Win win all day every day. The Braves scored 6 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to stun the Marlins, and cash 2 out of 3 in the series.
Ryan Flaherty started the rally with a walk off Brad Ziegler, and scored on Ronald Acuna‘s sacrifice fly, Acuna’s 3rd RBI of the game. Dansby Swanson‘s bases loaded single off Tayron Guerrero scored Tyler Flowers and pinch hitter Kurt Suzuki with the tying and walk off runs; the big inning accomplished without benefit of a single extra base hit.
The game actually began as a pitcher’s duel, with Julio Teheran and Wei-Yin Chen matching 3 hitless innings before the wheels came off for Julio in the 4th.  After Ender Inciarte showed us how many outfielders need to be knocked senseless in order for Justin Bour to get a triple, (surprisingly, only 1) Teheran dropped the ball while on the rubber to balk in the first run.
From there it was a reverse New Year’s Eve, because after the ball dropped, it was 2017 again. Starlin Castro doubled, Brian Anderson singled, Derek Dietrich walked, Miguel Rojas singled, and Lewis Brinson‘s grand slam made it 6 – 0 before an out was recorded. Julio stayed in to finish 5, allowing 7 hits, walking 3 and striking out 4.
The latest iteration of the Lucas Sims era started and undoubtedly ended today, as the Marlins tacked on 2 more runs on the first of 2 Rojas home runs. A.J. Minter allowed the 2nd Rojas blast for the Marlins 9th run. Naturally, Minter got the win.
The Braves fought back with 2 in the 6th, and 2 in the 7th, before the fateful 9th. Inciarte, who crashed into the center field wall chasing Bour’s triple, stayed in until the 7th, when he was double switched, a situation that bears monitoring.
The Braves take a 1 1/2 game lead over the Phillies to Philadelphia on Monday.
JC’d from the last thread, Roger, I was not joking.
We’ll know Chief is joking when he says something positive about a Braves player.
Dude, I’ve got Albies in the HOF. Shut it. 😉
I confess I gave up. Good job, faithful fans. Bring on the Phillies.
Chief, as I understand you, a prospect has to prove himself at the big league level before you’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I appreciate the consistent negativity about prospects. It’s a good counterbalance to falling in love with prospects (which some of us have a tendency to do).
But Dude, Ender plays a mean centerfield.
I understand the “what past season is this season most like?” thing. I’m also ready for a different archetype.
He struggles A. going back on balls B. balls hit straight at him.
And I’m not talking about just today.
He is GREAT coming in on balls. I played the position and although I don’t think there are many traditionally great CF anymore, he’s not close to great. I’d say that he is between above average and great.
Watching the giddy exuberance of Albies and Acuna, during the comeback was priceless.
Just catching up on the weekend’s threads, and Chief’s takes have been even Chiefier than usual — uniformly, hilariously wrong.
Nevertheless, he persisted.
I just want to say that was a very fun baseball game. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.
I really do think Braves are going to take a run at Moose now and the Royals would be smart to entertain proposals now as the market come July will be flooded with decent 3Bs on bad teams.
What’s the problem with Ender now? Admittedly, advanced stats like dWAR, UZR and DRS didn’t like Ender in 2017 (middle of the pack), but they loved him in 2016 (3rd or 4th). Chief’s just being a contrarian; Ender is a top 5 or 6 defensive centerfielder in baseball. He’s doing just fine.
Should he be here if Acuna becomes the NL version of Mike Trout in CF? That’s a different discussion altogether, friends.
@6, The 1991 Braves, to which this team is most often compared, doesn’t really make much sense. There were so many differences between the compositions of the two teams. All you really have is the potential for another “worst to first” experience. (Although we weren’t the worst last year, crazy enough.)
I’m looking forward to a completely new archetype, too.
Solely from watching the celebrations at the ends of today’s game and the Folk Hero game back to back, it’s striking how much more athletic the team is these days. I can’t believe that was eight years ago.
