On the docket for a Tuesday night home game: A pitchers duel filled with missed opportunities and base running blunders. Julio Teheran started for the Braves and pitched brilliantly, racking up 12 strikeouts (four of them in the 2nd inning thanks to a wild pitch) in 7 innings and only allowing 3 hits. Unfortunately, one of those three hits came off of Ryan Braun’s bat and ended up in the seats for the first run of the game.
Teheran’s Brewer counterpart, Jimmy Nelson, held his own, allowing only 4 hits in six innings and recording 8 strikeouts. He kept the Braves off the board until the 5th, when Mallex Smith tripled home Erick Aybar for the Braves lone run. The Braves had appeared to be in good position to score a couple in the 2nd with a bases-loaded, no-out threat, but they managed to Barve the situation up and let Nelson off the hook when Aybar lined into a double play and Teheran hit a soft grounder to 2nd to end the inning.
The Brewers tried to Barve the game up, too, by running into an out at 3rd when the ball was hit in front of the runner, and getting a leadoff walk in the 8th picked off, but no one can Barve like the Braves can, and they managed to secure the loss with little effort.
Bud Norris came out of the bullpen to relieve Teheran in the 8th and started walking guys, which isn’t the greatest relief strategy in the world. He got the pick off on the first one, but a stolen base and base hit allowed the second one to score and gave the Brewers the lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
The Braves are now 3-4 since Snitker took the reins, dropping back below .500 under him for the first time since last Tuesday.
The Brewers haven’t won a series on the road this season. This is their lucky week—welcome to Atlanta, boys.
I know he scored tonight’s only run, but this will never not be needed: Aybar delenda eat.
JC’ed from the last thread:
The idea of the Markakis signing is that he was basically supposed to provide league-average production for a few years until the youth movement bore fruit. Same idea with demanding to get Aybar back in the Simmons trade. They were looking for someone who could keep the seat warm and be precisely okay.
Unfortunately, Markakis’s power has disappeared since wrist surgery in 2012 — the signing was partially predicated on the hopes that it would return — and Aybar has done his best Andres Thomas imitation, which means that two lineup spots that were supposed to be taken care of have turned into black holes.
Plus, Jace Peterson, who was supposed to build on his first half last year, and put his injury behind him, appears to have taken a step backwards in all aspects of his game, which opened up a black hole at second. In the meantime, Gordon Beckham and Tyler Flowers have gone from White Sox castoffs who were expected to be bench depth to two of the only reliable starters in our lineup. If either of them gets injured again, the Braves could go on a losing streak so long that it could threaten Brian Snitker’s job.
Also JC’d:
Speaking of associated jokers and their overt lies, I hope it’s not too much of a violation of the Prime Directive to note that a certain Cobb County commission chairman who has a bridge to sell you is currently in danger of losing his seat outright, and best case will be in a runoff.
We could have kept the seat warm for near league minimum. We can win 59 games with Joey Terds in RF. I think. Maybe 57.
Jenkins and Gant each had strong 9-K starts tonight for Gwinnett
Withrow has been downright filthy in AAA. What needs to happen with that guy to get him going at the ML level? He wasn’t exactly O’Flaherty while he was here.
Interesting. I just saw the Royals could be intrigued by Markakis even if they go with internal options to replace Alex Gordon who is on the DL.
Is it possible that the Warriors could lose this whole thing? I didn’t think they were even human!
@7
I’m pulling for it. Coronations are boring, season-long ones even more so.
After reading several articles, it doesn’t seem to be whether or not the Braves trade Markakis, it’s what type of package of prospects and money spent that they’ll take. I’m really good with trading Markakis if it brings something decent back assuming 1) the Braves spend the cost savings and 2) a LF/RF setup of Garcia/Inciarte out-performs Inciarte/Markakis.
Trade Markakis for a good bullpen arm
Trade Teheran for a RH’d 3B and corner OF
Go buy some pitching
Right now Markakis’s value is literally underwater. The Braves would have to eat money just to move him, never mind getting something back. If he can’t get back to where he was at the beginning of the year — hitting for average, at least — he isn’t going anywhere.
Yeah, Golden State can lose to this team — they can’t guard them.
LeBron (with an ambulatory help this year) vs. Golden State was what the world wanted to see. But, given how the 2nd season has gone, LeBron vs. OKC would be plenty compelling as well.
