Earlier today – Trevor Cahill, one of the many neverwozzers who tarried briefly with the Braves pitching staff last year and accumulated an 0 and 3 record and a 7.5 ERA in doing so, was introduced, shockingly, into the seventh innings of the third game of the Cubs/Giant series, yet another one run scorcher. He relieved Arietta, went 1,2,3 , threw strikes from the word go, looked like a pitching machine out there, no problem. Well, yes. Why not.
Gant/Velazquez in Philly tonight, Gant his fifth start of the season, first since June. Garcia with a blast to the opposite field got things started., Hernandez matched it in the third. Gant looked ok but was running up the pitch count and in the same innings Rupp drove in 2 with a double, 3-1 Phils.
Dazzling defensive play by Franco robbed Flowers and closed out the top of the 4th after Nick had got Kemp home who had doubled. In the bottom half Gant raised his K total to 6. 3-2 Philly.
Dansby error lead to a 4th Philly run in the 5th, Gant went over 100 pitches, Kemp of all people closed out the innings plucking a Rupp drive off the top of the wall. Thought Dansby looked tired(slow bat?) but then he made a good play in the shift to rob Howard. 4-2 Phils.
Adonis, Adonis, 4-3. Move him up in your charts, Rob. My man. Pity Ender could not be on ahead with either of them.Velasquez is not making this easy, 7K’s so far, 2 of them Freddie, struck out the side here in the 6th. 4-3. Gant done at 113 pitches. 5IP 5H 4ER 1BB 6K. Pretty good you’d have to say, encouraging. Cunniff relieves after a bad outing in SF, gets them 1/2/3.
Velasquez stronger than ever, gets Neck for his fourth straight K, 88 pitches only in the 7th, but then Flowers gets a 1 out double. Joe quite rightly proud of himself for spotting these last 2 nights that every visit by the Phils coaching staff to the mound results in instant mayhem for them and a boost for the Braves. But Flowers is stranded. Phils, still 4-3.
Hey, it’s Shae!! Another in the my man club, want him to succeed so badly after those 2 wasted years. Birthday boy they say! 26. 98 on the gun, off speed had them out in front, all ground balls, 1/2/3.
Chase pinch hits to start the 8th, .409 in that role, wow. Walks, we have the top four coming up. Velasquez done, Neris relieves. Ender single becomes 2nd and 3rd after Philly error. Adonis cues in the tying run, his 50th RBI. Freddie walked intentionally, Kemp pops out, Neck K’s. 4-4. We still have not had a hit with runners in scoring position, so we are told.
Ramirez to pitch the bottom of the 8th, 3/4/5 hitters up. Franco nearly homers, gets lead off double, he’s 4 for 4. This will test Ramirez. Our nemesis is up but he rolls out, runner stuck at 2nd. Crowd into it. Ramirez passes test, strikes out Rupp, Bourjos flies out. Great work. 4/4
Gomez pitching. Jace one out infield it. 2 out, Beckham pinch hits, singles, 1st and 2nd 2 out, Ender up, dribbles out.
Major League Debut, Jed Bradley!! Absolutely no pressure. Strike out. Very loud foul, jeez. That was much too close by Galvis. 2 out. Fly out, good for the kid but the Gods did smile a bit. Free Baseball as our learned friend will undoubtedly have said..
Top 10th. The Gods were with us again. It must be we have this guy named Adonis, he scores the go ahead run after walking. With the bases loaded and one out two back to back dribblers have scored two runs. We lead 6-4, Mauricio will pitch the bottom half. He gets the 4 for 4 Franco on a vicious line drive for the final out. Bradley wins on his debut. Shazam.
Excellence, thy name is blazon. Go Braves!
And some of you don’t think this is a .500 club already? I honestly think we are there already. We just need one more reliable starter, one more power bat, Craig Kimbrel and the kids continuing growth to have a chance next year.
I mean–if we need all that to be a .500 club, we’re not “there already.”. My position has been that to be .500 next year we’d have to at least sign two expensive pitchers. Not sure if that makes sense when we’ve invested so much in pitching prospects.
If we played the Phillies and Padres 162 times a year we would totally be a .500 team.
Young talent can be the most exciting thing for those of us who simply sit and watch. Find myself reflecting back on the game this early morning and whose name comes first to mind but the mercurial Franco. I believe we were told coming in he was in a hitting slump and somewhere mid game he and another Phil got in each others way on an infield pop up.
But, that play at third, you catch your breath. Part of it, and the 4 for 4 that went along, you have come to believe is anger, he doesn’t want to be playing on a bad team. He will overlook his own inconsistencies, he’ll show them. Why not. That last line drive down Ender’s throat left his signature on the game as did no other.
coop, stop it! Up late last night i see, we’re both doing all right.
Now Garcia is up to a wRC+ of 128 from July to today.
http://www.fangraphs.com/splitstool.aspx?playerid=13777&position=3B&splitArr=88,89,87&strgroup=season&type=2
I don’t have the WAR splits, but I think the second half combined with last season have sufficiently muddied the waters on what he could be.
