La Vie en Rose. Life through rose colored glasses. That’s what we need. How we need it.

 

You could pretty much predict it. The details might vary to some extent but not much, really.

We score a couple in the first but give them back right away. They added 3 in the 4th, one more in the 7th, that was all they needed. The essential difference with their at bats and ours was simple – they hit the ball harder up and down the line. Just like the previous night and just like they will on Sunday afternoon. It is a cacophony of sound at two different levels that sends its own message.To be fair we had one guy who did that and did it all evening and had just one single to show for it. Dansby had no luck at all, straight at an infielder, but there has to be a glimmer here you think as all his contact was pure, The right foot went backwards about 18 inches on every full swing. What that means heaven knows but it’s there, just watch. But he hit it hard, every time.

Lucas Sims went to 0 and 3 but did persevere into the sixth and a pitch count at close to 100. That helped the bullpen somewhat and hopefully gave him something  positive to take back to the dugout. Assessing his performance, his pitches, you end up with the impression that the curve and change, both around 83/85, are worthy of further refinement and look decent. His fastball in the low nineties does not impress. It has to be precisely located to work and tonight’s numbers show otherwise. 5 IP, 5 runs, 3K, only 1 BB but 2 HBP. But he hung around and did not appear to lose his composure

Max Fried pitched a meaningless 8th inning in relief and took 18 pitches to do so. This, again for him, proves nothing at all. Have him relieve RA mid game tomorrow and leave him out there. Maybe then we, and he, will learn something. 4 innings would be ideal.

Our hitters look tired, the prolonged absence of Kemp is permeating the order. The shining exceptions were the aforementioned Dansby and also Brandon who’s surprising us all at third and tonight cracked a solid homer. Matt Adams is miserably bad and here follows a hypothesis as to what may have happened and is continuing to happen.

At the time Freddie emerged from the DL and took a few hundred ground balls and then played a couple of perfectly competent games at third there were two posts made on this board that day. Both said the same thing. The pressure on Adams to perform at the plate had doubled, just like that. We had all been absorbed with how Freddie would do at third. Once it had been quickly established he was fine there the unspoken focus was all on Adams. All he had to do was to hit as he had been hitting since he came.

And he couldn’t, and still can’t. He’s a mess. But it still made no sense how quickly the Braves announced the ‘experiment’ over with Freddie back at first. It was indecently and apparently unfairly fast to Adams after all the assurances that had been given and Freddie’s glowing opinion of his bat. There is one logical explanation of why this seemed so premature – Adams asked for it to be ended, he was not able to handle the responsibility, wanted back to the relative obscurity of the bench and some LF. The Braves agreed, how could they not. And now, of course, he finds he still can’t regain the swing.

Afternoon game tomorrow. Who is going to hit the ball hard? We know what we will get from RA for, sadly, maybe his last innings for us before the greedy Yankees suck him up. If he goes say thank you.

Hate those Cardinals . Hate most of all the bloated red Cardinelles, the geriatric grannies, still searching for that second husband at the ball park. They have their first safely buried now,  the insurance collected, so they can afford the best seats in their search for number two who will, himself, be nicely loaded. Ugh.