If OKC could beat San Antonio, Golden State & Cleveland, it’ll be the greatest modern post-season run since the ’07 NY Giants upset the Bucs, Cowboys & Packers on the road, then knocked off the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl.
I keep seeing Aybar compared to Andres Thomas.
This is a disservice to Andres Thomas. As bad as Pop-Up Thomas was, Aybar is worse by orders of magnitude.
Heck at this point, I’d take Rafael Belliard – the 54 year old Raffy of 2016 – over Aybar.
Edit: Well, maybe not. But I’d have to think about it for a minute or two.
And what about FF with RISP? What’s his K%? His bat looks slow – until it doesn’t, once in a while…why so many foul balls he appears to be late on? With all this shifting set against him it’s weird they go out there so often…my theory, they believe they can get 2 strikes on him there relatively easily, quickly…
Compare him to that yuge guy batting third for them last night, Mr Carter. He was absurdly statuesque, robotic, hardly moved, shuffled back apologetically to the dugout…but yet, 31 rbis. Of course the 23 homers help.
I don’t like the comparison, our Number 3, theirs. One looks like a baseball player, ours, one doesn’t, theirs – in the Brit vernacular Carter looked like the spare prick at a wedding, all night. But his numbers. What is going on?
@14
I would do it in a heartbeat! Every Belliard AB would be must watch TV. “What if he goes deep?”
I wonder what we would have to pay to buy low on Matt Harvey.
@11 Literally underwater? Literally, forsooth? Tsk, tsk, AAR. Tsk, tsk.
Nick’s contract?
Thanks, ‘Rissa. Aybar delenda est.
I think he’s just up to his Neck.
I yield in the face of uncontrovertible photographic evidence.
Although a lot of the ink has washed off.
@18, heh, I caught that too. I don’t think he’s totally underwater, but he’s definitely up to his Neck.
Dammit should’ve read 21
AAR can say “literally” because he flushed Markakis’ contract down the toilet himself.
So are we drafting Kyle Lewis?
@26 I hope so. My guess is he goes #2 to Cincinnati
Kyle Lewis:
http://www.redreporter.com/2016/5/24/11721578/2016-mlb-draft-prospects-kyle-lewis-of-mercer
My first impression when I saw his picture was “he looks like Mike Kelly”. Then I checked, and saw that they were both listed at 6’4″, 195 lbs. Hope Kyle Lewis has a many times better pro career than Mike.
Lewis just did this: https://twitter.com/SoConSports/status/735525653382975488
We went on a little 10-5 winning bender the last few weeks of the 2015 season. I will remember that with great disdain if the Reds snatch Kyle Lewis from us with #2.
We claimed Mets lefty Dario Alvarez.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=alvare001dar
Could be interesting: http://www.amazinavenue.com/2015/3/26/8288065/mets-dario-alvarez-bullpen-lefty-reliever-new-york
And here’s more from Jeffrey Paternostro, one of the smartest Mets prospect guys:
Just bought playoff tickets.
I remember when other teams were eager to pick up our refuse
Huge.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I really don’t want to give up on O’Flaherty. My guess is that we are either giving up on EOF or Krol will be sent back down.
@37, I don’t want to give up on him either. We rode him like a rented mule his first time around, we can give him a little extra time to get his career back on track, especially since our long term interests aren’t actually served by winning.
EOF has allowed 8 runs in 12.1 innings. My take is that at least half of the 16 hits against him have not been very hard and 2 or 3 have been Aybar or KJ specials where a decent infielder would have gotten them. I know also that he’s had at least 3 runs charged to him that were of the inherited variety. IMO he should have an ERA of about 3.50 on a real team. I think with a little luck (the kind that he had to have in 2011 when he sported a 0.98 ERA), we would be thinking of him as one of our better bullpen options. Again, he’ll never get back to 2011 or 2012 numbers, but he can at least be better than a majority of the arms we currently have.
Ay-yi-yi-bar.
Filthy emerges tonight
Wither Faulty?
Didn’t D’Arnaud play a lot of SS in the minors? Why not play him there and KJ at 2b. Beckham needs to be at 3rd
Two straight walks, 2-0 count to Freeman and he swings at one way above the zone.
@42, yes Darnaud can play just about anywhere. Hit enough is what he can’t do.
…tired of watching Freeman fail. Reckon he’s been ‘slumping’ 3 days out of every 4 this season % wise …now approaching 50 games.We know Markakis is shot so why is he clean up?
