Braves 4, Padres 1

And that is what consecutive victories look like. This team has been full of surprises this season, some good and some bad. The past two games could be categorized as one of those nice surprises. Back-to-back Braves wins is just what the doctor ordered for this team (and, quite frankly, for this blog).

Following two rehab games, Kelly Johnson came off the DL with a vengeance. He replaced Joey Terdoslavich, last night’s hitting hero, on the roster, and picked up right where Joey left off, earning an RBI in his first at-bat with a single
that scored Nick Markakis. He ended his evening with a 3-for-4 line. Welcome back, Mr. Johnson.

The Braves bats remained alive tonight, picking up 14 hits, all of which were very 2015 stereotypical Braves-like singles. The pitchers even got in on the offense, as they led off the 3rd inning with a base hit and then scored when Freddie Freeman grounded into a double play with the bases loaded. Speaking of Braves stereotypes, three different Braves grounded into double plays in this game. Shockingly enough, they were Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, and Chris Johnson.

AJ Pierzynski feasted on Padre pitching tonight, turning in a 3-for-4 night with two runs scored. We get to watch him be our main catcher now for six more weeks.

Cameron Maybin remains awesome, going 2-for-3 tonight with a walk and a bases-loaded hit in the 7th. He is now 6-for-8 this season with the bases loaded and has collected 9 RBIs in those instances. That’ll do, Mr. Maybin.

The Williams Perezes pitched very well, allowing only 4 hits and 1 run over seven innings. What a find they’ve been. Brandon Cunniff took care of the 8th in scoreless fashion and Jim Johnson did the same in the 9th. Just when you start feeling comfortable about being able to say for certainty what the Braves bullpen is, the guys come out and surprise you in two straight games.

If you’re a fan of good outfield catches (which, as a baseball fan, you really should be), the Braves turned in a clinic tonight. Markakis robbed Venable with a diving stop for the first out of the game, and in the 4th K. Johnson took a hit away from Melvin. Maybin did not want his corner outfielders to show him up, so he got in on the fun with an over-the-shoulder catch at the wall to end the 5th and save a second Padres run.

The Braves finish up their series with San Diego tomorrow at noon, when Julio Teheran toes the rubber for the home team. This has been a tale of two seasons for him, but hopefully he can build off the success he found in his last start to lead this team to a series win. In a four-game series. Wouldn’t that be nice?

226 thoughts on “Braves 4, Padres 1”

  3. So much for the whole “Mets will be good in 2015, they’re getting Harvey back” line.

  4. what the hell is Melvin chewing on?

    Man – he looks horrible at the plate. Glad he had the wrong jersey on tonight!

  5. >what the hell is Melvin chewing on? Man – he looks horrible at the plate.

    Sorry, Kimbrel.

  7. @6 Honestly, I think they’re buyers. They restocked the farm system with an eye to 2017, but being competitive leading up to the move would still be a positive.

  9. We are at least two power bats and a workable bullpen away from even think about contention. Wait, we had Justin, Gattis, Kimbrel and that still didn’t work….and you think this group actually has a chance?!

  11. I’m with Smitty on this. If our bullpen hadn’t had a horrible past month we would be in first. Our offense is just fine without the power bat. We won last night without hitting any extra base hits.

  12. We won last night because we gave up 1 run. That is pitching, defense, and luck all combined. If the other guy scores 1, and if you have the worst offense in the league (by one run under the next place) you have a run differential of over 300 over a season. So, you can expect 120 wins or so. Think Cleveland Indians, 1948.

    Power or lack of power had nothing to do with it. A blind hog of an offense finds a run every once and a while.

  14. I agree with @7 that the Braves will NOT be sellers at the deadline, unless we fall off a cliff between now and the end of July. It just seems that the FO wants to rebuild, but not pretend it’s rebuilding, and making a move to stay in the race this year will help them sell that narrative to the fans.

    Besides, is what is happening to the team this year really all that different from what happened to the Royals last year (minus the bullpen bedcrap of the past three weeks, that is)?

  15. Great recap, ‘Rissa. Noon can’t come soon enough. Jim and Don and Persian Julius, save me from the work day!

  16. We’re in a dead heat with the Nats for 5th in the league in runs scored. Offense is not the reason we’re not contending. neither is starting pitching.

  17. If our bullpen didn’t blow, we’d be in first place

    This.

    Please get a competent reliever or two.