It’s a little baffling that I’m the first person in this thread to say DANSBY IS GREAT AND I’M SO INTO HIM BEING OFF THE DL, but there we are.
Unbelievable comeback! Yes, it was the Marlins, but we needed to score six runs, for God’s sake! That wouldn’t be easy to do against a high school team, let alone an (allegedly) major league one.
So far, every time I’ve been worried that this team is about to hit a funk, they’ve come up with a comeback win or something. Don’t look now, but if we can take the series from Philadelphia, we’ll open up a bit of a lead in the division.
Folk Hero Brad Ziegler (TM)
Because he’s the hero the Marlins deserve, but not the one they need right now.
@13 I’d like to hear more about why it doesn’t make as much sense to compare this team with the 1991 team. I don’t think this team looks much like the 2010 team as far as the product on the field is concerned.
Monday morning POWER RANKING of commenter biases:
#6 Recency
#5 ERA > every other pitching metric
#4 Veterans > prospects
#3 Prospects > veterans
#2 Sample size
#1 Caring about power rankings
Bonus POWER RANKING of players who look exactly like Dansby Swanson:
#2 Dansby Swanson
#1 Charlie Culberson
I’ve been perhaps as guilty as anyone of pushing the “comparison to previous seasons” archetype. But I’m with the R brothers (Adam and John) that the archetype is a little tired. It certainly has little value in actually analyzing or predicting the performance of this team.
I’ve done the analogizing because it brings me pleasure to remember certain glorious seasons of the past–and for me that includes 1969 and 1982, in addition to 1991. I brought up 2010 because that was another magical season with many great memories. But memories, as pleasant as they can be, are no substitute for analysis.
Nice surprise W for Braves yesterday. In other news, I would advise Mark Geiger to leave Atlanta quietly and not return any time soon.
Adam R.,
Well, I do. For me the weekly power ranking is somewhat of a test for sanity and journalistic bias.
ESPN today, Braves 4, gNats 6, Phils 7. I am happy with our team, but I don’t think we are that good. Nor the Phils. The gNats MIGHT be if things broke well for them.
Power ranking lists are pretty much the godfathers of click bait articles on sports sites. They’re literally the easiest thing in the world to “write” – just put together a list at the start of the season and version it every week with whatever hot and trendy shit is going on that cycle. And pretty much every “journalist” assigned to write those updates do so with an eye to making sure enough “outrage” is generated to keep clicks coming, from both fans of the “top teams” and fans of the “snubbed, disrespected” teams.
Does there have to be a shot-for-shot remake of any particular season for it to be analogous? After all, Lonnie Smith is wayyyyy to be old to be doing what he was doing in 1991 again.
Evan Phillips has been lights out in AAA lately:
Tomahawk Take did a pretty good scouting report on him earlier this year.
POWER RANKING of POWER RANKINGS:
6. Bleacher report not even up yet, WTH guys???
6. Sporting News also out of date
4. NBC Sports is a slideshow? What? I’m not clicking on that garbage, GIVE IT TO ME IN LIST FORM.
3. and 3. USA Today and ESPN both have us at 4. This is acceptable for now…
1. This power ranking right here
POWER RANKING of “What Braves season is this?”
6. 1957 🙂
5. 1995!!!
4. 2005
3. 2010
2. 1991
1. 2018
WHOA! Where is 1982 on that list?! After finishing 5th in the NL West the season previous, we stormed back to finish first. Allow me to spend 7 hours debating fellow commenters on why that power ranking is TRASH. I will DESTROY anyone who thinks otherwise.
Hap, I have updated the poll to reflect your excellent suggestion.
@28, I have terminated my unpaid POWER RANKINGS intern and will correct this error in next week’s edition.
We had a very fine showing from Tad yesterday — he went outside, he went back inside, it was great! — plus you can’t go wrong with more Stu.