Reports from Italy this morning say John Malone and Liberty Media are in advanced negotiations to buy a majority stake in Formula One. If they get it perhaps they’ll take a more flexible attitude towards Braves payroll – what’s another $100M now.
Money makes the world go around, Everett Dirksen, Liberty Media and Fagin agree.
What’s the real estate angle on Formula One?
I think we’ll go a long way towards figuring out who we are with the consistency in most of the roster right now. The lineup has been consistently Inciarte/Garcia/Freeman/Kemp/Markakis/Flowers/Peterson/Swanson in that order for a few weeks now. For better or for worse, we’ll see Teheran and Folty at the top of the rotation, and they’ll continue to figure out 3-5 to see what sticks. The bullpen has been Cabrera/JJ/Krol/Ramirez for about a month now, and if Simmons/Viizzy/Withrow get/stay healthy, they’ll keep running them out there. Lost in the rotation shuffling and inconsistency has been that Snitker has been plugging more consistency into other parts of the roster than we’ve had since the rebuild started. I think that’s adding some stability that is helping this team. People have these things… what are they called… roles.
Mallex is 7/9 with 3 SBs in his rehab assignment. He’s probably better off getting regular ABs in AA, but he’d be a heck of a pinch hitter, spot starter, and late inning replacement. Stupid Markakis.
@9
None of any significance it would seem. The tracks are owned locally and their owners pay large license fees to F1 for the right to host each race. That plus world wide TV rights to divvy up.
We are going to have to keep Matt Kemp. But where?
Chip and Joe are so annoying.
@14
we get what we deserve…they are at about the same level as the team…have you heard many of the others lately? some are awful…that Nats duo.
We don’t always see this Julio, but this Julio is a really good pitcher. Pounds the strike zone and keeps the ball away from the barrel of the bat.
@15 I actually did to mind the Mets and Cubs duos, agree with you on the Nats morons.
@16 He is fun to watch when he is on. Great breaking ball and 93mph on this fastball.
Nick is tired…call up Mallex
to repeat, where can we play Kemp next year, bench? seems a waste…Gattis redux
Kemp will be in left field or traded. He will not be on the bench.
Kemp will be in LF or traded for BMac
@17
Mets are excellent…Cubs pale in comparison to what came before.
@19
What’s the most likely? Mallex to RF, trade Nick?
Freddie is so hot right now.
Only Braves fans and the type of fans that love Braves Journal wouldn’t want a guy that’s hit 29 HR and close to 100 RBI in a season, just because some computer said his fWAR is -3.7. Is he a good fielder, HELL no. Does it matter? Very, very very little.
But similarly, couldn’t wait to replace him with someone like Mallex Smith who might hit 29 HR in his career.
@23, how do you tolerate sharing this forum with so many small-minded folk?
If we keep playing like we have since Kemp arrived, then I say we forget all about fEAR.
fWAR
Stupid autocorrect.
There is nothing to fEAR but fEAR itself.
Kemp isn’t having that bad a defensive season. The main reason Kemp is replacement level this season, despite the power, is that his on base percentage is .290. Avoiding outs is still what winning baseball is about. Now, when he hits a 3-run homer, we will tend to win that game, and you’ll remember that. That will happen 3-4 times per year. When he goes 0-5 and gives up a couple bases in the OF and we lose by a run, it will be totally unmemorable to you. Confirmation bias is powerful.
Mallex & Ender can cover 3/4 of the outfield. Kemp can handle the rest.
Coppy’s probably not even going to ask us.
Have any of you ever seen Coppy and AAR at the same place and same time? Hmmm.
@19 – That’s a good question; I don’t know what is most likely. I would think that it would depend upon what kind of package they could get for Kemp vs. what they could get for Markakis. The way things are going, they could be satisfied to keep the current outfield as well.
My personal opinion is that Mallex is a better fit to replace Markakis than to replace Kemp. Regardless, they are not going to pay Kemp to sit on the bench just because we have Mallex Smith, especially since, rightly or wrongly, Kemp is getting so much credit for the team’s recent play.
@28 – LOL
@29. The biggest issue I have with sabermetrics isn’t what is calculated, it’s the lack of acknowledgement of what cannot be.
For example, I think power has way more ancillary affects than just the HR itself. The fear of it bothers pitchers. They worry more, they locate worse. It makes the defense anxious. They make it easier on OTHER hitters than just the power sources.
Baseball HISTORY shows that hitting is infinitely more important than fielding. It’s more important than pitching, too. Mallex Smith can not save as many runs with his glove than the gap between Kemp and the next most powerful Brave outside of Freeman. He just cannot.
It’s why I think guys like Kiermaier and to some extent even Andrelton are grossly overrated. They just are not very valuable. Winning like the Royals did last year is HARD. Like, baseball trend history hard.
Since power costs money, it’s why I contend that until I know the payroll we will have at Suntrust, I’m not going to get excited in the least.
Recap is up!