The Halos appear to have had a little something on their side last night in a 4-1 win over the Braves. That said, it’s with joy that I say, Happy Striderday! Atlanta looks to bounce back by sending Spencer Strider to the hill to begin a new winning streak. He will face LA lefty Patrick Sandoval.
Strider changed his number to 99 before the season began in honor of the great Rick Vaughn of Major League fame. The flame-throwing righty leads the world in strikeouts (199) and is 11-3 with a 3.77 ERA on the season. We hope he is able to do what he has struggled to do this season…keeping the ball in the yard. His mentor, Charlie Morton, allowed three solo shots last night. Strider allowed two blasts last time out, spoiling an otherwise great outing.
We can also hope in channeling his inner “Wild Thing,” that Strider might invite Pedro Serrano to the park to wake up the bats tonight. The Braves managed just one run on four hits in last night’s lost, and hope to go to work against Sandoval. Atlanta doesn’t see many lefties – because they crush them! Here’s to crushing this one tonight! Sandoval is 6-7 with a 4.13 ERA on the season. He has a 1.41 WHIP and may be just what Jobu needs to wake up our bats.
Matt Olson provided the Braves offense last night, launching his 36th HR of the season. Austin Riley added a double off the wall on the bottom of the sixth, but Ronald Acuña was stopped at third. Olson was intentionally walked to load the bases, but a ground out to third ended the threat.
Give AA a Hand!
The Braves announced around 1 p.m. ET that Brad Hand is coming over from the Rockies. In exchange, AA gave the Rockies a pack of Juicy Fruit and a couple rubber bands. Hand gives the Braves another lefty arm, and inside information on the rest of the NL East. When he toes the rubber for the Braves, he will have pitched for every other team in the division.
I guess getting Fried and Lee back will have to be the bulk of our deadline deals this year. I sure hope Hand and Johnson pan out since they are all we got. Getting Fried and Hand should bump Heller and Daysbel to AAA. From there it’s hard to say what might happen with Lee and/or Chavez. The Braves might just wait until rosters expand to add them back.
Yonny has an option so that leaves open the possibility of continuing to rotate 5th starters.
Did any of the deals around the league really move any needles this year???
Yonny actually gained the ability to refuse being optioned when he passed 5 years of service time earlier this season.
My guess is the Braves will give him a few starts to see if he is a worthwhile #5.
Wow. Strike call in the dirt to Ozzie.
Was everyone as surprised as I was that Acuña didn’t score on Riley’s double?
You mean Ozzie? I think Ozzie waited to see if that ball got caught.
Acuna got picked off first before that.
I can see why so many former teammates love Fred McGriff. He seems like a super good dude.
He does. Humble, down to earth, loves the game! He was great!
Well, now our suddenly inept offense needs to score a second run.
Thank you Money Mike!
Run to first tough guy…he wasn’t trying to hit the 9 hitter.
That’s what I’m talking about… B2B big blasts.
BTW, coming into tonight’s game, the team was slugging .494.
The all-time record is .495.
Amazing! I hope everyone is enjoying this season as much as I am. What a treat!
Man…Eddie plays left field like it hurts to run. He plays so deep and doesn’t cover a lot of ground at times.
Frenchy makes a good point…having Minter, Lee, Anderson and Chavez out for a minute gave their arms some rest when normally they still would have such high usage rates. You would think this will bode well come October with a nice long break for some of these guys, including Fried and Wright as starters.
My goodness, Michael Harris sure is special.
He’s one among many on this club. It’s so much fun being a Braves fan these days!
Recap will be up in the morning.
Spoiler alert: the team that won tonight is good.
Can’t wait!
I agree on McGriff. He seems to be the kind of guy you want on your team. He seems to be much skinnier than his playing days. Definitely not the norm.
I also enjoyed the interview with AA. He was pretty open about what went on. Pretty surprising that he was in negotiations 4 minutes before the deadline. Bottom line is he wasn’t going to give up the future for players that would be a marginal improvement over Kyle Wright if he comes back and is reasonably effective..
Recap is up: