Rockes 5, Braves 1 (by coop)

To err is human.

Divinely named, Adonis Garcia was human tonight. He erred. He erred three times.

Four runs resulted. None were earned, but all were counted; and Mike Foltynewicz was charged with them all. Folty pitched well. He went five innings, allowed five hits and a single walk and nary an earned run.

The pen stopped the hemorrhaging. Sugar Ray Marimon and Peter Moylan blanked the Rockies through three solid innings of relief.

In the ninth, Matt Marksberry was the pitching equivalent of Garcia. He walked three, threw two wild pitches but gave up only one run. It really didn’t matter, because the Braves were done after the first. Rockies win 5-1.

65 thoughts on “Rockes 5, Braves 1 (by coop)”

  1. Spent birthday #52 at Yankee Stadium tonight, where the home 9 took a Gotham-sized whipping, somewhat fueled by El Oso Blanco’s HR & 4 RBI.

    A Funny Thing: In my life, I’ve seen Carlos Gomez play 3 times in person. Each time, including twice this year, he’s done something demonstrably assholish that pissed off the other club.

    I sure wish the Mets had completed that trade for him — I kinda like the Astros.

  3. @1…

    Congrats. Let El Oso be your touchstone in remembering this one. Atypical in that it barely got out.

  5. I didn’t realize how young you are, ububba. Many happy returns.•

    Five young Braves prospects were injured in a bus accident in the Dominican Republic over the weekend, as MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez writes. Fortunately, most of the injuries were minor, though 18-year-old Luis Martin Severino Galvan is said to have suffered a broken leg.

  6. Two bus accidents in one season in our minor league system. Maybe we need to take a few million from our major league budget and buy some extremely safe buses.

  9. Greetings from Chicago where my wife and I caught a White Sox game at the aptly named “The Cell”. The experience changed my perspective on the decision to build a new Braves stadium rather than refurbish Turner Field a bit – New Comiskey was built in 91 and remodeled in 2004, and it feels like a bleak, dank dump. Some of that is probably the original design which seems to have been modeled after a state prison, but there’s only so much that remodeling can do to hide the crumbling bones of a place, so maybe it’s for the best that the Braves are starting over from scratch (though choosing to build even farther out from the Atlanta than US Cellular is from Chicago remains galling).

    Headed to Milwaukee tonight for the Brewers’ game, then to Minneapolis for Twins v Astros Saturday night. I plan to lustily boo Carlos Gomez.

  10. Seems like all of our big name trades have overcome whatever slow starts they had – 20hr and Ops+ up to 96 for Gattis.Heyward at 115 with 11hr, Upton at 120 with 20hr, and Kimbrel back to his old self since the end of May.

  11. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that Jason Hursh had been pitching well in relief at AAA since moving to the pen. Well, that’s a combination of small sample fallacy and a delusional wish for the wasted first round draft pick of Hursh to ever provide us anything of value. He’s still getting creamed.

    His last 3 appearances:

    3.1 IP
    8 ER
    8 H, 2 BB

  12. @10 Even after a few good months, Gattis’ season line is still well below his career slash line and below what he’d need to do in order to be a valuable DH. He’s at .241/.274/.450; throw in bad baserunning and no defensive value and you get a -0.3 fWAR.

    The other guys? Sure, JUp and JHey and Kimbrel have been basically as good this year as they have in years past, within a reasonable margin of error. Having them on the team would’ve made the 2015 Braves a better and more exciting team… but on the other hand, trading them away returned a huge haul of prospects *and* will result in the Braves having a higher draft pick next year, so I can’t particularly argue with the logic of those trades. Now, signing Markakis for 4 seasons, on the other hand…

  13. I remarked on this elsewhere, but it’s pretty neat how well and how immediately the Heyward-Miller trade is working out for both teams involved. According to both WARs those are your Cardinals and Braves MVPs right now.

  14. Don’t forget trading away Alex Wood for nothing…that’s going to be the defining move of 2015. It’s higher on the wtf!? scale than Markakis’ signing. Young, cost-controlled, and good…that’s what you want on your team, right? Trading that for old, injury-prone, and unknown talent level? That’s just crazy.

  17. I’ve never seen the White Sox play a home game, so I guess I don’t know what I’m missing. I certainly was in the if it ain’t broke school about the Ted, which has always seemed perfectly decent to me. But happy birthday, Ububba! Here’s hoping that we turn into the Astros in a couple of years.

