We have a new writer here at Braves Journal. His name is Alec Bohm. He dropped me a line yesterday and then told me he’d touch base later. Yeah…I’m still bitter.
Game 1 of this series features Sandy Alcantara vs. Huascar Ynoa. For whatever reason, Alcantara has absolutely dominated the Braves for his career, holding them to a .488 OPS. Hopefully today’s the day that the BABIP gods shine down on the home team.
Bohm was OUT and MLB Players Voiced Concerns
It was nice to see many involved in MLB speak up about the debacle last night.
Shane Greene to the Braves? Maybe so…
For whatever reason, Shane Greene was in attendance last night at Truist Park and took photos with some fans. This led many to believe we’d see a signing today. Alas, it hasn’t happened yet, but our pal Drake Dodd, who has a few people “in the know”, dropped this tweet:
Drake does have a few insiders, so I believe his information is accurate. Let’s hope so.
Ronald Acuña Looked Over No More
When many “analysts” were putting out their best lists of players in MLB, I think the highest I saw Acuña rank was 6th. If the current sample rings true, those analysts will be eating crow served with a side of bat flips.
Tonight’s Lineup
Some changes here and they’re not too unexpected. Let tonight be the start of the 2021 Fish Fry Extravaganza!
What was Chris Rose watching?
that first paragraph hurts a bit, but is an excellent bit of writing
I tried to follow up with Mr. Bohm for you, but he was out.
He said he’d let us know when he got home. We’re still waiting….
Alec Bohm, Outat Home
Alec Bohm is German for “Buster Posey.”
Putter from last thread-
Does your guy only do parlays? That’s where I’ve gotten on daily baseball betting; because the variance is so high, might as well go for the home run ball. The problem with that is that I can’t possibly know enough about all these other teams to have an informed decision. I can keep a clear head about the Braves and bet (or not) based on what I know about that game’s match-up. Obviously I’m not going to touch tonight’s game.
@7 He does straight up bets as well but parlays pay out way better. I have just gotten into parlays myself and while they seem like they should be easy to hit there is a reason they pay off well. I connected on a couple during the NCAA tourney and won a few hundred bucks.
On a side note Rob, how do you handle the traffic in Tampa? I made a few trips to the airport last week during spring break from Siesta Key and the traffic was unreal. My wife and I want to move to that area but the traffic gives me great pause. I am hoping it was just because of spring break but I am not very confident in that…lol
News on shifts from TangoTiger. Just about every team profits from their shifts against left handed hitters, while no team profits from their shifts against right handed hitters.
http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/statcast-which-clubs-make-the-good-call-in-shifting-rhh-and-lhh
FGS…
Shut up and do your job…
Acuna is a golden god.
I’ve followed every Braves team since 1966, and I’ve never seen a player who can do everything as well as Ronald does. He hits the ball as hard and as far as anyone–and he runs the bases as well as anyone. The routine grounder to short infield hit over the weekend was incredible, and the tag on the pop to second just topped it.
@9
Yeah, that finding was interesting. I wonder if more teams now will stop shifting against RHH. It seems very counterproductive.
Acuna is amazing. I so want to see a full season from him at this level. Oh, and Ynoa is doing a very serviceable 5th starter impersonation.
Thru the 9th game last night, Ronald already has accumulated 1 WAR on BRef. And it looks like he is going to build on it thus far tonight with a walk, triple and SB. He’s unbelievable. Like tfloyd and a few others here I began following the Braves too in the 60s but was not old enough yet to fully appreciate the greatness of Hank. But even then Hank was not the same all around player he had been in his 20s in Milwaukee. But 55 yrs later I’ve got over half a century of closely following baseball; one’s frame of reference is just so much greater. Since Aaron, it’s clearly Murphy, Chipper, and Andruw that stand out as HOF caliber players in their primes. Freeman is building a good case. But I don’t think I’ve seen a player who can dominate in every single phase of the game the way Acuna can. Hit for power, average, fielding, throwing, base running, raw speed, and this year he seems to be advancing his game in commanding the strike zone. And he appears to be maturing in his competitive approach as well. As even the perennial pessimist of Braves talent Chief noted in the last thread, we could be truly watching a top 10 of all time talent. Pray for health!
It has been a long time since I’ve posted here.
Just wanted to stop by, check in and say Go Braves!
A sac fly double play… that, along with dansby’s bad baserunning earlier are prime examples of barving it up usually reserved for postseason series.
Absolutely hilarious. That was infinitely more questionable than the one last night. I probably wouldn’t have overturned it, in fact.
Likely a complete makeup call.
Ok that’s enough.
I think it’s time for everyday A.J. to get a day off. Or two.
Welp.
Damn you Minter
DOOOOMED.
Why is shane greene not signed yet?
And why has jacob webb not been used instead of minter, the fresh prince, and nate jones,( of all people ) every single day.
Forgot dayton is even on the roster.
If Nate Jones is the answer, I don’t want to know the question.
@23 agreed. I don’t know why they love Nate Jones so much. Dude is mediocre at best and doesn’t belong in any type of leverage situation
This bullpen has been ass since Game 5.
I’m no pitching expert but maybe Nate Jones should abandon that weird delivery.
I know it’s April, but giving games away like this is painful.
Where do you rank the Braves pen in the East?
