The Braves winning streak is over. Shelby Miller’s non-winning streak continues. Braves lose. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes Shelby Miller doesn’t lose, but Shelby never wins. Miller must been a nasty rascal in his last life, because his karma really sucks.
The August 2015 Atlanta Braves also suck, but at least they managed to give Miller a 3-2 lead after seven innings. Our recently pretty dang good relievers couldn’t hold it. They got hammered. I wish I had. Gregor Blanco torched Atlanta as surely as William Tecumseh Sherman. Our relievers poured gasoline on the flames.
Blanco had a single and a double in three at bats, walked twice and scored four runs. Hunter Pence only had one hit, a three run home run in the eighth; but he got a fourth ribbie in the sixth when dumbass Chris Johnson forgot there was only one out, not two. Chris made up for his idiocy afield at the plate, however, going hitless in four trips with three strikeouts.
The Braves did have highlights. Daniel Castro had three hits and scored twice. Best of all, Shelby Miller did not lose. He pitched well enough to win again, but we know how that story goes. No wins in his last 14 starts. I wonder if he misses pitching for the Cardinals.
Seeing as how the Cardinals are running away with the Central, he probably does.
I feel like Shelby Miller played for the Cardinals in a past life. It takes a couple reincarnations to wash that from your soul.
As I said, zero mystery about Chris Johnson….
Please make that William Tecumseh Sherman. I didn’t mean to slight either Burnin’ Bill or George, whoever he is.
Austin Riley is dominating. He may be the steal of the draft.
@5–Obviously a ton of power, but 42 strikeouts in 123 ABs takes a good bit of the shine off. That said, he’s already close to being a top 5 hitting prospect for us. That fact can either be taken as encouraging or as all we need to know about the state of the farm on that side of the ledger.
Riley is a big ol’ boy. I wonder if he will be ready to man 3B when Olivera retires in 2018.
@5,6,7- He also has six errors in his foot Appy League games. Ouch.
Does anybody know anything about the Cuban outfielder signed in the offseason? Dion…. Long ago, visa problems were mentioned. What happened? He was expected to move to the ML club.
@9
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/127622402/dian-toscano-gets-ok-to-work-out-with-braves
Wow 6 errors in 4 games. Looks like he “only” had 7 errors in his 30 GCL games. I’m going to blame the pebbled infields and pretend it’s no biggie.
Further on Toscano.
May he was supposedly at extended spring training. I can’t find news stories since May 31.
Has he disappeared?
I’m not worried about Riley’s defense. That will improve. I also think he can get the strikeouts down some too.
It’s good to see he is making the transition to the wood bat so quickly and driving the ball.
@4, sorry about that! Fixed.
Nicely done with the recap, coop. It provided more entertainment than the game itself did.
@12
Bill Shanks said three days ago on Twitter that he might play this week, for what that’s worth. I’m assuming he means in the minors.
Maybe when Frasor’s on his DL trip we can teach him that throwing nothing but lifeless belt-high fastballs to Buster Posey isn’t going to win him a Rolaids Award.
@16 – Was that Toscano or Olivera? I thought I heard them talking about Olivera working in the minors and possibly making it to the majors before the end of the year, but I still haven’t heard anything about Toscano. It would be great if both could start working with the Braves before the end of the year.
If Olivera doesn’t play for us this year I’m going to have to stop caring.
I can tell krussell’s posts without seeing the name.
A photographer on Twitter spoke with Toscano at extended spring training in mid-July, said he’s still cleared for work-outs, not cleared to “work.”
@14: Thank you. It was my error, not yours. I am sorry.
Seeing this dude play is literally the only thing to look forward to this season.
@20, I’m tempted to add “All in the balls” to the Braves Journal glossary right now. I can’t think of a single reason to call him by his given name when we can call him that.
I am still not sold that Toscano is not an elaborate con on the Braves. I expect someone to break the story that he’s a latter-day Sidd Finch.
He’s guaranteed $4 million over the next four years. (He also got a $1.2M signing bonus and is making $800,000 this year, so it’s a $6 million contract overall.)
For a guy who most people see as a major league 4th outfielder, that’s an eminently reasonable deal. We’re basically hoping that he turns into something like Reed Johnson.
Sidd Finch… that guy could play.
Buster Posey is absurd
I believe it is exceedingly likely that an imaginary player, even if he remained entirely incorporeal, would be better than the bums we’ve got.
Recapped.
@10 Thanks for the link.