Arlo Guthrie must have been proud. Boxcar Wino is showing some pretty good stuff this early in the year. 6 IP (his career high), 10 K’s (his career high), 1 BB, 3 hits, .67 WHIP, I run (earned, a home run). For some reason, if you see that, you think it is likely that our Braves triumped.
Then you add an event which I have never seen. (Actually I didn’t see it this time because I haven’t rigged a system for me to be able to see games with the screwball fight between “Bally Sports South” and the people that want to watch these games). In the third inning, Acuna smokes (thanks, Chip) a ball into the right field corner. He burns his way to 3rd. Albies hits what should go in the books as an IFFB, but when the 2B catches it he is drifting away from the infield about 30 feet on the grass, and El Abusador decides to abuse the basepaths with Flash level speed again and he scores on a SACRIFICE FLY TO SECOND BASE.
Since most of you are at least fair with math, you can take the 1 run over 6 innings and look at the score and go “hmmm? I guess the bullpen gave up 4 in 3 innings. Not quite, it was just 2 in three innings, which sent it to another one of Rob Manfred’s infantile extra inning games. WHY can they not wait until maybe inning 12 to start the Little League rules? THEN, the pen gave up 2 more. No reply in bottom of 10.
Marlins delenda est.
Huascar Ynoa, please.
Putter from last thread:
Tampa Bay traffic has been the worst it had ever been in Spring Break 2021, which is still sort of going on since so many states are on different school schedules. Trip Advisor rated St. Pete Beach the #1 beach in the US, so that had a huge impact too. I can give no defense of Tampa traffic. It’s horrible. The city’s been ripped apart with infrastructure so many times that going east and west is really difficult, which is pretty much the only way to get through the heart of Tampa unless you can take the Veteran’s Expressway or Lee Roy Selmon. Frankly, I almost never go to Tampa. Great city, I guess, but traffic is indeed terrible. Could be anecdotal, but I feel a lot more people move from Tampa to St. Pete and not vice versa.
Pinellas County, where I live (St. Pete), is not that bad at all, though we do have a little bit of an east and west problem. Pinellas County is also building a huge part-north and south/part-east and west throughfare that will really help. The bridges between Tampa and St. Pete/Clearwater can get really bad during peak hours, but they’re widening them all right now.
Overall, we have some traffic issues that require some local knowledge of routes and times, but I think post(ish)-Covid Spring Break really made things tough. If you want some more information about the area, feel free to shoot me an email. Rob@RobCopenhaver.com
I know this is blasphemy, but I don’t hate the extra runner on second thing. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t want games to take 5 hours while I’m trying to get some rest. Even with the extra runner likely shortening the game, my pathetic self went to bed after the 9th inning. I still don’t trust the game to end in a timely fashion! College football, NFL, basketball, hockey all have overtime formats that drastically change the game to force a conclusion, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like college football’s. No reason why these games have to go so deep into extras where the quality of the game deteriorates. You had Scott Proctor hitting with the game on the line in that Braves/Pirates blown call, for crying out loud.
Fun fact, Scott Proctor is my plumber’s brother-in-law. Apparently Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth fought in the team hotel once. Not surprised.
From previous thread… Betting on baseball
I really don’t like to bet on baseball. I only bet the Braves game the other night b/c I knew I was going to be in AC in time for the game & I knew I could watch it. I picked an NBA game (my go-to team is Milwaukee b/c they don’t just cover the spread, they often obliterate it) for a 2-team parlay to up the value. I felt fine about the Braves bet b/c, in my mind, the pitching matchup was a wash.
But if you’re going to bet baseball, the “point spread” is goofy (usually 1.5) & of course, the money line depends on the pitching matchup. But with modern baseball, that seems to have less impact unless someone like deGrom is on the mound (and then, your bet gets even less value, unless he’s facing another true ace). All I can say is go with the pitcher (or take the 1.5 runs every time & hope for a close game), but even then…
I’ve had a couple of great Vegas moments betting baseball — Mariano Rivera giving up 5 meaningless runs in Game 2 of the 2000 WS (the Clemens/Piazza game) comes to mind — but I find it the least satisfying sport for wagering. (Hockey is 2nd.) But football & basketball were just made for it.