Lucky… sure am glad Shane Greene couldn’t help this dumpster fire from the right side. Why not Webb? Jones is hot garbage
Nate Jones, Double Grybo, landing stuck.
(Incidentally, Grybo is objectively such a great/useful term, I can’t believe there isn’t a word for it in baseball already. Kind of like how “y’all” fills the void for a second-person plural in English.)
Grant dayton has been used for 1/3 of an inning in 10 games.
Webb unused since martin went down 6 games ago.
That is not optimal roster usage.
Not saying that they are great , but something shouldve been worked out to get them in games and save some arms .
No matter if they win or lose tonight, my main issue is with the offense. 4 hits doesn’t cut it.
@31 hits are tough to come by with Ender and Jackson (who has a hit) joining an already anemic lineup
The probability of Riley being a useful piece is decreasing by the day and the bullpen needed another RH reliever before Martin got hurt. I think the needs as manifesting in such a way that AA has to push his chips in this year.
Keep ducking in!
Ender Inciarte bunting into a strikeout is the most Ender Inciarte thing he’s done all year. I never want to see him pick up a bat again.
Could Ender be a more useless Major League Baseball player?
Ender is just so useless. It would help if you weren’t aiming the bat toward the third-base dugout, you putz!
What an awful at bat by Adrianza. 2-0 with the hottest hitter in the game and you pop out to third. Sometimes the blind faith Snit has works against him
So my feed froze. How did Riley and Jackson get on?
They each got hit in the knee on consecutive pitches.
Thanks!
That guy wanted nothing to do with Ronald.
LOL at Freddie just standing there in the on-deck circle with his arms crossed, knowing it’s mathematically impossible for him to hit in this inning.
BTW that’s two nights in a row where it would’ve been beneficial to hit Freddie second in the orderd.
This collapse started with the base running blunder by Panda, followed by the bullpen walk-fest and the terrible at-bats by Ender and Adrianza. This is shaping up as a terrible loss
as we were told earlier, thanks…
“If this game goes to extra innings the extra innings rules will apply”.
@43 Freddie needs to hit second. We have left a ton of runs on base with Ozzie hitting second.
Need the damage to be limited to just the one run
Yeah, I’m out.
Fix the lineup, fix the batters, fix the pen. Easy peasy.
@49,
Perhaps part of the webb suckage is lack of use. No way to know.
What we do know is that AA messed up letting Melancon go . And possibly messed up with Smyly as well. Heck, Ozuna after 10 games looks like a worse contract that melvin upton, lol.
So I guess this is why we haven’t seen Webb yet. If two pitchers do their jobs this game is over. If you can’t throw a gd strike you need not be on a major league team
PURE EVIL.
Can’t anybody here play this game?
So the questions I’m curious to know:
Did AA know this bullpen was butt going into opening day and just couldn’t do anything about it?
-OR-
Did he think this bullpen was fine for a WS hopeful playing in a division where every game is going to matter?
@51, I’d guess he probably thought that it was good enough for him to improve it in the middle of the year. It’s shaping up to look bad enough that he’ll have to improve it early in the year.
@51
He knew the starting rotation was trash last year and was happy to go into the season without fixing that.
Marlins should have challenged that call at the plate. It was closer than last night.
@53
Well, Morton, Smyly and getting Soroka back is at least some effort on that front.
Cant recall notable signings for the bullpen or offense, except resigning Ozuna.
The approaches of some these guys is so bad. Ozuna and Riley are just guessing and flailing away. They look lost
Acuña and Ynoa were the only good things out of todays game.
So many negatives……
@57 true story
Melancon has been lights out in SD. He’s not worth what the Giants were paying him but he’s worth every penny the Pads are paying.
SIGN SHANE GREENE.
I think that was Minter being over-used. Looking like 2019 Minter. That was the worst bullpen performance since Sam Freeman. Luke Jackson was the best reliever of the night. Wish they had saved him for the higher leverage.
A little baseball history tonight. There are only 3 games in the last 100 years in which a team hit two batters to start an inning in the 9th or later of a tied game. In the other two (https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE201108220.shtml and https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIL/MIL201205110.shtml) when you hit two guys to lead off the inning, you lose.
‘O Minter, O my Minter, long ago.’
At least, we thought it might be a long time back. Horror.
One thing the impressive Fish managed to do was to render Acuna mortal in his last at bat with much on the line…. Ozzie’s fumbled catch too.
Hey, they were a good deal better than us tonight, up and down the order and particularly their pitching. Ours was almost childlike as we wasted the superb Noah start.
Tomorrow then.
Things I have been right on lately:
Riley
Pache
Ynoa being longterm better than Kyle Wright et al
This team being a club closer to .500 than to 100 wins
Things I’ve been dead wrong on:
Acuna not being an all timer.
Without modifications, this team isn’t winning squat.
recapped.
Based on last night you could look at all this another way.
Rampant Marlins excel . Listless Braves overmatched.
From my perspective they threw a bunch of no names at us, wow I said.
Rob. If you were already a betting man how much would you have lost last night.? So you will double down tonight. And so it goes. Don’t.
A small positive.
Whichever Brave is responsible for moving Marcel around in left field as per who’s at the plate is doing a great job. Since we got home there have been several instances when a loud crack of the bat is followed by my closed eyes, a cringe look at the wall…then seeing he hardly had to move. Just as well of course.