Still, now that the Braves are good again, what we need is a…
POWER RANKING of absent Braves Journal commenters
13. Jason Shiell’s wife
12. Marc Schneider, WHERE ARE YOUR NATS NOW??
11. Askia
10. bledsoe
9. justhank
8. Bethany
7. spike
6. sansho1
5. blazon. Where is our bard lately?
4. the OG Alex R.
3. ‘Rissa
2. ububba
1. …Amanda. You just know she’s lurking.
@30. Love your power ranking! blazon is on a cruise. He mentioned that he would be quiet for a while. I guess no wifi on that ship??
JC Bradbury and Craig Calcaterra belong on that list, too. Same with Jenny. And Stefan in the UAE!
That’s actually a solid and thorough compiling. Would also add jjschilller as another quality commenter. I do agree that of real commenters, ububba is most sorely missed.
TBF, Bradbury and Calcaterra would rather debate trolls on Twitter, so they get their reward. Craig the most, Bradbury not as bad.
mravery should be on there, too. Thank god urlhix popped up!
Well, the thing about archetypes is that they need to fit the definition of what an archetype is. Circular logic, but true! The only thing analogous with 1991, it seems to me, are the fact that a dreadful team from the previous year went on to be excellent the next year. (They also went on to win the division, the NLCS and lose the World Series; we’re so far away from any of those things happening yet.)
I guess you could correlate our youthful pitching, but by 1991
The things about this team that are defining to me:
• Yes, the Braves teams that directly preceded the 1991 squad were dreadful, but not purposely so. They were just bad teams populated by bad players. Whereas the 2015-2017 Braves teams were gutted to the marrow.
• There was an onslaught of free agent acquisitions during the offseason: Sid Bream, Rafael Belliard, Terry Pendleton, Juan Berengeur and Otis Nixon; none of them perceived to be world-beaters but were all veterans who slotted into the starting squad and would wind up, in their own way, being key contributors. The 2018 Braves had a modest group of signings this offseason, none of whom have remained major pieces of the team’s everyday play.
• The young talent of 1991 was far more established than most of our current crop of young talent. Ron Gant had been a strong contender for ROY in 1988, and had finished 14th in MVP balloting in 1990. David Justice had taken the mantle from Dale Murphy and won ROY in 1990. The Lemmer had been a valuable bench piece for three years and his folk hero status wouldn’t truly arrive until the World Series. Tom Glavine had won 33 games by the spring of ’91; John Smoltz had won 28 and had been an All-Star.
• Our closers in 1991 were 36 and 32 years-old, respectively, and were a free agent and trade acquisition, respectively. (That would be Berengeur and Alejandro Pena, respectively, of course!)
• There’s no analogue for Lonnie Smith on the 2018 team.
• There’s no analogue for Freddie Freeman (established, game-changing superstar) on the 1991 team.
• And speaking of Dale Murphy, as 1991 began his absence was still “in the air” as far as I was concerned. The most beloved player of his era, arguably the most popular Atlanta player ever, was playing for the Phillies. Maybe an analogy could be made with Andrelton Simmons, but it’s not the same to me.
So I guess you could say the parts of the comparison that work are “young starting staff with one crafty veteran” and “bottom-dwelling, boring team to exciting, winning team”, but as you drill in closer the differences really start to stand out and the archetype is no longer an archetype.
I mean, look at our infield with Camargo, Dansby and Albies: 24, 24, and 21 years of age. And we still don’t really know what kind of players they are! There’s no archetype for that.
And Acuna Jr.? 20 years old superstar in the making? And he’s still not in the position the position that will maximize his talents? No archetype for that, either.
We still don’t know what we have with any of our starting staff yet. We knew Smoltz/Glavine/Avery were gonna be our core in ’91, but we honestly don’t know if any one of these guys on the ’18 team are gonna be around next year because we don’t know the true degree of their talent while at the same time have a veritable volcano of talent simmering to explode beneath them.
