The Braves try to make it 6 in a row tonight, facing off againt the Mets tonight in an ace vs. ace matchup with Mike Soroka facing Jacob deGrom. Here’s the Braves lineup:
And there was a bit of Braves Roster News, creating “instant depth”:
Let’s get that W tonight for our fellow Braves Journaler DG!
Hmmm, Jeff McNeil scratched from the lineup… according the Mets radio, he was originally going to play LF tonight.
Certainly not a glove man, but that guy can rake.
Nimmo runs harder on base-on-balls than he did on that ground out to first. Dweeb.
Oh, hi guys!
Bear down, Mike. Good to see you, jj.
That will do.
De Grom would look good in an Atlanta uniform.
That was not well played. Ububba, could you please bean Chip again?
Ozuna should be DHing, bless him.
Mike’s gotta learn how to pitch at home. Wonder if it’s something about the mound?
DeGrom is getting strikes outside of the zone and Soroka is getting squeezed at the bottom of the zone.
@8 yup.
Two walks were negated for degrom, and soroka has gotten at least one clear strike result in a walk.
Damage control, Mike, or I might call it early.
Edit: nah, 3-0 , calling it. Getting babip’d to death.
Welp.
Oh no.
Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.
Ugh, not good…
So that’s that with deGrom on the mound
I hate everything, cancel the season.
Achilles? Oh, man…
It certainly looked like his achillies tore. God, that is awful, and not something that everyone comes back from.
Season just went… dark.
Well, I turned it off just in time to miss Soroka hurt…. go ahead and cancel the season, MLB.
Who knew we’d be missing Julio Teheran…?
Not Folty, Chip.
Later.
This is a dark timeline.
Bring up the kiddos, let them learn in the relative safety of this weird season.
Welp… Weigel? Tucker Davidson? Both?
So, what happened? Did Soroka tear his Achilles tendon coming off the mound to field a ball or something like that?
I tend to be an optimist, so… IMO, they can still make the tournament and, given the right match-up, win a best-of-3 series. But without a proven 2nd starter… hard to imagine much else.
@25 agreed. The lineup is good enough to make it but the pitching needs to come from somewhere
Exactly like that, @24.
Well, we definitely need to trade for starting pitching now. And it’s going to have to be a significant trade for a top-level pitcher.
You could argue we just throw the season into the trash bin, but we’re gonna need it for next year, too, I’m afraid.
@27
Thanks, Nick. Now I feel sick….
You can probably get Cueto from SF. He’s under contract another year.
With expanded playoffs, I really don’t know that anyone better than that will be available. If you have even ONE pitcher as good as or better than Soroka, you’re probably not 3rd worst 3rd place team or worse.
No to Cueto…pitch our kids, opportunity time.
I’m just never in favor of completely throwing a season away. It’s not fair to everybody else on the team to say after one guy gets injured, “Welp, this year’s a goat rodeo. Sorry guys…we’re just gonna turn it into a Triple-A rotation plus Max Fried. Don’t really care if we win anymore.” Obviously the kids are gonna get some kind of a chance here, but in the likely event they aren’t good enough this year, you’ve gotta do something about it.
Freddie will be one year older, Acuna, Albies, Fried, yes Soroka, will be one year more expensive and one year closer to free agency.
You lost 90+ games 3 years in a row to create a window, we’re in year 3 of maybe 6? You can’t punt. You have to do something.
And even if you don’t acknowledge THAT pressure, you were ALREADY running a guy with a career 30IP and a guy with a career 80IP in your rotation. You can’t add a 3rd guy with less than 100 career IP for the whole remainder of the season. You need someone out there to just keep things professional. For your bullpen’s sake, if nothing else.
I mean, for chrisakes, it’s a coinflip that Touki and Wright hold those two spots down. You might go through Weigel and Tucker Davidson just trying to hold down 4 and 5. There’s no way you can start experimenting with the THREE spot too.
And on top of that, Sean Newcomb is listing badly and is now your No. 2 starter. If he could get it figured out from this point forward, that would just be fantastic right now.
All of that said, it’s the absolute worst season of all time to trade talent away for a short contract. You sign a guy off the scrap heap, and the season gets cancelled, you don’t pay those dollars. Trade Drew Waters away and the season’s cancelled, he stays gone.
In a trade scenario, you can really only afford to look at guys you control through the end of 21 or later.
Rusin
is not cruisin’
in all likelihood
he’s been boozin’.
take him out …. he has been shown to have no future here… Luke will shut them down.
Jacob de Grom just came back into the dugout after giving up a couple and punched the hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall, turning it around sideways. He then seemed about to punch it again to knock it off the wall before apparently realizing that’s probably not the greatest look at this particular time and straightening it back up.
Pretty funny, although I’d have found it much funnier on a different night.
I think the threat of cancellation is going to ice the trade market.
The separation between the elite (deGrom) and mediocre (Rusin) in MLB is amazing.
The playoffs will consist of all six 1st place teams, all six 2nd place teams, and four 3rd place teams.
So to be an outright seller, you have to be solidly in 4th or 5th place. If you’re in 3rd place, or in 4th place but in striking distance of 3rd, you probably aren’t selling.
THEN, even among those teams, you can’t give up anything for a guy on an expiring contract for fear of the season getting scrapped. Like, Texas is in 4th place. You can’t offer anything useful for Mike Minor and then have the season get cancelled. The chip(s) you trade stay gone and Minor goes in to FA in the offseason.
You need a likely 4th place finisher with a guy with more than one season left, who you can squint at and say he’s better than Newcomb.
It’s going to be a very fine needle to thread. Lance Lynn, Texas, controlled through next year. Cueto, SF, through next year. Alex Cobb, Baltimore, through 22. Nathan Eovaldi , Boston, through 22. And I am reaaally squinting for some of those.
Unless you’re ready to buckle in for a blockbuster, the pickins is slim.
Don’t look now, but the Mets bullpen is currently in play. This thing ain’t over.
Going to need Freddie Freeman to remember who he is here.
EDIT: He did not..
Freddie’s running poles tonight.
It’s official. Torn Achilles. He’s done for season and probably a good chunk of next. Ugh.
What’s next 2020? Locusts?
Keep an eye on your first born son
Choshech mitzrayim.
We’ve gone from Hamels, Soroka, Fried, and Folty to…
…Max Fried and pray for a lead.
DG’s father has passed. He needs all our love right now.
gentle into that good night…a life well lived, for you…no more suffering…always be grateful for that
My thoughts and prayers DG…
Condolences, DG.
Recapped!
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2020/08/04/mr-rogers-neighborhood-braves-2-mets-7/