Something. Must. Be. Done.
Ian Desmond went off on the Braves last night, driving in five runs, and Kyle Freeland tossed six innings of one run ball to lead the Rockies to an easy, not as close as the score indicated 11-5 win over Atlanta.
Atlanta jumped out early in the bottom of the first. Ronald Acuna, Jr. singled, and Ozzie Albies also singled (by bunting!), but Freddie Freeman grounded out, advancing the runners and sending Joe Simpson to his Happy Place over the productive out. Nick Markakis’ sac fly made it 1-0, but Johan Camargo couldn’t get the two out hit to score Ozzie.
Sean Newcomb did not have his A game, or even his B game, more like his C+ game, and against a team like Colorado, that lead to him getting tattoo’ed to the tune of 7 runs on nine hits and three walks in 5 and a third. Newk started off well, with a 1-2-3 top of the 1st, but loaded the bases with two outs in the 2nd, before escaping the jam by retiring Freeland. He was not as fortunate in the third, as with one out D.J. LeMahieu doubled, Nolan Arrenado singled, and a walk to Trevor Story loaded the bases for Desmond, who unloaded them with a triple, for a 3-1 lead. Newcomb held Colorado scoreless in the 4th and 5th, but the wheels came off in the 6th. Desmond led off with a single and stole second. With one out, Chris Ianetti drove him in. Freeland reached on a bunt single, and Charlie Blackmon tripled to drive in two. Chad Sobotka came on, and promptly wild pitched in a run. Chewbotka settled down and got the last two outs, but it was 7-1.
After a scoreless top of the 7th for Chewie, the Braves got one back with an Adam Duvall lead off single, followed by an RBI double from Dansby Swanson. Ryan Flaherty advanced Lt. Dans to third, but RAJa struck out and Ozzie flew out. Kolby Allard came on to relieve Sobotka, but pitched more like C3PO, as he gave up a one out single to Grizzly Adams Blackmon, balked him to second, allowed a RBI single to LeMahieu, an infield single to Story, walked Carlos Gonzalez to load the bases, and surrended a two run single to Desmond. 10-2 Rox, and the only question was who would pitch the 9th.
Why, who else but the Folk Hero Mk. 2, Charlie Culberson. Culberson allowed a run, LeMahieu driving in Blackmon, but all-in-all, he was probably the second best pitcher last night after Chewbotka. Atlanta scored three meaningless runs in the 9th to make the final 11-5.
Anyway, to That. Thing. That. Must. Be. Done. Such poor play demands I resurrect one of Mac’s favorite motivational ploys. I hate to do it, but circumstances demand…..
Phil Collins.
The things I do for this team.
Oh my. Ish just got real. This is like bringing your closer into the 6th inning. Seat Painter understands leverage.
I wasn’t prepared for this.
Culberson hitting 94. He should be Ohtani’d.
Man, that is some “music”. That’s gotta get us out of the funk. If Phil doesn’t work, then what do we go to next? Wang Chung?
The Culberson statcast is pretty impressive:
Culberson is surprisingly athletic for someone with almost no career success until age 27.
Follow-up point on Culberson. His 1.0 fWAR barely trails Matt Kemp’s 1.3 fWAR, whose terrible, terrible second half of the season is summarized well here:
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-redisappearance-of-matt-kemp/
It’s really incredible how he fades.
I don’t know what I think about Kemp’s demise, but it’s nice to be right for a change. Remember our discussion about a month ago Rob where I argued that Kemp would continue his 2nd half struggles? That is almost the exact time he started his free fall.
The doom and gloom on the previous thread was certainly something to behold:
“We can’t beat good teams, and haven’t been able to all year.” Uh…I thought the issue with this team right before the All-Star break was that they were beating good teams but weren’t beating up on the bad ones. Also, they just took two of three from Milwaukee. Might wanna make up your mind on this one.
“Newcomb threw 130 pitches in his almost no-hitter and is now ruined!!!!” There’s laughably little evidence for this, and it ignores the fact that he’s been up and down all year.
“OUR SCHEDULE!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!” I’m tired of this already, and we haven’t really even gotten into the thick of it. This isn’t, like, college football or something. Hand-wringing over the schedule in baseball seems really weird to me. I would guess the chances that we’re going to lose a specific game to the Marlins and the chances that we’re going to lose a specific game to the Red Sox are way closer than you’d think. It’s all about pitching and luck and whatnot. I don’t see the schedule as an impediment to us winning the division, and if it is, what do you think would happen in the playoffs anyway?
We lost two games to a good team after winning five in a row! It’s not the end of the freaking world! Yeesh!
We only play the Marlins 4 more times though!
This is why the nukulear option has been used in mid-August. Nip this crap right in the bud.
Some thoughts on roster moves with September and playoffs in mind.
– Give Newcomb some rest by skipping his next start. He can be put on DL for 10 games.
– Option Allard back to AAA.
– Bring up Fried and Touki. Touki can take Newcomb’s next start and move to the bullpen thereafter.
– Promote Bryse Wilson to work out of the bullpen. We need a guy with a big arm that can strike people out.
– Bring up Gohara for September. He gives you another left hander that can start or pitch long relief.
like @1, I, too, was not ready for the sabermetric use of Phil Collins, but I’m here for it.
though @9 – I might well be getting my Journal Lore wrong, but wouldn’t the most-nuclear option be S*ssudio? (a la the Tetragrammaton, I’m wary of spelling its full name if not absolutely necessary). Either way, we still have that one in our pocket.
Thanks, Seat Painter. Just what we needed!
And what Nick says @8.
Does everyone need to be reminded again that “This ain’t football; we play every day.”