  20. If we are buyers at the deadline, it should be for bullpen arms. Any power bat you would go for at this point would likely have a heavy price to it. Good bullpen arms are cheaper and are more in line with our teams current major weakness.

  21. Kevin Seitzer has built competent offensive teams without having to use the long ball in the past, and it’s happening again here. A power bat would be awesome, but if the bullpen didn’t collapse on a every other night basis this team could be 5-6 above .500. Fix the bullpen, then see what this team can do.

    Adding to that, KJ is back and if he continues to swing the bat well, that is a major shot in the arm for the offense. With the right platoons, this offense can stay above average.

  23. Pondering over and clubhouse chemistry having been duly considered, I am ready to make the following moves:

    1. Hat tip to Smitty, can Fredi and FREE DOUG PORTER (or TP or Eddie Perez or someone of the Johns’ choosing);

    2. DFA AJP and Jonny Gomes. Make them both coaches if you want, but please don’t let them play defense ever again.

    That will do for now, Johns. Keep up the good work.

  25. Two pen arms is all we need right now. However, the main reason we are only two games out has more to do with the Nats than us.

    I think they will play better in the second half, but if we stay with in a few games, going after a couple of cheap pen guys on multi year deals would be smart.

    In fact, anyone we bring in should be young and on a multi year deal.

  26. Can someone explain why our fans boo Melvin Upton? Do they think the guy tried to suck when he was here? I don’t get that.

  27. I looked at Maybin’s contract. If I were the Braves I’d keep him to see if this a new level of performance. I wouldn’t trade him this season.

    I agree. While I’d love to have a power bat I think we are fine if we can find the right mixture of Uribe and CJ at 3b and KJ and Cunningham and I guess Gomes who should NEVER face a righty, EVER in LF.

    edit: The same with Uggla. Its not cool but I guess its expressing some frustration.

    A couple of cromulent bullpen arms and we could be in it.

  29. Responding to this from salty in the last thread:

    So, our 10th round pick Stephen Moore has to fulfill a 5 year commitment to the Navy before he can pursue pro baseball regularly unless something changes. Not to mention, he is headed to flight school, and the military always has those guys on lock down to be called back in when needed for several years after the initial commitment. Why did we draft that guy in the 10th round?

    I think it’s because, given what you describe, he’ll sign for peanuts — say, $10,000 — freeing up some of that precious top-10-round slot money to spend on the rest of the picks. Maybe they need a little more to buy Soroka out of his commitment to Cal, or maybe Ellison (for example) is gonna take more than $100K to sign.

    Lots of teams are taking really cheap signs in that 8th-10th round range for that reason. The slot allocation for the Braves’ 10th-round pick is $149,700, and they won’t have to use much of that on Moore.

  33. Sure thing. As both a die-hard Braves fan and a die-hard Vanderbilt Baseball fan, I’ve become pretty familiar with the ins and outs of the draft process over the past few years.

  37. What, Edward, you don’t think attack basketball would work for the Braves? Aren’t we into multi-sport athletes/coaches?

  38. @26, Braves fans also booed Dan Uggla. It’s not just that Uggla and Upton were atrocious players, it’s that they were our largest contracts, which meant they came with high expectations. It also forced Fredi to keep running them out there on the off chance they’d stop sucking to salvage the contracts. We’ll never boo Callaspo or Cahill, because their contracts made the easy to release.

    Any player who sucks so much for so long in plain sight is going to draw the ire of fans, and when they’re playing for a crippling contract, that makes it worse. The expectation is that these high paid players will make the team better, not cost it playoff appearances. Whether they choose to suck doesn’t really enter into it. They’re choosing to keep playing out that contract at a horrendous level of performance, and part of that is dealing with fans’ disappointment in your underachievement. If the psyche is too fragile to handle that, retirement is an option.

  42. Any ATL folks got an inkling whether they will get this game in today? Trying to set my Fanduel lineup.

  45. @42

    They shouldn’t have a problem. There’s only one shower in the area right now and it’s right over the stadium. It’s also not like they’re talking about a huge rain chance today or anything.

  46. BCBS Doug Porter is “a recognized thought leader in the practical application of technology in solving business needs.”

    And he does analytics! #dreamboat

  47. Peterson
    Maybin
    Freeman
    Markakis
    Uribe
    K. Johnson
    Simmons
    Bethancourt
    Teheran

    That’s a line-up I can live with.

