Apologies, Chuck, but …
This was the worst of games. This was the best of games. Nah, this was really the worst of games.
Shelby Miller stunk it up: 4.1 innings, six hits, six walks (a career high!), 4 runs, all earned. He had a full-blown episode in the bottom of the second, throwing 40 pitches and walking three. Shelby was due a bad game, and he certainly had one.
Cody Martin belongs on the Braves staff. He only pitched 2/3 of an inning, but he pitched well. Tonight that was rare.
Jace Peterson is a player. He beat out a bunt to lead off the sixth. After an Andrelton out, Freddie was robbed of a hit by Nick Ahmed, who got the force on Jace at second. Neck Cakes Arab doubled for the second time in the game, moving Freddie to third.
J.C. Ramirez relieved Josh Collmenter with two outs and promptly walked Juan Uribe on four pitches to load the bases. AJP singled in two runs; and Jonny Gomes, who cannot hit right-handed pitchers, doubled off the right-handed Ramirez to tie the game.
Holy moly! Opie doubled off Andrew Chafin to drive in two runs. BRAVES LEAD 6-4. Pedro Ciriaco pinch hit for Martin and, as expected, struck out.
Freddie plumbed the depths of our BS pen and fished out Nick Masset. Massett walked Ender Wiggin, er, Inciarte on four pitches. Inciarte stole his second base of the night, allowing Massett to walk Paul Goldschmidt intentionally following an A.J. Pollock strikeout. Goldy walked four times on the night, twice intentionally. The only time we didn’t walk him, he doubled. Freddie ain’t no Paul Goldschmidt.
Masset got his second and final out, then gave up a run-scoring single toYasmany Tomas. Brandon Cunniff relieved Massett, walked Jordan Pacheco, but got Chris Owings on a popup. Braves escape the sixth clinging to a 7-6 lead.
The lead was short-lived. Cunniff didn’t grybo. He only gave up his own runs. He walked Ender and gave up the game-losing home run to Arizona’s version of AJP.
Luis Avilan pitched the bottom of the eighth and got the Snakes 1-2-3, but we’d already been bitten.
Here’s some thoughts from a disgruntled Braves fan:
- The Braves are not contenders, but they are competitive. They could contend if the bullpen wasn’t so gosh-awful AWFUL!
- That said, Cody Martin should help alleviate the pen’s awfulness. It would probably have been better to let him hit and go another inning than to have Pedro strike out for him.
- Although he doubled in the tying run, Jonny Gomes should not face right-handed pitchers. Blind hogs do find acorns, but that’s not the usual result.
- A.J. Pierzynski and defense should never be mentioned in the same sentence.
- Juan Uribe is a baseball player. Whatever happens from now on, we won that trade.
Baseball’s just a game. It’s the best game, but we can’t win them all. Sometimes like in San Francisco, you win games you should have lost. Sometimes like tonight, you lose games you should have won; but you suit up for tomorrow’s game, are thankful that Folty’s pitching, and hope the Braves give ’em heck this afternoon.
When are baseball teams going to wise up and rename “businessman specials” and “getaway games”?
I’m looking forward to today’s afternoon delight.
Collmenter walks to the plate with Taylor Swift playing…
D’backs got problems, and Collmenter can’t solve ’em.
The bottom of the second wasn’t just an episode, it wasn’t just a full blown episode, it was,….wait for it,….
A Full Blown, All Capitals, Pants Shitting Episode, In The Classic Tim Hudson Style.
And that’s under-describing it. I was convinced that Miller would never get anybody out again, ever, and was about to go all Steve Blass on us on Fox Sport South in front of God and Everybody.
Anyway, if we can get Folty to continue his good work, we have a shot at a 5-5 road trip, with wins in starts by Greinke and Bumgardner. And if he loses, we’ll still go 4-6, which isn’t super, but won’t kill your season either.
It’s been said many times, but there’s nothing quite as dispiriting as forging a comeback, only to have a reliever immediately spit the bit. This bullpen is a hall of broken mirrors.
OK… get a win & somehow we have a .500 road trip.
I just found out something genuinely astonishing about the Braves bullpen. They have the worst ERA in the majors. They’re worst in NL in home runs and OPS allowed. They’re second-worst in strikeouts and K/BB.
Yet they have the second-lowest BABIP.
In other words, they’re lucky they haven’t given up even more runs than they already have.
They could be worse, Alex? Inconceivable!
Frank Wren knew how to construct a bullpen.
In both Cleveland and Texas, John Hart was great at offense, lousy at pitching.
Well, when you’re serving up taters at this rate, you’re gonna have a lower BABIP.
Nick Masset has been hired to throw BP at the HR Derby in July.