These are all new situations I’m not used to, and it’s exciting for that alone. 2018 is a new archetype that’s been fun to watch unfold. If we lose the World Series to the Twins this year, I’ll revise my feelings about the matter.
Sorry, that last comment was WAY too long.
Thoroughly enjoying the various POWER RANKINGS.
35—mraver(y) can never be truly gone.
http://thematadorsports.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/gators.jpg
We need to reset the poll so I can vote correctly. 🙂
Adam R., What about Emma Stone? How can that guy not be on the list?
@32/33/35, Welp, looks like I’m going to have to fire another unpaid intern this morning. Our loss shall be Chik Fil-A’s gain this summer.
@39, The “I love Emma Stone” guy, gadfly, and that other rando who posted under two names (One of them was “One Eye” and he obsessed over lineup configuration?) did not make the cutoff. You gotta have some standards, right?
I am having a blast. Thank you, interns.
Yes, the Braves teams that directly preceded the 1991 squad were dreadful, but not purposely so.
Um, yes they were. In 1986, Bobby Cox returned to Atlanta from a successful turn as Toronto’s manager to take over the GM position. He immediately formulated and began implementing a “five year plan” by which he and his team tore down the Major League squad and traded parts for minor league prospects. The most famous and successful of those trades was Doyle Alexander to the Tigers for a AA wild card arm named Smoltz. That was in August, 1987, a year into the Cox rebuild.
Eventually the rebuild began matriculating talent upwards. The pitching hit first with Smoltz (21) joining Tom Glavine (22) and Pete Smith (22) making the Bigs in 1988. That year the team followed the three previous 90-loss seasons with 100-loss season.
Ron Gant matriculated up as a 2B that year, too, but was sent back down to learn to play CF due to defensive problems.
Derek Lilliquist hit the rotation as 23 year old in 1989, while Kent Mercker was a 21 year old cup of coffee call-up that year in relief. Jeff Treadway and Mark Lemke were both young call ups to replace the whole Gant couldn’t fill defensively on the infield. That team lost 97 games.
1990 saw Dave Justice win ROY playing first base. At that point, the first “wave” of “5 year plan” prospects were in the Majors. They still lost 97 games.
The next vaunted wave of kids, the prospects Cox and company had drafted with the picks from those 90-100 loss seasons of horror, were still a ways away. Chipper Jones would be picked in 1990, joining Ryan Klesko and Javy Lopez and Brian Hunter as big sticks “on the way.” But they were low, low minors or rookie ball kids. So the Braves fired Russ Nixon and shifted Cox back to the field. To replace himself in the GM suites, Cox hired John Schuerholz.
JS’s first task was to fill gaping holes around the kids and give them some sort of platform to develop on. He did that by trading icon Dale Murphy to Philadelphia for spare parts, clearing RF for David Justice. Jim Presley finally went away as the starting 3B. To replace the vacated 1B slot, JS signed Sid Bream, a defensive minded 1B with some offensive skill, but not a masher. To replace Presley he signed Terry Pendleton, also a defensive whiz with talent but a lot of talk about being a “miss” as a hitter.
He brought in Otis Nixon as the starting CF, moving Gant over to LF and giving Skates Smith a little more room for his knees to heal on more rest days.
All of which is to say, you’re just wrong. The Braves willfully and intentionally tore down the gutted remains of their last championship contender (1982) and spent five years rebuilding while knowingly losing 90+ games. That, and hitting madly on the Pendleton signing, and having the pitching explode forward in unison (with Steve Avery joining the club), is what propelled the 1991 team “from worst to first.”
