ortiz and bunt it hard down the third base line. At the moment, he has the most extreme shift of a defense against him all others in the MLB.
Nice Juan
Fat Juan!
Bringing the infield in with uribe running seems kind of odd to me
Andrelton is good for a grounder to short unless there’s a runner at 3rd
Way to go Betty
Did. Not. See. That. Coming.
Who hit for Bethancourt?
I like Betty, spike. Good one.
Copped it from a Fredi press conference
Oh black Betty. Bambalam
Good Lord Don just gave the most boring description of a double and RBI single for the Braves I’ve ever heard in my life
I heard something about Freddie practicing his bunting about a week ago.
@58 Watching it live, he nailed that description.
With all these runs, one cannot go on topping oneself forever.
Todd may have turned back into a pumpkin. I was, and am, pulling for him.
Williams, however, keeps getting better.
This kid is tremendous, grab him a hoodie.
Ready the pen, Fredi.
Edit: Wonderful inning, Williams.
Please have the bullpen up and throwing. Williams deserves this win.
Well done, Williams. You too, Perez.
Standing ovation for Williams Perez. Hell of an outing.
So many milestones for them to share tonight
Williams Perez have probably been the single most pleasant surprises of the season.
Uribe just stole more bases than my entire fantasy team
Edit: WOOOOOOHOOOOOO runs!
Seriously I don’t think any brave lines out more than bethancourt
May been a good month for Cameron
That was simultaneously awesome while giving me a bad flashback.
Juan!
Dayam! Uribe kilt that one. Woo.
That Uribe homerun gave me flashbacks.
Edit: I see I’m not the only one.
At least he didn’t walk him. Threw the fastball right down the middle, which is what he should’ve done. Still, Cunniff seems to be pitching himself right back up I-85.
UPDATE: Yay! A win!
Huzzah! We dominate the Giants. Just total domination. For one day.
Twin Bills was great; the hitting was timely, and Fat Juan redux had a monster game.
Who were those guys, and do we really want to pay the ransom to get our Braves back?
Williams Perez are freed!!!!
Good to see Jace Peterson get a couple of XBH too. He’s a pretty substantial guy with wheels who should be able to slug .400.
P.S.: Fangraphs says Jace and Andrelton are both about 5 runs better than average so far defensively.
Recap is up.
I’m a Realtor, and I’m being told to expect a full price, cash offer on a high-priced listing. Since we don’t have it in writing, I told the seller that the Furcal Rule is in effect. He didn’t get it. He must not be a Journaler.