  51. I see no reason to trade Maybin,
    We need OF help so losing him for more rookies doesn’t help us in any way.

  57. @54

    Lemke and Powell were speculating that it had more to do with Bethancourt than Teheran.

  59. Call me a Negative Nancy all you want, but I think this Braves team is quite unlikely to sneak into the playoffs, even as a 2nd wildcard team. I’d much prefer the Braves sell off Grilli/Johnson (assuming a decent offer presents itself) than do the opposite – say, trading Matt Wisler for Aroldis Chapman or something. Now, on the other hand, if we were able to turn a starting pitcher into a decent power hitter who could slot in at 3B or corner OF, now we’re talking.

  64. We’re kind of a tweener playoff team in the middle of an effort to not immediately compete, so it’s hard to know what kind of deals we’d do. I agree trading a prospect for a reliever is not a good idea, but dealing a starting pitcher for a power hitter would make sense.

    Why don’t we just sign Justin Upton in the offseason? How much money do we have? We should give him… All The Money!

  65. Teheran throw a high fastball where Kemp started to swing, and checked his swing too late as he tried ducking out of the way. The next one was even higher and deeper in, and it plunked Kemp. Kemp angrily threw his bat away and slowly walked up the line, escorted by Bethancourt. At this point, Powell and Lemke speculate, Bethancourt started talking to Kemp and perhaps Kemp took exception. Teheran came off the mound and started walking toward Kemp around the same time. For whatever reason, Kemp got really angry and started walking toward Teheran, and the umpire got in between them.

    At that point, the benches cleared, but everyone was just milling around. Kemp kept trying to get around the ump, the ump tried to stay with him, and both sort of tumbled to the ground — I doubt Kemp will get a he-made-contact-with-the-umpire suspension, because those are really stiff, but there will probably be a fine involved. But after that, the situation basically defused. A few moments later, the camera showed Freeman talking to Kemp at first and the two of them laughing, because really, who can possibly dislike Freddie Freeman?

  68. And there’s a high-and-in fastball that Middlebrooks stupidly swung at for strike three, then he glared at Julio.

    And THERE’s a high-and-outside fastball to a left-handed hitter. No one in the right-handed batter’s box for that, so no harm done, but it looks like Julio is having trouble consistently keeping the fastball down. Again.

  70. Agreed about Teheran’s command. If he can’t get the ball down consistently, then he’ll never be Pedro Martinez! ::shutter::

  73. The problem with wanting to sell off Grilli and Johnson is that you just can’t do it if you’re a .500-ish team in a .500-ish division. Selling off your only decent relievers when you’re 3 or 4 games out of the division lead would be such a middle finger to the fan base, not to mention the players and coaches. Sends the message that management doesn’t care about you.

  77. Really not sure Grilli and Johnson would really fetch that much on the open market.

    To quote Russell Crowe in Mystery, Alaska, “We’re in this!”
    I think we need to go out now and get some bullpen help, not deal them away. If we fall apart or somebody else starts to run away with it, different story. Right now it is completely possible that we win the division, given how the rest are playing.

  78. He’s occasionally missed up with the fastball, but when he’s missed, it has been out of the strike zone, and his slider has been filthy — the Padres have been swinging and missing at it all game. He always has trouble when he can’t miss bats, and he has that working today. There haven’t been any obvious meatballs. He did a lot of great work his last time out, mostly ruined by the bullpen, but this time out has just been tremendous.

  83. Draft picks signed by @Braves so far: RHP Stephen Moore (10), OF Bradley Keller (15), RHP Sean McLaughlin (19) and RHP Dalton Geekie (22)
    — BillShanks (@BillShanks) June 11, 2015

  84. It’s not often you see back-to-back 1-4-6-3 GIDPs.

    A little insurance wouldn’t hurt.

  85. Lemke: “You can’t turn two until you get the first one.”
    Powell, without missing a beat: “Thank you, Yogi.”

  90. Lucky? Good? Who cares? All blue-wrapped gifts are gratefully accepted. Punish them some more, Freddie.

    And, yes, I’d do Fredi for Bud Black straight up. Heck, I’d do Fredi for Jack Black straight up.

  91. Bud Black is the most underrated manager in baseball, IMO. I have liked him for a long time.

  95. Top of the eighth, nobody was up in the Braves’ pen: preparation meeting opportunity. Good managing, Fredi.

  98. Good game, Julio. At least you won’t get the loss. FIRE FREDI NOW!

    Here’s your chance to endear yourself, Jason Eveland.

