Williams Perez were dealing for us, guys:
Six innings and no runs.
Meanwhile, offense got 4.
Meaning we knew we had not a chance
On this distant foreign soil.
3 double plays are good.
Fenway Park has melted in the dark,
That old green monster hanging round.
These teams played this game in misting rain.
It’s a win and we will take it.
Liking losing’s hard to fake it.
But the plural pitching is our recipe again,
Oh, yes!
Xander Bogaerts launched a single one.
Off of Dana Eveland.
Jim Johnson got us through the 8th.
Then Jason Grilli scared off our pants.
But when he was through, A Braves had a win.
Fenway Park has melted in the dark,
That old green monster hanging round.
These teams played this game in misting rain.
It’s a win and we will take it.
Liking losing’s hard to fake it.
But the plural pitching was our recipe again,
Oh, yes!
Juan Uribe has been a find;
Two more hits and he can catch.
Nick Markakis also got to 2;
No power but he gets on base.
Andrellton Simmons hit by a pitch,
So we hope and pray his hand is well and lively,
of all the shortstops of my life,
all the shortstops of my life,
He’ll still be the one.
Fenway Park has melted in the dark,
That old green monster hanging round.
These teams played this game in misting rain.
It’s a win and we will take it.
Liking losing’s hard to fake it.
But the plural pitching was our recipe again,
Oh, yes!
So appropriate with the new Jurassic Park movie out!
I wonder what Miguel Montero would cost us.
No way the Cubs are letting him go. But you’re right: he’s the type of catcher the Braves need.
Schwarber ain’t up for good, and he certainly ain’t up to catch. I like Montero, though. Maybe in the offseason?
Maybe I haven’t had enough coffee yet this morning… I do not recognize the tune for this write-up. Can someone help me out?
If Schwarber hits, he may stay
#5
Well, it’s not “Sweet Caroline.”
#5 McArthur Park
Green monster and rain kept rolling in my head. So, “all the sweet green icing flowing down” and “left the cake out in the rain” produced this.
@5 Thanks for asking. I didn’t recognize it either.
Donna Summer did this in like 1977 (that was a “cover”), so anybody under about 45 only picked this up on “oldies.”
It always sounded like the narrator was having an LSD trip to me.
And, it was first recorded by the actor, Richard Harris.
I used to like Montero, but in 1035 plate appearances in 2013 and 2014, he hit .237/.324/.358, and he’ll turn 32 in a couple of weeks. Like Pierzynski and Lavarnway, he’s another backup catcher.
Williams Perez? Who knew?
And nice work with the Jimmy Webb tune.
“MacCarthur Park” was certainly a first-ballot entry in the Overwrought Hall of Fame (right next to almost any song written by Jim Steinman). I generally like Jimmy Webb’s hits (“By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” etc.), but the “cake in the rain” bit always escaped me. Let’s just say that I’ve never had a breakup so bad that it forced me to trip over so many cringy-bad metaphors.
I did like Donna Summer’s version, mainly because it came out while I was going to high-school dances. (You like a lotta things at that age.) The Moroder extended version (with “Heaven Knows”) was a dancefloor-saving sock-hop fave. Summer & Moroder somehow turned a morose tune into something oddly celebratory.
But the song has slain many an artist, including Waylon Jennings, who offers a fairly faithful, if clunky schmaltzfest of a version.
ububba, back in the day, a friend of mine worked at a radio station and gave me two albums he thought I’d like. I guess they were comped to him. Anyway, one was by some guy named Billy Joel and had a song called Piano Man. It was okay, and he probably did all right over the years.
The other album – the one I really liked – was by a guy named Les Moore and featured a song entitled Silver Spoons. I thought the album was great and that song in particular struck a chord with me. Thing is, as far as I can tell, Les Moore was abducted by aliens. I never heard or saw anything from him again, and I can’t find hide nor hair of him on the internet.
Did I make this artist and song up? I figure if anybody would know, it would be you.
Thanks.
So the official rock critic, ububba, likes a little disco? Incredible.
I know a guy who grew up in Columbus about 10 years ahead of you, and the Commodores played their prom in about 1970 – 1972. Now THAT would have been fun.
Just a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I and a group of friends experienced Generation 2 of the Swingin’ Medallions and they were spectacular.
Great recap, cliff. My wife was a big Swingin’ Medallions fan. I think you just dated yourself.
I used to date myself, but I didn’t like me very much; so I broke up.
The only Les Moore I know is buried in Tombstone, and has the greatest epitaph ever:
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a 44
No Les no more
I wonder if it bothers Omar Infante that every time he makes an All-Star team people want to change the rules so it doesn’t happen again.
coop,
I do remember Double Shot from when it FIRST came out, but I was very young.