@6
That is scary.
@6 Wow. It’s crazy this bunch has room to regress. Say it ain’t so.
I was thinking the other day, I wish the Braves had just demoted Wren rather than fire him in exchange for not leading a PR smear campaign against him, and told him his job was to fill out the bullpen but nothing else. He put together some good ones.
Well, we did trade away the back half of our pen… Peter Moylan will be here soon
The Yankees just DFAed David Carpenter. He’s been having a pretty poor season, but maybe being reunited with Roger McDowell could help him get back on track. I wouldn’t mind seeing him back in a Braves uniform. Couldn’t be any worse than what we have.
This is the first time in years the Braves have had a trainwreck of a bullpen, and I find myself all too familiar with it. I keep expecting them to announce that Chris Reitsma or Kevin Gryboski is warming.
Do we have to re-institute Reitsma Room?
And yet look who’s having a nice season: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/boyerbl01.shtml
Shiny ERA, but with only 11 Ks in 25-2/3 innings, a GB% of 47.6%, and an LOB% of 84.6%, I’m not sure that’s going to continue.
Rooting for Blaine, though. After all, I was a guest at his kindergarten birthday party.
I’m really happy for Blaine that he’s had a decade-long career — Macay McBride hasn’t pitched since 2007 — but I’m afraid that there’s a shoe waiting to drop. Boyer’s ERA-is 54 and his FIP- is 102. He’s striking out fewer than four men per nine innings. Among pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched, that’s the fifth-lowest mark in baseball, and he’s the only one of the five who’s a full-time reliever.
I really do hope that he’s able to keep pitching effectively, especially since none of his success comes at our expense, but it could be hard to do.
Or, rather, what Stu said.
But seriously — you were?? I had totally forgotten that! That’s awesome!
We are 8th in the league in runs scored, up from 14th in 2014. We are 1st in the league in fewest strikeouts, up from 13th in 2014.
Whether those things are related, I don’t know, but it sure does support certain narratives about the changes in the offseason.
Safe.
Arab Doubles!
@22–is there a way to take a snapshot of where we were at this time last year?
CAM’RON!
Well the Braves are Free as can be.
Maybe the pen can hold this.
Rally Killer.
He got all of that…
Edward, I can only see that we had scored 175 runs through our first 52 games last year vs 216 runs through our first 52 games this year. I’m not sure how to find out what the team stats were on that date, but I’m sure we had struck out a whole lot 🙂
Also, that 175 runs was tied with the Padres for dead last in the NL, even though we were in first place at 28-24
We are up 6 nothing in the 2nd and I am the only person who cares.
Edit: There y’all are out of the woodwork.
Woo! Open up that can of whup-ass, Braves.
Sucks being at work and having to sneak peeks at ESPN Gamecast. 🙁
Papa Johns, like everybody, must have expected this offense to be far worse than it’s been.
No lead is safe
@34
MLB Radio is a wonderful investment. Just ask Spike!
I was wondering when this aspect of Folty would make an appearance.
Catch the ball, Betty. You’re sure not earning your pay with your bat.
Was that scoring play as weird as it looked on Gamecast? Pennington grounded out to first. Owings scored, Saltalamacchia to 3rd. WTF?
Lazy behind the plate; sleepwalking at bat. Just don’t see Bethancourt as a viable long-term option — and given the reported interest in Lucroy last month, management doesn’t, either.
Aside from A.J. Pierzynski being ritually sacrificed, one thing I would really like to see out of this season is for Chris Johnson to do a decent impression of a useful baseball player long enough for some team to be tricked into trading for him.
OK, so who kidnapped our Pressure On The Defense Braves and inserted the 2014 K Kings?
7 Ks through 3 innings, really?
Cunningham’s defensive metrics look awesome through his first 16 games to go with a passable bat. Will be interesting to see what kind of value he has in a larger sample. We have a lot of good 4th outfielders on this team.
@25, yep: http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/standings.cgi?month=6&day=3&year=2014
Also, this: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/tgl.cgi?team=ATL&t=b&year=2014&share=1.63#1-57-sum:team_batting_gamelogs
I have a feeling we’re going to need more than 6 runs
Sigh.
We are perfectly capable of blowing this.
Who knew that Folty needs Reitsma Room?
We’ve heard this song before. Come on, Folty.
Maybe its better for us to rally in the 9th than try to protect any kind of lead early in the game.
Arizona really needs to try and trade for Freeman
God I hope Freddie snaps out of his funk
Well done, Fred.
And Arab double doubles again.
I juant Juan back. CJ won’t do.