    You expect clown baseball when Bozo is your manager.

    Let’s Get Drunk and Puke again.

  106. This is not going to end well, to state the obvious.

    EDIT: Well, free strikeouts are appreciated. Thanks, Kemp!

  107. Nick Masset with the bases loaded and a two run lead. Of course.

    Wow. Who’da thunk it? (Don’t hope. Don’t hope.)

  112. @111

    All or nothing, I guess? If it works, you did all you could to preserve the win. If it doesn’t, well…at least you won’t have to deal with extra innings on getaway day.

  116. I say just put in Grilli at this point and tell him that it’s his, one way or the other.

  120. Ugh nothing worse than being called on to get out one LHB and walking him with the bases loaded. I give.

  122. I thought we were going to be at .500 going to New York. Foolish, huh?

    Never hope. Never ever hope.

    Just shoot ne, but please shoot Fredi and Betty first. Passed ball, walk and catcher’s interference tie the game. Poor Julio. Poor Braves fans.

  124. So he only lets these guys face one batter and would let Cahil face seven before pulling him.

  132. So how long are we going to keep Bethancourt around? He can’t hit he doesn’t have world class defense. What exactly does he bring to the game?

  137. If he’s not a defensive wizard, he’s useless. This is why the Braves sniffed around Lucroy. Betty is not the future, and they know it.

  138. Just shoot me, but please shoot Fredi and Betty first. Passed ball, walk and catcher’s interference tie the game. Poor Julio. Poor Braves fans.

  139. We may have just found a real reliever in Aardsma, but unfortunately we still need a real catcher.

  141. Terrible error by Bethencourt, but what really chaps me as a Braves fan is deep sixing our bullpen so we don’t have any reliable relievers.

  142. See, I like to think all of us just went speed-dating with the bullpen. We got to know all of them in 20 minutes!

  143. Yeah, lost in that is that Aardsma is hired as our new go-to righty middle reliever, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe even setup man with one more bad outing from Johnson.

  144. @136

    The last one should be unearned because he was directly forced home by the catcher’s interference and the next batter immediately ended the inning. But still…

  145. If this goes extras, do we bring in Foltynewicz and option him to AAA after the game?

  148. Ballgame. I think the eighth finally broke the morale of the rest of the team. The ABs that followed were horrendous.

  149. Does Aardsma get to pitch the ninth, or will Fredi manage some more?

    The Grillmeister: manage, Fredi, manage. That’s five from the pen, and Johnson’s pitched the last three days.

  154. All the confidence Tehran built up with those strong 6 scoreless innings just got shattered. Way to go Fredi.

  155. Nope, I take it back. Grilli can’t go two unless we go 1-2-3 because Fredi didn’t have enough damned sense to double switch Chris Johnson or Ciriaco into the game at third so that the pitcher’s spot wouldn’t be due up fourth in the blasted inning!

  156. The 8th inning bullpen usage may mean I may finally get my wish of seeing a position player pitch…

  159. It’s funny how some people are trying to talk themselves into this team contending whenever they look at the standings and see the Nats only 2 games up. It’s the Nats fault, not our doing. They won’t be this bad for much longer and will put a gap in there soon.

    Hopefully it will happen soon enough where management does make trades for the guys who’ve kept their value up like Grilli, AJP, etc because there’s absolutely no reason to strive for a .500 team. The middle finger to the fans was already given when they moved the team out of Atlanta and gutted payroll to a bottom 10 team. This charade of “contending” this year was never going to last, may as well cash in the random chips we have.

  160. Couple of things:

    1) is cunniff just completely unavailable? if he’s not, you have to go to him with the bases loaded, unless you want to go to grilli. Going to Dana Eveland, a man who has quite a track record of being an atrocious MLB pitcher (starting and relieving), can’t be your best option. Aardsma is also a better option.

    2) clearly, you have to start the 8th with Teheran, given his success to that point and the suckage of the pen. But you have to have some sort of contingency besides “If he gets deep, deep into trouble, we go all Eveland-Masset on dey ass”.

  161. @159

    That’s why I still think this team ends up losing 90. If Bethancourt is out there every day sleepwalking his way through his defensive responsibilities and Jim Johnson is the best reliever in the ‘pen, the dumpster fire starts consuming entire city blocks.