Alex R
Y’all are throwing around words like analog and archetype, which is great but not really anything like drawing a simple comparison between teams. For reasons, which I’m willing to get to if someone asks, I sometimes feel like this team is a lot closer to the 1992 team than the 1991. The reason for this is because I’m not looking to draw an analog but rather looking to draw a comparison of the actual pattern that I’m seeing. In climatology, we call an El Nino an El Nino (or a La Nina a La Nina) when certain qualities of the NINO oceanic index are met. It doesn’t really matter what the driving factors are or could be, although determining the precise details lends itself to matching up analog years to try to predict a long range outcome. What we know is that when the pattern is established, the atmosphere is going to respond in a certain and somewhat predictable way.
In the case of these Braves: we’ve got a stacked lineup full of excited players, and they tend to overwhelm pitchers when they’re not on their game. The more pitchers teams send to the mound, the more likely our Braves are to get to one of them, as evidence by yesterday’s game.
In many ways, they remind me of the 1991 and 1992 Braves because those lineups tended to overwhelm pitchers as soon as they got shaken up. Both those teams and this one feature a lot of speed on the basepaths and a lot of pop. I’m not concerned with how it got to this point just that it’s here and the pattern is taking shape. This pattern leads to a lot of very exciting finishes and a lot of wins.
I always look at runs scored with two outs and come-from-behind wins to temper my skepticism/enthusiasm.
You know if Acuna had homered instead of hitting the sac fly, he would have killed the rally.
You know Freeman legging out that infield hit last night… Freddie is sneaky fast.
Sam at 42,
I have NEVER agreed more completely with one of your posts.
Are you getting smarter or am I getting more demented?
Thanks for the history lesson guys!
Hey, while we’re on the subject, the 1914 Braves had a 22-year-old Hall of Fame shortstop (Rabbit Maranville), a 21-year-old center fielder, a 24-year-old catcher (Hank Gowdy), and a three-man rotation made up of a 22-year-old, a 24-year-old, and a 26-year-old (Seattle Bill James, Lefty Tyler, and Dick Rudolph). Their major veteran presence was their 32-year-old Hall of Fame second baseman (Johnny Evers).
I don’t actually think it’s a very good analogy, but I’d sure read the hell out of an argument otherwise!
Yes, it is obvious that the 1914 Miracle Braves are the best comp. So Adam R’s Power Ranking is TOTALLY BOGUS!!!
As a minor correction, Cox rejoined the Braves halfway through 1985, not 1986. Ted Turner brought him in explicitly stating that the days of trying to buy their way out of the cellar was over and that the team would need to be built from home grown talent.
I’d happily take the result of the 1914 season. One obvious difference is that team was 14 games under .500 at the halfway point.
Sam @42 – nice breakdown. It still does not absolve you from making me google the name of a soccer referee @22.
While I’m being honest and correcting myself, I apparently greatly misremember the horror of Jim Presley starting at 3B. He was only there for a year – 1990. He was picked up as a journeyman out of Seattle – back then a 600k contract wasn’t “league minimum.”
In 1988 was the last year of Ken Oberkfell’s career in Atlanta. The Braves allowed Ron Gant to audition there a little (he hit for shit and his infield defense was atrocious there as well.) Gant was eventually beaten out for the starting 3B spot by Jeff Blauser, who debuted as a 23 year old that season.
Blauser was a SS by trade in the minors, but posted his prototypical OBP heavy better than average production at third, even as a rookie. The next season, 1990, the Braves were finally free and clear of the Andres Thomas horror show at SS, and Blauser slid back to his natural position. Presley was a 1-year signing to fill 3B.
For those of us who are more attuned to the story of the 2005 era “Baby Braves,” you could think of Jeff Blauser as the prototype of Kelly Johnson. Superb offensive player, a stat fans player in an era before anyone in baseball knew Bill James existed, of questionable defensive value. Cox eventually let Raffy Belliard, defensive superstar, eat into his at bats at the cost of runs scored.
God this team is fun. Of our three young-buck non-position-player studs, Dansby’s the hardest to believe in, to my eyes. Which makes yesterday even sweeter.