The Braves are in the middle of a very tight pennant race (and very tight wild card race). They still have 41 games to play. They will win and lose some games to good teams and they will win and lose some games to bad teams. Sometimes they will have multiple wins in a row, and sometimes they will lose multiple games in a row (we hope not too many or too often). The odds are overwhelming that the Braves’ chances for the postseason will come down to those seven games they play against the Phillies in the last eleven days of the season. That’s going to be excitement the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time.
Oh wow. Seat Painter went there. Now it’s on, boys.
Great recap. How ’bout a win?
If someone has horse tranquilizers I’m willing to cut that god awful half goatee mess off of Chippers chin.
Can we just pile the runs on the Rockies? I like it better when we do that.
Muller pitched a gem for AA and Touki currently doing so for AAA. With the rebuild’s success being perceived as having 5 TOR’s in the rotation, then we are indeed “a year early”.
Rockies have hit nothing but ropes all series. Even their outs have been loud. We need to score a bunch.
Donaldson will start a rehab, then he’ll go on waivers and the Jays will trade him somewhere.
We did open a 40-man spot today, but I figure it’ll get used by Touki.
Wait no, Touki is already on it. Maybe a trade is coming.
Touki is already on the 40 man, he started a game last week.
Tough inning. Good job, Folty.
The kid may be a ballplayer.
It’s near impossible to get Acuña out right now.
Seven?
We have our third baseman.
I’m a Camargo fan.
Hell of a job by Folty. Retired 11, in a row, to go seven.
That was one of the biggest double plays of the year.
Jonny was one pitch away from walking the first two batters of the inning. What a turnaround.
In venters defense, he got hosed on one call to each of those 2 batters.
BTW, what a nice night for Ronald.
Good to see that Joe West still sucks. Strike three to Markakis was outside and ball one to CarGo was on the corner.
That last play looked like a shortstop.
FFS.
The other day when people were ranking the players that surprised them this season, I was surprised to see no one mentioning Minter not being all that good.
I’ve watched almost every game this season. Minter is not a closer.
Unbelievable
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
That’s a punch to the gut.
This inexperienced bullpen is going to cost dearly.
Minters got blisters, why the hell was he allowed to keep pitching so long
It’s a sickening turn of events. The least bad thing about it is that Folty gets a no decision, but that’s what Joe and Chip focus on.
I like Minter, but I hope Vizcaíno is back soon.
Come on, Luke.
OK, let’s end it here. I can’t take extra innings.
Not being able to pinch-run Camargo is not ideal.
I hate you, Chip.
The heck was that swing?
Good job Swanson.
I don’t know why anyone would throw Dansby anything other than a slider, ever.
What a swing! Jeez.
Please tell me gameday is wrong and dansby didn’t strike out on a pitch in the left hand batters box.
@53 it was almost OUT of the LH batters box. Probably one of the worst swings I’ve ever seen…
53 — It might have been farther out than the box.
I’ve had just about enough of Dansby’s plate approach.
Dansby was scything out there.
Ugh.
That was inevitable.
F word
This will be one of the worst losses of the year.
Crapitude.
This is the type of loss the Nationals had. The Rockies are living in this team’s head rent-free at this point, I don’t think they can win if they had five more games in a row against them.
This one is going to be a gut punch
Here was Dansby’s K.
If the season falls short, this could be one you look back at…
65 — There was supposed to be a video but it didn’t attach. Oh well.
Another thing to complain about: why use Luke Jackson before Brach and Biddle?
“So this is how the season dies: With Luke Jackson on the mound.”
I’m not afraid of Wade Davis. Then again, I may have done better than Dansby in that last AB.
I don’t like how the discussion of Dansby is so bipartisan. That you either need to love him or hate him or consider him overrated or underrated or whatever. If you’re asking me if Dansby has been an above-average regular, then the answer is yes. If you’re asking me if I “like” Dansby, then the answer is yes. Should Dansby be the starting SS next year? I’d say probably yes. But if Josh Donaldson is healthy, and he’s available for $3M of his remaining salary and Adam McCreery, and he replaces Ryan Flaherty’s roster spot, then I’m doing that every day.
And if that means that Dansby loses some playing time, and it may mean for the future that Dansby — the beloved Dansby — may have to get at-bats as a backup second baseman or backup third man, then so be it. And it’s unfortunate that Camargo, who has actually played quite well as a MLB player, has to move positions and then potentially be a supersub, then Dansby should be in that boat as well.
But don’t worry, I like Dansby.
Someone link to the Dansby pitch. I missed it.
Nevermind. It’s on the MLB.com Gameday.
Not as badly as Dansby missed it.
Ottavino’s reaction is priceless. “He swung at that?”
Listen, if you can talk about how bad the pen has been in this series, and I agree, but the offense has scored about 2.5 runs per game outside of garbage time.
Just be glad that tomorrow is the final game against the Rockies.
Folty now sits at a clean 3 fWAR compared to Newk’s 1.7, so I think there’s enough separation there where they ought not be lumped in together. Folty has definitely turned a particular corner than Newk has yet to.
I shouldn’t have to defend AJ Minter one iota, but even with today’s struggle, he is 14th in all of baseball in reliever fWAR, so whether he’s a Closer(TM) or not, I’m sure glad to have him. Notable “not closers” right ahead of and behind him include Sean Doolittle, Jeurys Familia, Jeremy Jeffress, Dellin Betances, and Joakim Soria. Suspects.
The worst at-bat in BravesJournal history, and in my recollection, was Francoeur against the Brewers in August 2006.
http://bravesjournal.us/2006/08/12/brewers-8-braves-5/
Imagine Swanson’s final swing in the bottom of the ninth tonight, but happening three times on the first three pitches.
I demand the godlike ratios of 2017 SSS Minter.
recapped
don’t all rush
get some sleep