Another Friday game recap, another Braves loss. Cliff ain’t got nothing on me for snake-bitten recaps.
Did I say snake-bitten? Atlanta dropped the series opener to the D’backs as Anibal Sanchez and Zack Godley hooked up to throw six innings of one run ball apiece. Atlanta struck first in the 1st, plated their run on consecutive two out singles by Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis, and Kurt Suzuki before Godley got Johan Camargo to strike out to end the threat. However, after that, the Braves went into an early Hibernation Mode, and managed only two more hits and a solitary walk through six innings.
Sanchez was equally good, allowing five hits of his own without a walk. But in the 6th Alex Avila doubled, and came around to score on Jon Jay‘s blooper to left to tie the game.
Arizona broke the tie in the 7th, when Sam Freeman issued a one out walk to Daniel Descalso on a borderline 3-2 pitch that could’ve been called strike three but wasn’t. Dan Winkler came in to wild pitch him to second, and give up the Grybo as Nick Ahmed singled in Descalso.
The Arizona pen was leakproof, and held the Braves scoreless the rest of the way. Sometimes, like last night, you just have to tip your cap and move on.
Newk’s due a good one, and Philly’s due to lose. Hang in there, SP. You’re fixing to go on a streak.
Drew Waters is having a good season. He doesn’t get talked about a lot
I shouldn’t get worked up over one game, and like Seat Painter said, sometimes you get beat, tip your cap, and move on. And I know when you only score one run, it’s hard to blame the pitching and the manager, but I’m going to blame the pitching and the manager. I’m sorry, but you don’t have a playoff-caliber rotation when one of your best guys can only give you 84 pitches. I get that it’s hot and it’s July and it’s mid-season, but those were all true for the other team as well. Whether that’s on the pitcher or the manager, that particular issue is not the fault of the offense. But let’s say it’s justified, for some reason, that Anibal can only give you 84 pitches. You have a fully rested bullpen, and you have a tie ball game. You don’t go to Sam Freeman! Go to Biddle first. You ended up going to him anyway. If you get out of the inning and you take the lead, then go to Winkler/Vizzy/Minter.
I get that he’s playing the long season, and I get that you can’t handle every game like it’s Game 7 of the World Series. But you also don’t bring in your currently 7th-best reliever into a tie ballgame in the late innings. I’m sorry, but you just don’t. You’re about to have a long break, you have NO idea if you’re going to need the big three in the rest of the series, so go ahead and use them give yourself the best chance to win this one game.
You’re not guaranteed your offense clicking at all times. A bad manager can bank on getting 6-7 runs a game and winning those games. A good manager finds a way to win the games that are tight so you can add those games onto the games where you score 6-7 runs and you win the division. I don’t think Snitker is a bad manager by any stretch, and he’s otherwise quite good, but this game was not managed properly, and the pitching didn’t do their job, so I reject the carte blanche “well, the offense only scored one run, so this loss is only on the offense.”
But like I said, I shouldn’t get worked up. 🙂
https://www.mlb.com/braves/news/braves-lack-offense-lose-opener-to-d-backs/c-285673876
They may go to Albies and Acuna at the top of the order. It may not make the most sense on paper, but I don’t think it can hurt anything, and it may create a little bit of a spark. If you want to simply employ the logic of putting the best run producers at the top of the order, Suzuki’s 114 wRC+ is slightly higher than Acuna’s 109. Both, though, are significantly better than Ender’s 80 wRC+. wRC+ does take into consideration speed as well, which we’d want Ender’s contribution showing up in. Even Preston Tucker’s propensity to run into a fastball every once and then has caused Tucker’s wRC+ to be higher than Ender’s.
Culberson clocks in ahead of both Dansby and Ender in that category. Maybe pressing that button every so often in the second half makes sense.
Last post.
wRC+ in July:
Acuna 79
Ender 74
Dansby 41
Flowers 30
Suzuki 38
The offense isn’t likely to get better the last 2 days here before the break. Greinke pitches today and Corbin tomorrow.
This winter people talked about Sam Freeman as found gold.
@3 Snitker is the kind of guy to go with the grizzled veteran before the rookie. Just like Moylan, as long as Sammie’s on the roster, he’ll be the first choice. What needs to happen is for Moylan and Freeman to be sent out and replaced with guys that have more potential. The problem is that Freeman is a fairly decent reliever most times on plenty of rest so his case is not so obvious as Moylan’s. Go back and look at Moneyball for how to deal with a manager who won’t play the team as it’s designed to play. AA needs to get on the ball to shave off the deadwood and get some better players in here. Maybe Freeman can get “injured” for 10 days and let’s see how it goes.
It’s a good thing that it looks like Jose Ramirez won’t be back cuz you know he’d be the first one out of the pen.