A propos of nothing, gotta say I really like Ender in the 6-hole. Feels like you get another leadoff man halfway through the order, and his speed is disruptive no matter where comes up. Acuna will likely be hot and cold all year as he and the league make counter-adjustments, but I’d rather give him more ABs than Ender going forward.
Yes, it is obvious that the 1914 Miracle Braves are the best comp. So Adam R’s Power Ranking is TOTALLY BOGUS!!!
Look, I just gave the unpaid intern that I fired earlier today a bad review when the Jamba Juice shift manager called me to check references. Does that make you happy? Does it?
At some point, if you want a particular Braves season to show up in the highly-esteemed and ever-unfailing POWER RANKINGS, you have to discuss it. That’s how it shows up on the list.
Win probability chart for yesterdays silliness.
Hey, remember Peter Hjort? Now there was a guy who knew how to over-value prospects.
Ron Gant was still the primary CF in 1991. Nixon and Skates split time in LF. Nixon became the primary CF in 1992 when they realized he was a better CF than Gant, with Gant shifting to LF.
Adding to Sam’s post, Jim Presley wasn’t even supposed to be the 3b in 1990. They signed Nick Esasky, who had a big year in Boston in 1989, but he bizarrely developed vertigo (which he still suffers from today) and never really played again.
@60–Gant must have been a really bad centerfielder. I noticed on Baseball Reference that of the top 8 Braves in WAR in 1991, 7 were pitchers (Pendleton the obvious position player). I thought I remembered Gant being pretty good that year. Well, his oWAR was 4.8 but his dWAR was -2.6.
@61. Nick Esasky was the first baseman.
IWOTM want Joey Bats.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/05/mets-showing-interest-in-jose-bautista.html
Yes, please.
I reject the idea that the late 80s Braves were meant to be bad in the same way that the team has purposely been imploded since 2015. You’re conflating Cox’s “five-year plan” with Coppy’s tank job and they don’t fit at all. Cox was still concerned with the on field product; he wasn’t trying to engineer an on field disaster like Coppy did to gain draft advantage.
Braves fans in 1986 hadn’t witnessed a good team on the field since 1983. Meanwhile, the dynamics in 2014-2015 were entirely different and had just acquired and developed some good young talent that fans had every reason to be excited about. The Braves had made the playoffs three times from 2010-2013. 2014 was a year of decline and the dismantling was pretty sudden in comparison to the 80s, and it was mainly down to Uggla and BJ Upton falling off a cliff and stifling our payroll/production balance.
Coppy’s mission was to tank on the field as a quick route to building up minor league depth. It’s an insult to Cox to say he did the same.
The late 80s Braves were definitely developing their minor league depth through the draft, but were still trying to muddle along to at least have a .500 team to put fans in the stands and, more importantly, provide a quality product for all those teams on TBS.
For instance, in 1986, Ozzie Virgil was acquired (along with Pete Smith) in his prime at age 27 for Steve Bedrosian (also 27) and Milt Thompson (a stud at 24). Bedrosian went on to win the Cy Young and Milt Thompson was a perfectly cromulent player for the next several years (finished Top 20 in MVP voting for the Phils). Pete Smith couldn’t shake injuries, and the less said about Virgil, the better. But this was a talent-for-talent trade meant to give the Braves an elite catcher that could hit. This was arguably the biggest trade Cox made that year and it wasn’t primarily to build depth in the minors or save money.
Meanwhile, it took five long years for Cox to finally trade Dale Murphy, well past the peak of his value. They held on to him for three years as his talents eroded, into his mid-30s, so the best they could do in trade was a bunch of nobodies. Copollela would have bid him a much quicker goodbye after taking over from Frank Wren. This is not consistent with a tank job, and is instead consistent with a GM trying to muddle through to put a team on the field fans would pay to see.
You cite the Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz? Sure, we got Smoltz for him 1987, but Alexander himself was acquired from Toronto by Cox in the summer of 1986. What did we trade for him? Duane Ward, a 22-year-old pitcher who went on to become a mainstay of the Toronto bullpen. Ward was young projectable talent dealt for the sole purpose of acquiring veteran talent to shore up the rotation.
