The Braves solved their temporary scoring woes thanks to the power trio of
(checks notes)
Julio Teheran, Ender Inciarte, and Nick Markakis.
Nick’s 4th hit of the day was a home run in the top of the 10th that provided the final margin. Ender tied the game at 3 in the 7th with a 2 run homer, and scored the go ahead run in the 9th, before a Devon Mesoraco homer off of A.J. Minter in the bottom of the inning forced extra innings.
Teheran opened the Braves scoring with his first career home run in the 5th. Julio went 5 2/3 innings and struck out 6, but walked 4, and allowed the first 3 Met runs. Jesse Biddle pitched the 10th for his first career save. The Mets got a runner to 3rd with 1 out, but the ghosts of Jose Bautista and Todd Frazier could not get the ball out of the infield. Winner, winner A.J. Minter.
Inciarte ended with 3 hits; Jonny Venters got Julio out of a jam in the 6th, and Brad Brach and Dan Winkler struck out 5 in their 2 innings of work. Austin Jackson hit the obligatory home run off Teheran.
The Braves take 3 of 4 from the Mets and stand at 60 – 48, remaining 1.5 behind the Phillies.
Doubleheader in Washington Tuesday.
It ain’t how you beat the Mets, it’s that you beat the Mets.
Is it my imagination or are most of Nick’s HRs in high leverage situations? Seems like they often give us the lead late.
Absolutely need to take 2 of 3 and 3 of 4 from the non-contenders. And Washington has won 7 of 10, so everybody is playing well at the same time. Regardless of what happens, Atlanta is a good team, and this will be a really tough race.
Also, the pen is 6 deep, and 7 when Vizzy gets back. I think you could use them fairly interchangeably with an emphasis on Minter and Vizzy in the 9th, and you can win back-to-back games regularly with this pen. Adding Touki to this mix could be electric.
I think the talent on the Mets team should translate to better than a .400 winning percentage. TheIr hitting is bad, but a rotation that includes Syndergaard, Wheeler and DeGrom should at least be .500. I’m not complaining and I hope they never figure it out, but when rosters expand they could give teams fits. It will be hard for rookies to be worse than Bautista, Reyes, and Frazier.
Phillies swept the Marlins so we didn’t gain anything.
What are we going to do about Suzuki, nothing?
@6 nor did we lose anything, just as important at this stage.
@6 @7 We did lose a game to the Phils – were 0.5 back and now 1.5 back. But they have to play the D’Backs next. All we have to do is take 3 of 4 from the gNats. Maybe we could give them Scherzer in the 2nd game of the DH.
@7 There is nothing we can do about Suzuki or Flowers at this point. BTW, I just checked and Braves are last in the league in SB% allowed (Marlins are first, hint, hint). The best thing we can do is promote Jackson on Sept 1st and give him a few ABs to see what he has in the tank.
I’m not really conversant with how to parse the data, but Flowers ranks very highly in the baseball prospectus pitch framing metrics. While that will always be a useful skill (just HOW useful is certainly debatable) it seems like it would be particularly valuable to a staff of younger pitchers, many of whom have control issues. No doubt the Braves have far better insight into Flowers’ worth than what I can easily find, but it’s worth considering that if they feel this is a valuable enough skill, there won’t be any incentive to do anything about the catchers at all…
This win somehow has an especially good feel to it. Not because it was (only the) Mets but rallying from 3-0 down. In the past years, that would have been it, especially with noone making hard contact until Good Julio’s HR. Also to come back after the blown save and holding on to the save the next inning.
This win especially, could give the team a huge boost ahead of an important series.
Go Braves!
@9 Flowers currently has a high OBP and makes a good #8 hitter (I think better than Dansby who should be at #7). Unless they both start hitting HRs again, Flowers’ OBP and framing is the best of what we can expect from the C’s. Snit needs to stop hitting Zuke so high in the lineup. Either way, C is now a big hole. I hope Jackson can help in September, but we’re going to have to hold our collective breaths in August. I don’t think there’s any help out there to trade for as they’d have to pass through waivers first.
Wonderfully well-written recap, rusty. Thank you for the sweet memory.
Rest well, boys. Get your minds right. There’s heavy lifting to be done the next three days.
Braves named MLB Bullpen of the Week
The power trio of Kakes, Teheran, and Ender. Of course.
Eh… regression or no, Suzuki is just in a slump. They should drop him back in the lineup and give Flowers more at bats until he figures something out or just starts hitting again.
Now is certainly an odd time to think the Braves have to do something about the catcher position.
This season to date has been far more in line with Kurt Suzuki’s actual career than his first year in Atlanta where he literally topped his career OPS by 280 points, as a 33 year old.
It will change with McCullers going on the DL, but Houston has used the same 5 SPs all year. Lucky sons of….
It was reasonable to think that Suzuki and Flowers had peaked late, as many catchers do, though some regression was likely. But they’re probably a little better than what they’ve shown. I didn’t expect Flowzuki to regress to this extent, but I also didn’t expect Nick Markakis to have a career year at basically the same age. So who knows. The Braves might choose to give Alex Jackson some ABs in September. In his 15 game short sample size at AAA, he has over a 1.100 OPS. If he could rake for a month more, then the Braves might give him a few ABs.
Sure. But there’s “peaking late,” and there’s “literally 300 points higher than your career OPS.”
I just said that.
If the division race is really tight in September then I doubt Snit will give any call-ups playing time. The one exception might be Touki coming out of the pen or making a spot-start because we’ve played 30 games in 30 days or whatever.
Apparently it’s going to be hard to even get Duvall more than a couple of ABs per week.
20-7 against the Mets and Marlins… 40-41 against everyone else. Make of that what you will.
Did you really just say that? Because all I ever hear from you is “I wear jorts and have no taste in music.”
Both those things are true.
Some days, you gotta love Sam.
Suzuki was a product of the 2017 launch angle craze. He hit more fly balls, his power spiked, and the league adjusted in 2018. He’s still, you know, decent.
2018 Kurt Suzuki is kind of what Gregor Blanco was for us: somewhere between a good bad player and a bad good player. 2017 Kurt Suzuki is what Gregor Blanco was for the Giants for a few years: either a good okay player or an okay good player.
Kurt Suzuki is playing more because Flowers was hut. He has been exposed some.
Frog arm
Chase Jonson-Mullins
in case, like Swanson, mulls things
important that our ‘hefty lefty’
regains the mojo that lately left he.
Brian Snitker
Re-arranged spells Stinker
You can bet he’s glad
To not be in the 3B box in the minors.
@gaz
“20-7 against the Mets and Marlins… 40-41 against everyone else. Make of that what you will.”
Statements like this one always strike me as slightly revisionist or maybe just deceptive when given. Like during July, we kept hearing “The Braves are [insert losing record in July] and only .500 since June 1st.” Well, except that the Braves were 14-11 in June, so why do that with the numbers where it makes it sound like they fell off months ago versus just a bad month of July?
Same case here. You say 40-41 vs other teams (not NYM, not MIA), and I say 14-10 vs PHI and WASH (where it actually matters).
So that makes the Braves 34-17 vs the NL East. Boom? Boom!
Meanwhile, the Braves haven’t looked great vs the NL West or the AL East — not that surprising.
Flowers is busy freezing rapscallion smugglers with hearts of gold in carbonite?
Alex’s great post on Kevin Gausman didn’t get a lot of views since it went up on a Saturday night. So it’s been re-posted and would be considered the active thread.