Charlie Morton is, at 37, the ace of the staff, and right now he feels like one of the only good players on the team who’s still healthy.
That’s unfair to Freddie, who is only hitting .233, but since he’s hit as many extra-base hits as singles, his .286 ISO means his actual numbers are awfully pretty.
The basic problem, as near as I can diagnose it, is that Mike Soroka is hurt, Max Fried is hurt, Ronald Acuña is hurt, the ceremony of innocence is drowned, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, the falcon can’t hear the falconer, the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity.
The Braves are underperforming their Pythag right now — they’re 7-10 even though their mark of 82 runs scored against 86 runs allowed suggests they probably should have won one more game. (Ronald Acuña has already been worth one and a half wins above replacement, which is handy, since the rest of the lineup other than Freddie is basically replacement-level.)
What can you say about a 150-year-old division-winning team whose offense died?
That they were beautiful. And brilliant. That they hit fastballs and sliders. And then couldn’t.
Either way they won’t come first, which for some stupid reason bothers hell out of me, having grown up with the notion that they always had to be number one. Winning heritage, don’t you know?
Yeats!
New pod.
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/8koPhyiD2aGWuwdE9
@1, Yeats is definitely the better of the two writers I plagiarized 🙂
I will say this: Riley had a good AB against Chapman to draw a walk in the 9th. He cut down on his swing and was very patient.
I want to see him put together a week’s worth of good at-bats — good approach, good swings, good timing. Then two weeks’ worth. At this point I’m bearish on him. I’m a little more bullish on Dansby, D’Arnaud, and Ozuna in that order, because each of them has a greater established track record of success for longer periods of time than Riley has. I’m willing to believe he’s capable of improvement, but he’s got to show me. If he’s still got a .600 OPS when the calendar rolls into June, I will be right where Chief is today.
#5
I understand. I’m right there with you. Basically, I think he’s Wes Helms–maybe–but I did appreciate his effort to reach base and bring the tying run to the plate.
I don’t love trashing Snit, but he had a horrible game sub wise.
Nate Jones with the bases loaded no one out? I know Matzek put us in that mess, but I trusted him a lot more to get us out of it. Nate may have been the bottom of my list to come in there.
Pinch running Kazmar in a tie game in the 6th for Panda? Would’ve liked to see Panda get another at bat, which he would have.
Pinch hitting Camargo for Kazmar? Did anyone have less hope with Camarog, Dansby and Riley going against Chapman? We knew what Camargo would do, I’d at least liked to have given Kazmar a shot there, since he’d already subbed him in for Panda.
This looks like a lineup from 2015-2016.
@8 Woof.
Woof.
I’m loving Camarog. Rolls nicely off the tongue and sounds like an antediluvian amphibian. Beware the frumious Camarog. (There’s no question that Camarog is a charter member of the Barves.)
I’m gonna call him Camarog.
Dusty, who should Snit have brought in instead of Jones?
Pretty good play by Ozuna there.
Kung Fu Sloth?
Doesn’t seem like the ball is carrying very well tonight. There have been several ball hit tonight that I thought had a chance of going out but barely made the warning track. Also, I’m listening to the Braves radio broadcast and Joe is on fire tonight. Cracking almost funny jokes and anecdotes!
I am concerned with the Riley situation as much as anyone, but his OPS is the same as Dansby or Ozuna, and nearly as much as TDA and Ozzie.
How this offense has fallen….
Typing quickly to get this in while it’s still true, but if you had told me a month ago that one of Riley and Adrianza would have a .355 OBP and a.220 SLG and the other would have .321 and .720, I wouldn’t have guessed that the former would be Riley and the latter Adrianza.
I’m willing to stick with Riley more than most people are, and normally I would hope that his walks mean he’s seeing the ball better, but it may just be that he’s having trouble identifying pitches he can hit in time to swing. I’ve read that a walk spike is sometimes a sign that a (usually older) player is losing his reflexes, and I hope that’s not the case here.
This inning is like a Las Vegas buffet from the BABIP gods.
Surprised Snit didn’t go to Jones here… seems to be his M.O.
He wasn’t walking down the line, Chip, he was limping. Awful mistake.
and
If there’s ever a time to tell Ozzie to hit right handed for 6 weeks this would be it.
Either the site isn’t updating, or Riley’s home run here is being met with silence. Good for him, I think he’s starting to turn it around, especially with all the walks recently.
Now for Dansby and Ozzie to wake up.
Just a quiet night, I think, @21.
Will Smith is the left handed Nate Jones
@21: I’m happy to see Riley get a homer, but that was an out in Atlanta. (It was in the upper deck in Philly, though.)
Yeah just a quiet night. I was watching but wasn’t watching along.
Riley increased his OPS by about 100 points tonight. Chief is wrecked.
Ah, I was teasing a bit. Thought it was worth mentioning given the Riley chat earlier.
I’m not too worried about the team, except for the bullpen. No-one is running away with the division right now, so plenty of time get the team right (and healthy).