How to Be Both
Last night’s game was a good illustration of Ububba’s principle that you’re never as good a team as you look when you’re going really well, nor as bad as you look when you’re scuffling – we saw both those versions of this team last night, and luckily, we came out on top.
It seems a bit churlish to refer to last night’s win that way, but it was an instance of Hibernation Mode. Still, it was the team’s fourth win in a row on this new streak, after the Reds snapped an eight-game winning streak. And six runs is a very good day at the office, even if you get it all out of the way early.
The Good, the Bad
But: the Braves scored six runs, and all their runs scored via the five home runs they hit; the only man to score via someone else’s RBI was Ozzie Albies, who tripled ahead of Austin Riley‘s two-run blast. After Michael Harris II and Ronald Acuña went back-to-back in the second inning (Ronald’s second tater of the night), the Braves recorded four singles and two walks over the subsequent seven innings, allowing the Twins to get through the rest of the game with just two relievers, Oliver Ortega and Brent Headrick, two of the last men in their pen.
It’s hard not to feel like the Atlanta hitters took their foot off the gas, or to remember that this team struggles to score runs when it’s not hitting homers.
The Ugly
The home runs also obscured the four errors. Eddie Rosario was charged with two throwing errors, Orlando Aricia booted a ground ball leading to a run, and Sean Murphy threw in a throwing error of his own. As the ESPN recap put it: “The Braves committed four errors, including two on one second-inning play, but still had so many fielding highlights Snitker said it was ‘“’probably our best defensive game of the year. We made some great plays.'”
A less charitable way of putting it would be to say that most of the Braves defenders had a good game, but Eddie did not. Last night, he committed a throwing error on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly, alloing the Twins to come away from a sac fly to left field with men on second and third. And in a similar situation during Monday’s game – men on first and third, flyball to left field – he aired it out and tried to throw all the way home, but threw it way up the line and let the runner get to second.
Eddie got away with his poor decisions all three times, as the runners he allowed to advance did not come around to score, but he’s giving away way too many free bases with his bad arm and unwillingness to hit the cutoff man. For a nine-year veteran, that’s just not good enough.
The Pitching
Elder continued to show impressive poise, limiting the damage despite the distractions around him, though his command left something to be desired, as he walked two men in both the third and the fourth innings, and he hit a man with a pitch in the sixth. What was most impressive was his results immediately after something adverse happened:
- With one out in the first inning, Elder gave up a single and a double, then Orlando Arcia booted a ground ball to allow a run to score. Elder then started a double play on a comebacker to get out of the inning.
- With one out in the second inning, after a truly wacky play where Joey Gallo wound up on third base after a single to left field and throwing errors by both Rosario and Murphy, Elder kept the runner on third by recording a swinging strikeout and inducing a pop-up.
- In the third, Elder worked around a leadoff walk, a wild pitch, and a second walk, to get two flyouts and a groundout.
- With one out in the fourth, Elder gave up a double and then back-to-back walks to load the bases. After the next batter hit a sac fly and Eddie Rosario’s throwing error allowed both runners to advance, Elder struck out Carlos Correa to end the inning.
- In the sixth inning, after putting the leadoff batter on via HBP, Elder got a flyout and another double play to end the inning.
So, he bent but didn’t break. But he gave up a decent amount of hard contact and walked as many men as he struck out, and you can’t get away with that for very long. While his poise was excellent, pitching around that much traffic on a consistent basis is hazardous to your scoreboard.
Looking Ahead
First pitch is in just two hours, as Kolby Allard takes on Kenta Maeda. Hopefully the bats got some sleep last night! Here’s some more team news:
The run scores even if Arcia fields it cleanly, and my impression was it wouldn’t have been a routine play to get Buxton even if he had. There were some great plays, particularly Albies and Arcia combining to get the runner on a sharp grounder up the middle. So a mixed night on defense for sure.
Basically, the defense was fine other than Eddie Rosario, which isn’t the first time you could say that.