Daniel Descalso (LHB), 2018:
vs RHP 253/371/462 (832)
vs LHP 273/320/545 (865)
Sam Freeman (RHP), 2018:
vs LHB 196/344/353 (697)
Jesse Biddle (LHP), 2018:
vs LHB 318/412/591 (1.003)
Ender leading off again so no lineup shuffling today
Vizzy to DL and Moylan back… does he have the “pictures” now?
I guess, but there isn’t really anyone better to call up.
Viz, like Soroka, might be shelved for awhile this time.
Luke Jackson has pitched reasonably well and is going to start moving up in the pecking order.
Sam, I was thinking it was an anomaly, but you seem to find satisfaction reminding people they thought differently before several months of additional information. Can you explain your fetish?
Sam Freeman must have the infamous pictures. I would be extremely surprised to get anything valuable from Freeman or Moylan, but I think Moylan has the better shot going forward. Moylan has had good seasons as recently as last year. Freeman has a load of horrible seasons and his one and only decent one (aka, the outlier) came last year.
@9 You’re saying that like Snit plays match-ups over pecking order and letting guys get work in.
This season has reinforced my view that A. the Braves have no where near as many pitching prospects as it seems B. they don’t know how to use the ones they do have and C. there really isn’t any such thing as a pitching prospect.
@17
Sean Newcomb and his 40th-ranked WAR in his first full season would love a word with you.
Folty doesn’t have as much of a beef, but he would also like to talk to you.
And as long as you won’t remind Teheran he’s not an Ace(TM), he has some things to share with you.
A.J. Minter, the guy in the pen that pitches good, is always waiting outside.
Soroka is out sick, but when he gets back, he — get this — also needs to have a convo.
Gohara, as early as August, will be — you guessed it — looking to have a pow wow.
Otherwise, you’re 150% correct.
Our average pitcher age is 26.8 and Chief is over here like, “Yeah, but ya know, you just can’t trust young pitching.”
17-18 — Max Fried, Touki Toussiant, Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, Ian Anderson, Joey Wentz, Kyle Muller, and others say hello.
Newk has surely walked a lot this month. Ugh, good start.
Good start Newk. You throw 12 warm up pitches and then crap on yourself when a hitter gets in the box.
15 pitches and 5 strikes
It looks like it’s going to be a long day. Newk’s allergic to throwing strikes.
I enjoy Paul Byrd so much more than Joe Simpson. Love his insight.
Now he has walked the bases loaded. Yuck.
Newks act is getting tired. You are a professional baseball pitcher… how can you miss this badly with your release point so consistently?
At least it was a strike
I feel like I can throw strikes more consistently than some of these major leaguers.
It’s always a good idea to give Greinke a lead.
Newk is turning into, if not a pumpkin, the Sean Newcomb of the past several years—the maddening inability to throw strikes.
OK, let’s hope that’ll change momentum indeed. Great job to get out of that mess.
Took 36 pitches to get through the inning.
Well, that could have been a lot worse.
Could have been worse: just one run and only 36 pitches.
Outciarte.
Ender… come on
@36 lol
“There goes the no hitter” says Chip in the 1st inning.
@39 he always does… at least every game I watch. So lame.
Okay, Newk, be a pitcher.
Well done, kid. Get some runs, you bums.
That was quick.
Nice offensive inning
Averaging 20 pitches an inning through three’s not great; but when half came in the first, it’s okay.
And then Ender came to bat.
Chip sucks.
Touki was added to the Futures Game roster.
Ender can play defense.
And Ronald did not on that play.
Acuña is not a very good defender.
For those of you who think we should move Acuña to CF and play Culberson/Tucker in LF, that’s why they haven’t done so.
One was enough, two runs might be too much
Acuna played that double horribly. If he would have played it well and caught the hard bounce off the fence, he’d have had a chance on a play at the plate. If Ender hadn’t backed him so quickly it would have been a triple.
Greinke is pitching a lot like Anibal these days.
If Acuna was who was hyped to be immediately, he’d be a 8-9 WAR player. Or more. Lorenzo Cain would be a good example of the speed, defense, hitting, power, and patience we’d love from Acuna in the first couple years, and he may clear 7 WAR this year. So when he makes mistakes or is not the player he may be eventually, the best I can say is, “Ahh shucks, he’s not Mookie Betts at age 20.”
But yes, perhaps Acuna-to-CF is a bad idea, indeed.
With Moylan hanging around in the team’s plans, they obviously have concerns about the bullpen’s health, and then there goes Vizzy. Not good.
Flaherty likes to roll over the top and ground out to second like Heyward used to
@54 With Moylan hanging around the in the teams plans, I think we all have concerns about the bullpen’s effectiveness
@56: lol.
Well.
Newk pitched well.
Outciarte continues to look like crap
Lucas did a job.
Had hope. Should have listened to Mac.
Things are pretty hairy when you’re wanting Culberson in the lineup.
I tend to take the org talking about prospects more seriously.
Acuna in center.
Bunt?
Never mind.
recapped…don’t rush.
wow