  163. Betty Poop: bad hit, bad field. Some things can’t be taught, AAR; but I’d rather have him start than AJP. This is how AJP should be used.

  164. In all seriousness, how do you overmanage so much that the eighth inning happened and then two seconds later undermanage so much that you don’t double switch to start the ninth?

  165. @159, I don’t think many people are so self-deluded. There are lots of knowledgeable fans on here. They just realize that mediocre teams have played in the World Series before because the baseball playoffs is a lottery. I would agree about a “charade of contending” if some were clamoring for a trade of prospects for bullpen rentals.

    The Nats may run away with it, and most of us will say “well, good–let’s have a fire sale”. But until they do, it’s hard for a fan to not wish for this bad news braves team to somehow edge out an underachieving world series fave. Crazy things have happened before in this game.

  166. Brandon Cunnif, our penultimate reliever, walks JUp on four pitches. Despair looms.

    When all goes south, hit it to Simba and things get better. Win it, Braves. Everybody but Fredi, Betty and half the pen deserves it.

  171. “Juuuuuust past the second baseman and into the right field corner,” said no announcer 10 years ago.

  174. Chip said that Alex Wood put his spikes on and went to the bullpen. Matt Wisler is scheduled to pitch for Gwinnett tomorrow.

  175. You almost wish Nick Markakis had walked 3 times in front of Fredi instead of behind him

  178. Brandon’s consistent: leadoff hitters must walk on four pitches. Oops, San Diego chickens appear to be coming home to roost. And here’s BJ.

    Thank you, Melvin. Glad you’re gone.

  180. Oh great, another opportunity to get beat by BUpton.

    Nevermind, then. He still sucks.

  182. Amid all this craziness, it’s somehow comforting to know that B.J. Upton still sucks at everything.

  183. When you have a terrible bullpen, you really don’t want to be going into extras 2 out of 3 days.

  189. What a shitty game all around from the 8th onwards. Shitty relievers, insane bullpen management and a very ugly Betty.

  190. If it’s true that building the bullpen is the last step in rebuilding, then this makes sense, but good gosh is it frustrating.

    But let’s be positive: put a bullpen in there and a power-hitting LF, and we’re a playoff team. Put Justin Upton at $20M per out in LF, and trade some prospects/make some signings, and we’re right there.

    Still ugh.

  191. This loss is not the bullpen’s fault. This loss belongs to Fredi. He should not be on the flight to New York. He should stay in Atlanta and clean out his office.

  194. @188

    Smitty, what do you expect? The bullpen is terrible. No matter what strings he pulls, they back-fire. There’s nothing he can do.

  195. Yes, this team is much more fun to watch than last year’s team…for the first 7 innings. After that, it is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever witnessed. This makes 6 or 7 games blow by the pen in the last 2 weeks?

  196. @194, yes, there is a good chance every decision would be the wrong one but… you really don’t have to use five relievers in a single inning. This is just nuts!

  197. @194, Fredi was a bad bullpen manager when we had elite relievers. Is it that hard to believe he could do even just a little bit better than he is doing with this pen?

  198. @194

    I expect him not to blow the whole pen in one inning. That’s got to be up there with one of his dumber all time moves.

  201. This has been a complete waste of what had been a very entertaining game up until the eighth inning. You had Teheran pitching really well, the home-plate umpire tackling Matt Kemp, an excellent “Am I the only sane person in this freaking place???” rant by Bud Black… Leave it to this bullpen to kill anything fun.

  203. So much garbage from the eighth inning on. But it would be worth it if John Hart rang down to Fredi’s office and said, “I need to see you upstairs — now.”

  204. At least we got to see a closer close out a game in a dominant fashion…

    I thought I was over the Kimbrel trade, and I really, really like Maybin. But, man, this series really made me realize just how much I still miss having Kimbrel on this team.

  206. The Problem is not even our lack of Kimbrel. The problem is getting to the 9th. Grilli has been a pleasant surprise, mostly.

  207. Oh, I agree. I just miss rooting for Kimbrel. Grilli has, for the most part, done okay in the closer role.

  208. I’ll go back to what I said @ 22

    Bethancourt is not as advertised. That’s several catcher interferences this season and he seems to let a lot of balls go by that he fails to move on.

  210. If Fredi is trying to publicly shame the front office into upgrading the bullpen by exposing the full fury of its futility, then he is a genius.