Thanks for the recap, Alex. Well done. I don’t like the hibernation the offense goes into, nor do I enjoy taking one’s foot off the gas, but I do enjoy winning and that is something the Braves are doing a lot! The early barrage left a good starter dazed, and contrary to what all the metrics would want to say – Elder just simply grinds out wins.
This will also serve as today’s game thread.
How about that top of the first for Kolby Allard? 1-2-3!
Sounds like Kolby Allard is throwing a lot more curveballs than he used to and it’s working the first couple of innings.
And apparently his fastball and curveball are hard to differentiate by the release point.
Nice play by Austin going home to hose Buxton, who was running on contact.
My goodness, I certainly wasn’t expecting four scoreless innings from Allard with six strikeouts and no walks. No matter what happens in the next couple innings, this is terrific work from him.
Snit couldn’t leave him in one more hitter to qualify for the win? That stinks, IMO.
I’m pretty sure that Rocco Baldelli would challenge every single play that doesn’t go the Twins’ way if he could, just to make sure. He’s held 10 seconds for replay checks on some hilariously obvious plays.
I don’t really mind Rosario’s second error yesterday, he would’ve gotten the runner at home had the ball not hit the runner.
Arcia is going through a brutal stretch right now, seems like he’s popping out a lot.
Congrats to Allard, I’m very surprised Snitker didn’t leave him in to try to finish the fifth and get the win. Yates with the K.
The fact that he didn’t – and that he brought in Yates, who’s one of his higher-leverage options – goes directly against a lot of the criticism he gets for his bullpen usage. I think he’s a much more thoughtful game manager than he gets credit for being.
Yeah, Alex, I can give some credit to Snitker and management when it is due, I think it’s more probable that Allard was removed because he completed two turns through the order and not because he was on some kind of pitch count.
They had a game plan, and stuck to it.
Yates is scaring me with all these three ball counts, but is putting them away.
I agree, Snit is a better in game manager than he is given credit for. And I agree with Carl that he could’ve let him get the win – but since wins don’t seem to matter for pitchers anymore, it doesn’t really matter. Allard was really good today – good for him!
Allard’s curveball has been rather impressive today. It’s very reminiscent of Max Fried’s hammer curve, just dropping off the table.
It’s only one start, but he looks like a better option than Shuster.
It’s been nice to hear Jim Powell released from purgatory for this series. I’ve missed him.
Yeah, Jim is really good!
Arcia’s def slumping.
If we had a backup I’d say he could use a day off. Riley too.
I’m a big Jim Powell fan, too.
Matt Olson is unconscious.
Well, Allard earned his ring.
It’s a 20-4 month with one game left.
Braves get over .500 vs. the AL (16-13) and, as of this moment, they have the best record in MLB.
Usual caveats apply, re: taking stock at a high water mark…
If you were critical of this front office about any of the usual recent topics (e.g. making Arcia* the starting SS, keeping running Yates and Minter out there, even starting Allard today), what do you think it would take for your knee-jerk reaction to the NEXT semi-controversial front office decision to be “Let me try to understand where they’re coming from before I criticize” vs “Let me proclaim on the internet that they’re wrong”?
*Re: Arcia, my position in March was: “He won’t be good, and it won’t matter. Look at the projections. This team can carry an all-glove SS, and we’re paying him nothing.” We’ll see if even that proves to be an underestimation.
Arcia in a slump still appears better than Carlos Correa — I would not have predicted that, nor would the market, given a $30,000,000 or so annual differential in market price. https://stathead.com/tiny/iU697
Two years of Dansby plus half a year of Arcia have given the team 9.9 bWAR from their starting shortstops for ~$17 million since the start of 2021 (counting half of Arcia’s 2023 salary), while the Mets have paid Francisco Lindor ~$73 million for 10.9 bWAR over the same period. I guess Lindor was a safer bet, and the Mets don’t have much of a financial constraint, but still…