  20. 14—I think it’s pretty obvious that the Braves expect Wood to break pretty soon. If they’re right about that or if Olivera is an above-average MLB third baseman, it’s an entirely defensible deal. If they’re right about that and Olivera is above-average, well, that’s a pretty nice swap.

  22. You guys are telling me that you (or more precisely, the front office) have the powers to predict when a pitcher will get hurt. Got it. Maybe they should have used those powers to trade away the huge list of guys that needed TJ while in our org…

    And you are ok with trading the guy that might get hurt for a guy that’s older and already hurt. Ok then. There’s not much else I can add. This is a bet that might pay off, but it’s still a pretty bizarre bet from my point of view.

  23. Here is a laugher: Uggla has 14 rbi’s this year. 8 of them came in the 3 games he played against the Braves.

  24. “You guys are telling me that you (or more precisely, the front office) have the powers to predict when a pitcher will get hurt. Got it. Maybe they should have used those powers to trade away the huge list of guys that needed TJ while in our org…”

    ZING!

    I don’t like the trade either, krussell, and in your defense, it did feel a lot like giving Wood away for nothing because:

    1) Peraza for Olivera straight up would’ve been a fair trade given, both top 25 prospects, while Peraza is younger, cheaper, and has no injury history

    2) Avilan/JJ for Bird was a fair swap

    3) Wood for CB pick?

    I think the best part out of this trade might be the CB pick…

    (edited)

  25. 22—No, I’m suggesting that they have specific concerns about one specific pitcher. And, of course, Olivera is unrelated to that; clearly, they’re optimistic about his health and his bat.

    They may well be wrong about some or all of that, but the point is that they obviously do not see the trade as “[y]oung, cost-controlled, and good” for “old, injury-prone, and unknown talent level.”

  29. @22 – You’re right. A much simpler explanation is that the front office is super dumb and you’re much smarter than they.

  30. @21 I think I saw gondeee make this point on Twitter awhile back, but couldn’t that higher FB velocity in 2013 reflect that he spent a good portion of that season coming out of the bullpen?

  31. @29, don’t you hate it when anybody criticizes anybody doing any kind of job in professional sports? I’m always like “Oh yeah, I’d like to see you do better!” Like if they criticize Fredi, I’m all “well obviously he’s better than you or else you’d have his job!”

  33. The bet on Olivera may pay off. Hard-way bets hit all the time. I know it’s pretty impossible to ever agree with me, but there has to be some small minority of fans out there that might have wanted more return for what we gave up.

    I just didn’t want to give up Alex Wood period. Our pitching situation is…worrisome.

  34. @30, maybe — though he actually split time in the pen both years. Here’s the split:

    2013
    As a starter: 11 GS, 56 IP
    As a reliever: 20 G, 21 2/3 IP

    2014
    As a starter: 24 GS, 156 1/3 IP
    As a reliever: 11 G, 15 1/3 IP

    But he threw much harder in college, too. Pitchers always lose velocity as they get younger, but his downward velocity trend — plus the fact that his delivery is crazy and makes him look like he’s bound to get hurt — may explain why the Braves wanted to sell high on him.

  35. I don’t mind trading Alex Wood at all. I mind getting fleeced, especially by the Dodgers. The team trying to win now is not supposed to win the trade in the short term AND the long term.

    Granted, in reality, Wood may crumble, Peraza might flop, Olivera might be an all-star for 4 seasons, and Bird might be a rotation piece. But most fair projections had the Dodgers winning this one on both ends at the time the deal was made.

  37. @31- Ha! I guess you got me! Hoo, boy!

    I was specifically replying to his “You’re telling me they can tell the future?! Ha!” comment.

    But of course they can’t tell the future. But they get paid to try.

  38. A topic that hasn’t been touched on much lately: who is the real Jace Peterson? The guy who was a good leadoff hitter earlier this year, or the guy who is overmatched right now? Can he make adjustments?

    Just saw on Twitter that Hart thinks that we may have Minor back next season.

  41. 39 — I don’t understand why the Braves would potentially offer arbitration. He is making 5 and a half million this year to not pitch, and would probably be making 6+ million next year to be an unknown.

  42. Shelby won’t get the win anyway, so why not play with fire?

    Edit: that was also a great escape. I don’t believe he got out of both innings.

  43. If we paid 6 million for Cahill who had proven for 2 years he couldn’t pitch anymore, why would we not spend the same amount for Minor when he was at least somewhat effective before his injury?

