The good news about covering a game on the West Coast in 2023 is that you probably won’t have to stay up too long after midnight. When you have raves to go to at 2 am or so, you don’t want to be all tuckered out from baseball writing.
The Padres were wearing their 1948 Pacific Coast League uniforms, which featured a hat with just an S. So I guess they were just from San. But since the 1948 Pacific Coast League had the Padres, the San Francisco Seals, the Seattle Rainiers and the Sacramento Solons, that S sitting by itself was not very descriptive. (By the way, I’ve never understood why Diego is Spanish for James. Neither apparently, does the Internet, which has a few etymologies, but no one is quite sure about their preferred one.)
The Braves led against Ryan Weathers with three bullets over 100 mph and a 2-0 lead. Max Fried threw 43 pitches in his hamstring-aborted debut. He had 42 tonight before the second inning was complete, but dodged nimbly, then settled down to retire the last 10 he faced before exiting after 5 innings and 79 pitches. If he keeps upping his pitch count like this, he’ll be pitching 500 pitch games by the end of the season.
But Weathers was dodging pretty nimbly as well, getting out of a base-loaded nobody out jam in the 5th with an Olson strikeout and a Riley double play.
Dylan Lee pitched two very good innings. The next big San scoring threat came in the bottom of the 8th against Jesse Chavez when Manny Machado rapped sharply (105.5 mph, with a very fortunate 4 degree launch angle) into a double play with two on and one out. A.J. Minter closed it out with an uneventful 9th.
Game over at 12:10… Plenty of time to take the psychedelics and start raving…. or maybe not.
Performances
Austin Riley’s homer in the 1st, RAJ’s three hits, and Welcome Back Max. We missed ye, though our record doesn’t really show it.
Statistical Anomaly of the Day
The Retrosheet Database contains 171,949 games. Of these, 1,503 were 2-0 for the visitors after a two-run homer by the third batter. Of these, only 8 ended 2-0. This is the 9th time. But I’m surprised it’s happened even that much.
A two hour, 22 minute game. Crazy.
What happened to the offense? Hibernation Mode?
Didn’t really seem that way. Mostly just a lack of timely hits. Even Ozuna had a double. I believe hibernation mode by definition requires Ozuna to be hitless.
We had a few innings where we threatened. Riley hit into a bases loaded double play that ended our best scoring threat and at the time it felt like the game would surely turn. Props to our bullpen. Lee was fantastic. Chavez was lucky.
I know we have some relievers on the IL and I’m sure some others were unavailable last night, but Chavez in the 8th with a 2 run lead against the top of the Padres lineup is…something. Glad it worked out.
Chavez hasn’t given up a run yet and has only walked 2 against 7 Ks in 8 IP, so he was as good of a choice as anyone with Anderson unavailable.
Two hour west coast games are borderline tolerable. JohnathanF recaps and history lessons never disappoint. Thank you, JF.
Today is a good day for a Braves win.
RIP, Brother Stanley. Rejoice! Your race is run.
I’m looking for Chavez to have one of the best seasons ever for a reliever through the first half of the year, with 0 runs allowed and a .5 WHIP in 40 innings. At the end of July we trade him for Ohtani, He is then released by the Angels and he makes the playoff roster for us. He comes in with the bases loaded and no outs in Game 6 of the World Series and a 3 to 2 lead. He strikes out the side to secure the decisive win against Tampa Bay and a 4 games to 2 World Series win. Other than that, I’m not expecting much from him.
It’s a start anyway.
The newest Brave: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/solakni01.shtml
Solak is interesting and good to have in AAA. I will gladly take his line as a rookie over 135 at bats : .293/.393/.491.
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