First all singles, now all doubles. At the rate he’s going, I’m really going to enjoy the end of the season when Markakis enters his homer-hitting machine stage. Watching this season cycle unfold is kind of fun, but I imagine when he enters the triple stage of it, he’s going to be exhausted.
I’m starting to hate all people named A.J.
I’ll be glad to get the boys home. Arizona’s got some bashers.
Don’t you just know Arizona is saying “just keep this thing close and lets get into their bullpen and win it”.
When did pollock become mike trout?
I have a feeling we’re going to need more than 7 runs
Honestly, Folty has been getting hammered today. He’s lucky it’s only been four runs (so far). He’s running the outfielders ragged.
Shoot Chris Johnson now!
Folty’s not breezing along. I wonder if Fredi will let Martin pitch to more than two batters today.
If we had a pen we could pinch for Folty here but we don’t so we can’t.
Folty hits for himself here. I’m setting the over/under on batters faced before Fredi yanks him at 2.
Wow! Chris Johnson actually made a play.
Just now joining in, forgot it was a day game.
We have no reason not to bring David Carpenter back and see if Roger can work it out. Losing Simmons this offseason to TJ and Vizcaino/McKirahan really hurt this pen. With a decent pen, we could possibly be leading this division right now.
We’re doomed.
Would it be presumptuous to call, “Ballgame” when entering the bullpen with a two-run lead?
Can we please let Luis pitch another inning? Please?
@69—I feel like at this point, that is probably the best course of action.
Nick Onbasis
Insurance runs please please please
Pinch-hit for the .304 hitter who’s 2-for-2 and has gotten on base every time he’s been up today. Way to go, Fredi.
Gomes at the plate vs a lefty with runner on third and less than 2 out. How do we manage not to score?
Oh did we just pinch for Cunningham? That’s awful. Pinch hitters are never as good as players who are warm
Also we give up Cunningham’s plus glove for Gomes’?
Why did we PH Gomes for Cunningham? Isn’t he a switch hitter? Would’ve been smart to keep Cunningham in there for defense and let Gomes hit for the P if we got that far.
terrible managing
just terrible
Bc Fredi had a gut feeling. It might’ve just been the buffalo chicken nachos acting up, but it was a feeling and he went with his gut
Jonny Games coming in for Todd Cunningham makes me very, very angry. I don’t care which hand the pitcher was throwing with.
And lo and behold, it goes to left field.
yup
great move Fredi
Glad Opie wasn’t in left. He might have kept that to a single.
It is possible to blame both Fredi and the bullpen. It’s not an either-or.
NOW Fredi takes Gomes out. Of course. This game has had “loss” written all over it for awhile now, though, so it really all doesn’t matter.
Forget Chris Johnson. Shoot me now.
And now we put a leftfielder in. Good move, Fredi.
When Fredi puts on his reading glasses, he looks to me like Homer Simpson. Just a dumb guy trying to create the illusion of appearing intelligent.
Hey this is going great!
Last night Fredi said having the middle relief blowing several recent games “demoralizing” and said you could see it on some position players’ faces. I think that still holds true.
Well, there’s the BABIP regression mentioned @6.
Meltdown complete
Time to take a walk. Can’t watch this garbage anymore.
Betty gonna betty.
That’s why the Braves could be ready to move on from Bethancourt. He can’t hit, but his defense isn’t what everyone was building him up to
Ugly Betty
Roll over, Braves. Play dead.
Wow, there is not one aspect of baseball at which this bullpen doesn’t suck.
LOLOL, this has gone from agonizing to funny. What we Braves fans get to suffer through.
Looks like you spoke a game too soon, coop. THIS is the worst of games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mf3Bypyk8
Call David Carpenter and Grant Balfour. They can’t be worse
This is ridiculous. DFA or send down all but Grilli and Avilan and start over.
One of these days, the Braves need to suffer a good, old-fashioned blowout that forces them to let a position player pitch. I’m not picky about which one, any of them will do. I just really want to see a position player pitch. Is that too much to ask of this season?
It would be fun to see if Andrelton really does have huge shit.
@102
I would do it under the theory that they might actually be better than our middle relievers. (Note: My phone’s autocorrect turned “relievers” into “rejects” while typing that. I thought it appropriate.)
@104 Your phone is scary accurate.
Recap up.
@100 – Or we could bring the original David Carpenter back. He was just dfa’d by the Yankees. As bad as our bullpen has been I’d be happy to get him back. Maybe we could give the Yankees the new David Carpenter. Has there ever been a trade involving 2 players with the same name?
Gosh if we only had some of those fungible relievers I keep hearing about.
106 – that’s the one I was referring to, but hey let’s do both
Rough way to end a promising road trip.