And when Bobby Cox cut bait on Brad Komminsk, he wasn’t traded for minor league depth. He was traded for 24-year-old outfielder Dion James. James had a really nice 1987 before declining and was himself traded in 1989 for another young talent, Oddibe McDowell. Another trade not done for minor league depth, but to shore up the onfield product.
You also cite Oberkfell, but it took three years for Cox to get around to trading Oberkfell. Why would it have taken so long to trade him if they were in full Coppy-like tank mode?
And I’m glad someone else brought up Nick Esasky, a high-dollar free agent signing in 1990. Not consistent with a tank job.
I think you started your reply to me with “You are wrong” because you get off on putting other people down and showing off your superiority, but you’ve conflated a bunch of facts along the way to try to disprove my only real point: the 2018 team is the byproduct of a tank job, while the 1991 team wasn’t. Bobby Cox definitely tried to broaden the depth of talent in the minors but he did that mainly through reorganizing our approach to the draft and player development; he did NOT intentionally engineer a dreadful onfield product from 1986 to 1990.
Folty wears me out. Throw strikes, Mikey!
Note to self: “power rankings.”
John R, I agree with you about the motivation in the late 1980’s. While they were building up the farm system (to great effect), they did sign or trade for several veterans in an effort to compete at the major league level.
The problem was those veterans were mostly really bad. The win totals through the late 80’s were no better than 2015-17.
I agree–Folty is exhausting. He loves the full count.
@68, Chuck Tanner was our manager from 86 to 88. I remember every spring his declaration that our current Braves team was our best one ever and were going to compete. Clueless, but that was Chuck Tanner. And I don’t think he was saying that as jive meant to fool the masses, I think he meant it.
There was no tank job. It was just that efforts to put a good team on the field failed just as they had every year prior save 82-83. It’s not like there were a lot of great assets to shed, either! There were no Justin Uptons, Craig Kimbrels, Jason Heywards, Alex Woods, or Andrelton Simmons to shed. All our players kind of sucked. Even “phenoms” like Andres Thomas weren’t able to be leveraged into a trade because they were so bad. The 1991 team was not the recipient of tank trades or transactions like this year’s team has been. Because there was no tank job. They were trying to put a decent team on the field, just trying badly.
If I learned anything today, it’s that Adam R’s knowledge of Braves Journal commenters is almost encyclopedic.
Looks like Carle’s not perfect after all.
Are we gonna have to score 6 in the 9th again?
TIL MLB teams in the ‘80’s didn’t go “full tank.”
Chalk this one up as one of the 60.
That’s two games without an EBH.
With Acuna in a slump, Markakis back to being a singles hitter, and with the way the rest of the lineup usually is, it’s not crazy we’d go a couple games without a EBH.
Anibal — remember that guy? — got rocked in AAA tonight. So much has changed since he got injured that I’m not sure how he fits into our plans. And with rainouts, offdays, and 7 quality SPs + him, how does he get on the mound? This will come as no shock to anyone, but I’d rather give Wisler the innings. ::ducks::
And along that thought, at what point does McCarthy become a little redundant? You can never have enough pitching, but even if McCarthy rattled off 4-5 good starts, I think Gohara or even Fried might be able to outperform Amanda’s Husband.
How about Biddle? It might be surprising, but he’s got 11 appearances already, 13 IP, 13 K, 1.38 WHIP. It’s mop-up, but still.
Will we never hear from Jose Ramirez again?
Final thought: Folty is now on pace for a 3+ fWAR season. And he has so much talent his individual starts are still seen as disappointing or at least less than his peak.
Final final thought: we have 4 pitchers on pace to beat our team fWAR leader from last year (Folty’s 1.8). Newcomb and Folty are on pace to double it.
recapped