Most of the rest of the guys, Aybar apart, can be fun to watch. Not these two.
One of those great times when the pitcher shouldn’t be batting 8th
Why is Simpson so offended by the Brewers’ manager’s distaste for bunting?
“I’m sure somebody’s come up with some fact that says you don’t score any more runs when you bunt…”
He can barely disguise the disdain for “eggheads” who “come up with facts”
If Mallex keeps on like this I might have to call him Skates.
Grilli has lost some ticks off his fastball after the injury.
Really don’t like Chevanka in against righties. Not good.
Blaine Boyer!
Aybar is 4 for 12 with 2 BBs since he almost choked on a chicken bone. Baby steps…
With Blaine Boyer in the game, I was thinking about the 2005 “Baby Braves” and how it relates to our bunch. The BB’s had 18 rookies that year, and so far this year, we have employed 9 rookies. I wonder if we will have 10 more rookies this year and beat the 2005 team’s number.
I really think that the sweet, respectful, Georgia-based, bless-your-heart Atlanta Braves fans should start booing this team. 2-18 at home, 0-10 in games decided by less than 2 runs, and what is probably now about a 5.75 team bullpen ERA.
Hard to get mad and boo a AAAA team playing against major league players
Boo the situation!
After Ogando departs, the Braves will be down to Vizcaino and the starting pitchers. I have already written the recap, and I’m so confident not a word will need to be changed.
Haha, 9th inning and we are out of relievers
Watching Blaine Boyer pitch may be one of the highlights of this season for me. He was one of my favorite Braves players ever. Choosing who to root for when it was Boyer vs. Aybar wasn’t hard at all. I don’t care who has the tomahawk across his chest. It’s not even close.
Blaine Boyer is the answer to a trivia question. Unfortunately, the question is “Who is the only pitcher to record a 40.50 ERA for the same team twice?”
Snitker is not afraid to burn through the bench and bullpen, that seems clear.
40.50 me once, shame on you…
So, when do we fire Snitker for the crappy offense?
Mallex just got screwed.
And that was not a strike
Agreed. To his credit, he calmed himself quickly enough to stay in the game.
So 6 relievers to get 6 outs on 14 pitches. Snitker’d
I’m glad that it wasn’t surprising that Mallex said his peace and moved on. He definitely has the intangibles, and I think we’re watching our centerfielder for years to come.
Does Gant get the start in Kelly’s place?
@68 A while back I read about how he would take notes on every at-bat he took in minors. Seems like a bright guy.
Good job by A.J. to frame ball 4 of the intentional walk.
Mallex will out-WAR Justin upton for the next few years. Feed that into the braves-dbacks nerderator
69 — Either him or Jenkins.
I feel like Gant is in the Kelly/Folty/Perez camp of “pitch him so we know what we have and don’t rush Jenkins/Sims/Newcomb/Ellis/”. I imagine Banuelos will join the former list soon.
Kelly’s done a heroic job, and he knows he’s getting a ticket back to Gwinnett for his trouble.
The Bowman speculates it’s Blair on Saturday.
I’m confused on the overturned call at first on Inciarte. Every angle I saw looked like it was either a tie or he beat the throw.
I really hate Erick Aybar. Reggie Sanders, Dan Kolb levels of hatred. That pube-chin just really infuriates me.
Can we fire Erick Aybar? Into the sun?
When Swanson and Albies are called up I think we’ll score one more run per game.
I swear it feels like we’ve had the worst player in MLB for, like, 6 years in a row. I think that’s almost true.
Yeah, Joe, those stupid facts.
But that would completely ruin the tank job. Such a dilema. I give up. Put me in the camp that says the kids should stay on the farm this year. No reason to mess up a good thing. Finish last and get the pick.
Swanson will be retired before we are good again.
Well, this sucks.
Bases loaded, no outs. What’s the worst that can happen?
I think krussell thinks that Swanson will die of old age before we are good again.
AJP is about the worst catcher I’ve seen at framing pitches.
In the first or second inning Powell and Sutton were laying into him. He booted a ball behind Folty: “That was a play that…could have been made. Seems like there have been a lot of those lately.”
That’s strike three if you catch it
Hey, Aybar didn’t mess up!
“Kirk Neuwenheis singles on a soft ground ball to shortstop Erick Aybar.” What a line.
World’s longest review.
This has to be a fun replay for people who’ve been sitting around for five hours.
Recrapped.