IMO baseball is the worst sport to bet on and its easiest to lose money on it than other sports, IMO.
I’m looking into buying group tickets for a “Braves Journal” game. We’ll have to wait until ticket prices come down and we can get a good group rate, but I’d really like to know who’d all be interested in joining. Shoot me an email at cothrjr at gmail dot com.
Thanks!
Appreciate the Arlo reference, Cliff. Hobo’s Lullaby (1972) was a great album. Allstar lineup of musicians and vocalists and superb collection of songs.
Ryan, I and my wife are interested. Tried to send you an email but wouldn’t go thru. You can reach me at tjerden at aol.
@3
You do know someone who doesn’t like college football’s overtime, you just don’t know it yet. I hate it with a passion. It is imbecilic, in my opinion…you might as well decide the game with a punt, pass and kick competition. And it considerably lengthened games compared to the NFL overtime rules, not shortened them…anyone who’s seen a college football OT game go past two overtimes knows that the defense has precisely zero chance to stop anything after that. They’re way too exhausted.
The NCAA has recognized this, and their solution isn’t to make overtime more like an actual football game. It’s to double down and go closer to the punt, pass and kick competition, instituting dueling 2-point conversions to decide the game at a certain point so that the insanity will stop.
That so many people seem to prefer this bacchanal of inanity to the NFL’s way more sensible overtime rules that actually involve playing the game does nothing less than drive me completely insane.
Sorry to assault you with a block of text about the college football OT rule, but you hit a sore point…heh.
@9
Right on, Terry.
Rob, would you mind asking your plumber’s brother-in-law for literally every single detail? I think I speak for all of us when I say that what I need most right now is a story about the Braves bullpen that has nothing to do with how they pitched.
@6 Well done, Ryan!
Someone suggested a post or two ago that a runner not be placed on second base until the twelfth inning, which I think is a good compromise, as it allows the manager to potentially stay with a reliever a little longer, hold a pinch hitter in reserve, etc.
The problem with the It Doesn’t Really Matter Who Wins as Long as This Game Ends as Soon as Possible line of thinking is that it doesn’t necessarily provide a fair result. It changes the calculus of the end stage of the game and turns it into a shooting gallery. If ending the game as soon as possible is so damned important, I say just let the game end in a tie. That would at least provide a fair result based on how the game went. And then in the postseason when you have to have a winner and people are more willing to let it play out, then you go to full extra innings.
And to those of you who think I’m Stalin reincarnate for suggesting that a baseball game end in a tie, I say OK, fair enough…but you should at least let the game play out until it’s a totally random tossup anyway because of how deep in the bullpen you are before you go trying to end the game for the very sake of ending the game. That would tend to be somewhere in the 12th to 13th inning range IMO.
‘Come to me my Melanconly Baby’.
we didn’t mean to show you the door.
@10 – Sorry to drive you more insane but I absolutely hate the NFL’s overtime rules. They are completely worthless IMO. I’m not crazy about the NCAA’s rules but they do make for a lot of excitement and give both teams equal opportunities rather than just favoring the team who wins the toss or has the best field goal kicker. I think a better rule for the NCAA would be to begin at the 35 or 40.
In soccer, teams play a 30-minute overtime period that is divided into two halves before they go to penalty kicks, which are alternatively taken by five players from each side.
@2 Thanks Rob. We are a couple of years away (maybe) because I have two kids still left in school but they are both open to moving to Florida so maybe we do move a little faster. The bridges were bad for sure. There had to be at least a 15-17 mile backup on the other side of the highway when we were heading to Tampa to the airport Friday night. It was just crazy…
@12 I loudly guffawed.
Hockey has the least game-like overtime rules, with 3-on-3 followed by a shootout, but with the losing team essentially awarded a tie with the winning team awarded a win. So they recognize that they are ending the game without real hockey just to award a win. College hockey (depending on conference, which is kinda weird) often just goes with a short OT period followed by a tie if nobody scores.
I’m not troubled by baseball’s OT rule, or by college football’s (I don’t really watch the NFL at all.) But I think a scheme where the post-9th inning loser got a half-win would be fine, though a lot of computer programs would have to be modified to make that happen, when the outcome of games is a win and a tie.
Game thread.
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2021/04/13/marlins-braves-game-2/