The “sons and nephews and friends of sons and nephews” put on a phenomenal show. They can even do stuff that is in different genres and up to present era.
I gather from everyone’s comments afterwards that nobody had any idea what I meant @1.
So: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4zvQfDhi0
(You’re welcome, or: I’m sorry–depending on how this strikes you.)
@14
There was an interview with Moroder on NPR this morning. He sounded awesome.
Corporate espionage in MLB.
Just saw on ESPN that the Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI for trying to hack into the Astros’ computer system and steal scouting reports and what not.
Who knew St. Louis was in China?
Ninja’ed by Remy!
I’ll buy you a Coke.
Cool, sahsho1.
@21, I knew the reference — figured it was obvious! Don’t know how many people here listened to Alapalooza, though.
@24 But wait, I thought the Cardinals were the pillar of integrity and class in professional sports? Surely, the FBI must be in error.
Grittiest hacking ever. They hack the Astros the RIGHT way.
@29
They will give the Cardinals six extra draft picks as punishment.
Love the names for the Cards’ and Astros’ respective databases: “Redbird” and “Ground Control.” Very cloak and dagger.
I bet Red Schoendienst is behind this.
How ’bout them Cardinals? Quite a high-tech spitball.
#16
Yes! I had some friends whose older brothers told me about that. BTW, The Commodores are from Tuskegee, which is only about an hour away from Columbus, which was a great place for R&B/soul music. The Commodores went from playing high-school proms to selling out the Municipal Auditorium.
Well, Coop, I hate to break the news to you, but I write about DJs, gear & rhythm-based music for a living. (Not radio DJs so much, but DJs who play out.) I went to the dark side awhile ago. Just click my handle & it’ll take you down the DJ rabbit hole… a scary place for some folks.
SPECTRE was definitely behind framing St. Louis for this hack. No other logical explanation will suffice.
The Astros password was: Biggio. Rumor has it they changed it to: Astro2
Or Bryce Harper. He’s got that evil villain Auric Goldfinger vibe about him, no?
No Mr. Williams and Mr. Perez, I expect you to die.
My whole password joke is not that far from the truth.
@15: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1kmpdo_les-moore-silver-spoons-us-loner-acid-folk_music
NM.
Peterson
Maybin
Freeman
Gomes
Markakis
C. Johnson
Uribe
Ciriaco
Lavarnaway.
Eh…it might be enough.
Edit: Just realized we’re carrying 8 in the ‘pen. We don’t want to give Fredi that many buttons to push, do we?
@41
If he had only one button to push, he’d flip a switch.
Jace Peterson is the 4th most valuable 2B in the NL and 28th most valuable position player:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/position/2b/league/nl/sort/WARBR
This is quite an upgrade from having the worst 2B for 2 years:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/year/2013/position/2b/league/nl/sort/WARBR/order/false
You had ONE job, Gomes — play the Monster correctly.
I think we’ve been hacked.
I like Jim Powell a lot, but if I never heard “And Chris Johnson is down on strikes” again it would be too soon.
Miley is a fast worker. Like it.
Attaboy, Neck.
Oh, Julio.
If Chris Johnson never took another at-bat I would be fine with it.
In fairness to Julio, this is who the Red Sox were supposed to be going into the season, and in this stupid bandbox, any pitcher can have a terrible day.
Well poop
Two pitches, two swings, two outs. Good job, good effort.
I’d complain about Fredi trotting Teheran out to start the 7th inning, immediately after giving up 3 runs, but I think I’ve learned something:
@54
I wonder if Fredi did that to make a point. As many have pointed out on here, he has come off as quite passive-aggressive lately. From what I’ve read on here and seen between him and Tehran as of late in games, there seems to be some issues between those two. I hope I am wrong, but if he is willing to destroy a good young players confidence just to prove a point, he really needs to be shown the door.
The funny thing is, it sort of seems like Frank Wren is doing the exact same thing to Fredi Gonzalez, by giving him this bullpen.
We’re not good.
What is the obsession with hitting for the cycle?
Pretty sure this bullpen looked a lot different the day Frank Wren left.
Marimon might be done after today
#59 – so did the rotation, lineup, bench, and the farm system
three straight doubles – my kind of an afternoon.
Well this team doesn’t roll over and die like the past few seasons. Too bad our pitching sucks
ralphdibny, Thank you! Thank you!
The potential winning run could be at the plate right now. But, bullpen.
@62, Pretty sure yours won’t show up in the box score.
Oh they do, but only for those scoring at home.