  211. 5 pitchers for 5 batters is beyond dumb and terrible managing. He is a buget problem than the pen

  212. 211, Rob Cope taught me that all possible decisions for Fredi are equally bad, and as such, he is exempt from any criticism.

    Like when Fredi had a choice of going to Avilan or Eveland with the bases loaded, and he went with Eveland, you can’t say that’s bad managing because statistics show Avilan and Eveland are exactly equivalent choices. EXACTLY.

  213. 5 pitchers were given the opportunity to get three outs. NONE OF THEM COULD DO IT!

    Dana Eveland, Nick Massett, and David Aardsma are not big league relievers. They’ve all been released by a contending team this year. What does that tell you? Teheran was at less than 100 pitches before the inning started, and should have been able to get through the inning. Luis Avilan is a LOOGY who all but lost his role on last year’s team, and he’s a setup man on this year’s team. That should also tell you something. I don’t care if Fredi put 9 pitchers in that inning: NO ONE COULD GET THE OUTS. It would be beyond frustrating if I was the manager of this team to keep making reliever changes and no one could get an out.

    I’m far from a Fredi apologist, but when 5 pitchers can’t get 3 outs, and he used the two people the front office just scrapped off the waiver wire, then you can’t pin that on the manager. The front office, as part of the rebuilding plan, deliberately stripped their bullpen. If you want someone to blame, blame Frank Wren for creating the need for the rebuild.

    And John, please, please stop posting here. You have got to be one of the most annoying people to Mac’s long-lasting blog (believe me, you have a lot of competition). You bring almost no value (or negative value) to these discussions.

  214. There’s no doubt our pen is bad, but five pitchers in one inning just totally kills the flow of the game and makes no sense at all. Glad I didn’t watch this one, sitting through that inning without losing it would’ve been hard to do.

  216. Naw mang, you guys have it all wrong….

    David O’Brien ‏@DOBrienAJC 1h1 hour ago

    A sorcerer couldn’t manage this injury- and suspension-diluted bullpen into being a good one.

  218. Thank you Rob Cope, I agree with you 100%. I love how it’s never the player’s fault for not doing the job they are paid to do. I always think of Gregg Popovich saying, “I’ve got nothing for you. What do you want me to do? We just turned the ball over six times. What else do you want me to do here? Figure it out. Because it’s true. There’s nothing else I can do for them. It’s a player’s game, and they’ve got to perform.”

    It’s a crappy team which we already knew going into the season. It’s just not crappy enough to get blown out every game so you don’t care. Instead we have to suffer these “Lucy with the football moments” every game, where we think we’re going to be winners, but we know in our hearts we are not, because the GM decided to gut the team and rebuild.

    So let’s just accept the fact that the bullpen is a tire fire, because John hart watched Major League: The Movie too many times, and stop blaming the manager because none of our crappy relievers can get three outs. Managing matters when you are on the cusp of something great, which we most decidedly are not. We suck. I’m going to accept that and still watch the games and root on the team, but this was the always the way this season was going to play out.

  219. “By design” implies we’re tanking/rebuilding and is not the narrative the front office wants us to believe. But yes, I’m very confident Craig Kimbrel, Jordan Walden, David Carpenter, David Hale, Chasen Shreve, or even Anthony freakin’ Varvaro may have gotten three outs today. And of course, Shae Simmons, Luis Vizcaino, and what little I know of Andrew McKirahan would be helpful as well. And then, if Eric Stults and/or Trevor Cahill could throw a baseball, then Folty and/or Williams Perez would be in the pen. And remember, we brought in umpteen ex-closers, and they couldn’t beat out this rag-tag bunch. What do you expect of Fredi when he’s working with people that would be 19, 20, 21, and 22 on the depth chart if we had 2014’s pen?

    Perspective.

  220. One last thing, and then I’m done: we could also bring up some of our starting pitching prospects, and they could probably get three outs every now and again, but we’re not in a position to do that. Matt Wisler and Manny Banuelos could do okay too. Our situation is what our situation is.

  221. Rob, start a vote. I’ll stop posting if that’s what the majority of you guys want. But I won’t do it just because you and a few others have a deeply personal problem with me.

  223. It’d be kinda neat to see Fredi pull a Lou Pinella every once and a while. Fredi makes the ol Bartles & James guys look animated.

  224. I hate to think what I would have sounded like if there were an internet when Chuck Tanner was manager.

  225. @219 – Just pointing out there are even more reasons Fredi’s job is difficult than DOB mentioned.

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