  45. @44 If you’re bunting with a good shot to beat it out, I don’t have a real problem with it. Hasn’t been tearing the cover off the ball.

  46. At 12, I don’t think I said they were all having good years rather they had all seemingly overcome a slow start. And Gattis looks like he’ll finish year with 25 or so homers and 90+ RBI with an OPS+ around 100 if he doesn’t backslide, and I think a lot of teams will take that out of their DH. I also don’t think I editorialized about the value of the trades.. I never minded the fact they were traded, I only minded that they attached salary to them that they should have eaten and gotten more or bette in return.

  47. Johnny Gomes! Multi-run lead for Shelby!

    UPDATE: I think Shelby may be about to cry tears of joy in the dugout. He now has a 3-run lead.

  52. They can still re-sign Minor after non-tendering him. Tendering him an arbitration offer would be stupid and the fact that they stupidly paid Cahill $6 million doesn’t make the idea of paying Minor a similar amount any less stupid. However, they can then negotiate a one-year show-me contract with Minor if he’s interested.

    As far as our pitching situation being described as “worrisome” (and this isn’t necessarily directed solely at krussell BTW but at the doomsaying in general), I’m really not sure I get it. We have a No. 1 and a No. 2 starter in Teheran and Miller (whichever order you put them in). Do we really need any of the other guys to be better than a No. 3 starter in the short term? I don’t see that we do. Is there a big difference between now and earlier this year when most seemed to love how our pitching was setting up? I don’t see that there is. Alex Wood is not the difference between a world-class rotation and a disaster rotation. He’s just not. We were always going to have to trade some of these guys for hitting and this year, Alex Wood and Williams Perez were the three main candidates. He was a No. 3 starter at best. Might we mind up needing a No. 3 starter? Hopefully not, but we might if everything goes horribly with all the young guys. I don’t see that the loss of one is a disaster, either, though, and if Alex Wood was gonna be the No. 3 starter three years from now, we were probably screwed anyway.

    As far as Olivera, let’s give him a chance before we dump all over him. We might as well. It’s not like we’re going anywhere this year, anyway. I also think it’s very easy to say that we should have gotten more for what we gave up without actually knowing what the market for them was. Also, if hitters are overvalued in the market, at some point we’re going to have to overpay and trade for them anyway. We can’t just not trade for any hitters because it’s not a good value trade by the numbers.

    Also, given the general downturn in optimism about the rebuild, it seems as though a lot of people are letting how this team is playing down the stretch color their viewpoint of the rebuild. Don’t. The end of this season has precisely zero relevance to what this team will be two years down the road or even next year, really.

  56. Well, Shelby can kind of look in the mirror on this one. Though he’s still long overdue for five or more runs of support, which continues to never happen.

  58. A consequence of having a bad bullpen is that someone could have come in and bail him out if we had anyone other than Viz.

  59. Couple things tonight. First and foremost, doom and gloom aside, I love this baseball team. Or more precisely, the fundamental generic ideal that is this baseball team. We’re terrible right now. I predicted this. Expected this. Embrace this. It’s ok. My qualms are with the things we’re doing that affect the outlying years for the rebuild. Trading young pitching for unknown value at 3B is crazy. Selling off all likable/marketable players and committing to a 5 year rebuild while blowing rainbows and unicorns up our fanbases’ collective 2 holes is also crazy. I’m ok with the rebuild. Just call a spade a spade.

  60. We’re totally going to retake the lead this inning BTW. It’s so ridiculous that it really is hilarious at this point. Watch Simmons hit a grand slam here.

  62. Luckily I will not be able to watch much of the Yankees series this weekend. Between us almost assuredly losing at least two of three and Chip spending all weekend fellating the Yankees, that’s not gonna be a fun series. Oh, I forgot about the one game that’ll be on the Fox Sports 1 national broadcast, where the announcers will likely spend all game talking about the Yankees, as well.

  64. @59, everyone predicted we’d be terrible. Anyone’s issue with your prognostications is the hyperbolic nature. I get it–you’re going with the Schopenhauer approach: keep expectations low. There’s something to be said for that, but you can’t expect moderate realists to agree with you. In the end, you’ll either be right or be pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Mostly likely, it will be the latter.

    Fact is, most journalistas agree with your negative view of the wood trade, based on the poll. And most of us still hope Olivera will be so awesome we’ll happily eat crow.

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