I hope Orange Julius remembers how to pitch baseball one of these days.
In Miami, the Yanks are playing the Marlins. In the off-season, the game’s 2 starting pitchers (David Phelps & Nathan Eovaldi) were traded for each other.
Phelps got thru the top of the first inning unscathed. Eovaldi? Not exactly. Before he was pulled, he got 2 outs & gave up 8 runs on 9 hits.
Frenchy just pitched a 1-2-3 inning for the Phillies. And he struck out Nick Reimold looking.
After the destruction of the roster and expectation of finishing with 90+ losses, I never thought we’d be talking about how bad the manager is when we were 3 games under .500 in mid-June. I just simply don’t understand the Fredi hate. Like I’ve said before, I think he’s a slightly above average manager, and nothing more. But you’d have to really believe in the old saying, “players win games, coaches lose them” to kill him for 2011 and 2014, but not give him any credit for the way the team has performed since he’s been here and especially the way they are currently. I’ve read people on here say that when the players under-perform, then it’s Fredi’s fault, but when players over-perform, Fredi did nothing to help. I’m so thankful I don’t work at a job where when things don’t go as planned I get blamed and when things do go as planned I don’t get credit. But I guess that’s why Fredi makes what he makes and we… don’t. I do think the Braves will either fire him or simply not renew his contract, but he is far from the reason why the Braves are so “bad” right now.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/14/fredi-gonzalez-is-not-pleased-with-two-players-who-didnt-report-early/
I’m going through old articles about Fredi, and look at this one. What is this? Calcaterra calls Fredi out for calling Schafer and Pastornicky out for not being early to Spring Training. Where do people get off calling out a manager for saying publicly that two absent players are not where they need to be? “There’s a reporting date for a reason. If a guy shows up on time, he’s on time. Doing that bare minimum doesn’t make him a great worker. It doesn’t do him any favors. But I’d hope it would exempt him from public reprimand like this.” What world are we living in? You have conversations with guys behind closed doors. If they don’t get it, you take the next step in publicly calling them out. With the size of egos on major league ballplayers, I bet a ton of them respond to getting their manhood questioned. I know I would.
Same thing with Teheran. The Braves handed Teheran a 7-year deal, and if he doesn’t pitch like it and he’s not responding privately to critique by the coaching staff, I’d hope the manager would take the gamble of calling them out publicly. There are only so many arrows in the quiver for a major league manager, and I’m pretty certain all managers across the MLB at some point have called players out publicly. And if Bobby truly never did, then super. He’s one guy among many HoF managers who undoubtedly did. Bobby’s HoF status hardly precludes from critique (see his postseason record). And Teheran is hardly precluded from critique as well.
And by the way, I think Fredi had it right: Schafer and Pastornicky have both proven in the two years since that they aren’t major league baseball players. Maybe they should have read the newspapers.
I think Calcaterra had it right.
As for Teheran, stating that he’s uncoachable now that he has a large contract is pure speculation. For all we know, it’s just as likely that he’s all ears for anything McDowell tells him.
I think some of speculation on here recently about Fredi possibly having lost the team or key players may be going a bit too far, based on what we actually know. I imagine we’ll find out at some point whether or not that’s true.
But I’d still like to see Fredi gone. His tactical blunders make a mockery of the game and make it less enjoyable to watch.
The dramatic irony in the Calcaterra link is thick. 2013 spring training Fredi doesn’t have any idea how bad Frank’s 5-year contract is going to be.
Also, Rob, I think you’ve got a point @71. I’m not sure you do @72.
It is blindingly obvious that Calcaterra was right.
Rob
I agree, in many aspects, this team has exceeded expectations. Especially at the plate. Our pitching has been worse than we ever thought it could be.
But we are on pace to win 77 games, which is about what everyone expected.
What will be interesting is how this team responds to him in the second half.
@74, I do not know whether Fredi has lost the team already; probably not, because typically we’d hear players complaining in the press or on social media.
But I certainly speculate that if the team keeps losing in late innings and Fredi keeps on calling his guys out in the press, then the clubhouse will turn unhappy, and it may turn against him. But we’ll see. He has had a fair amount of success with keeping his players’ public griping to a minimum, and that may mean that he does a better job of keeping their respect and trust than I may realize. I still want him out of the clubhouse and off the team, but I’ve said my piece on that already.
Martin Gandy keeps an updated list of Braves signed draftees on http://www.gondeee.com/.
Again, thank you, ralphdibny, for finding Les Moore for me. I’ve been listening to Silver Spoons all day and wishing I were as good a person as Little Freddie.
And thanks, AAR, for picking up my slack.
A sort of recap is up.