I’ve been to 4 Braves games since the team moved from Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, so what were the odds that at one of those games I’d be present for the beginning of the Hector Olivera era? Debuting September 1st, 2015, his trade may not have had the worst outcome in Braves history, but it’s very possibly the stupidest one.
Just a little something to keep us humble before we talk about something more pleasant.
Orlando Arcia busted open a 1 – 1 game in the top of the 10th with a 2-out, 3 run homer, and the Braves held on to take their 5th 6th straight win. Bryce Elder battled through 6 innings, allowing only 1 run on 5 hits and 4 walks, and Joe Jimenez, A.J. Minter, and Michael Tonkin held the Dodgers otherwise scoreless through 9. Raisel Iglesias allowed the Manfred Man to score while picking up his 28th save. Arcia’s homer was his 17th of the season.
Another thing that happened in 2015 was that Statcast was introduced to Major League Baseball. Ronald Acuna Jr. put it to the test in the top of the 3rd, smashing a 454 foot homer with a Category 3 121.2 mph exit velocity. It was reported as the 3rd highest exit velocity on a home run in the Statcast era, and his 3rd in 3 games in L.A. Ronald is hitting .337 with 123 runs scored this season, among other feats.
The Braves have now won 10 out of 11, and are 8 – 1 on the western road trip. Atlanta concludes the Labor Day weekend show on Sunday at 4:10 Eastern. Charlie Morton will try to make it 4 lonely days in the brown L.A. haze for the old loss column; Bobby Miller scheduled for the Dodgers.
Braves Lineup
Charlie Morton will face off against Bobby Miller in today’s finale and by God, I want the Braves to sweep this sucker.
Without a doubt, this is the greatest Braves team of my lifetime (35 years). Just pure dominance of the game on both sides of the ball (occasional defensive and baserunning gaffes notwithstanding). I remember a quote from Dabo Swinney during Clemson’s CFP run, basically championship teams have the ability to impose their will on the opposition. That’s how this team feels. Snitker is easily the second greatest manager in franchise history — depending on how the next eight weeks ago, that can be etched in stone. McGuirk ought to be offering Anthopoulos a pen and blank contract sheet any day now.
Thanks, Rusty–I’ll have my hushpuppies on!
6 straight wins. 6 straight wins not 5. If I hadn’t watched the last three games, I’d have never believed it. Like I said last night, whatever happens today, 9-1 or 8-2, this road trip has been amazing not the least of which is because it was a west coast swing.
Because of last night, the Braves not only won this series against the Dodgers but also the season series.
This may really be the best Braves team of our lifetime.
We spend a lot of time comparing these guys to 2003 offensively but I’d like a comparison against the 57/58 Milwaukee teams that went to two straight World Series. With hitters like Aaron/Matthews vs Acuna/Olson and Spahn/Burdette vs. Fried/Strider, I think these teams compare favorably.
An east coast team does not merely go on an extended west coast road trip including the Giants and Dodgers and win 80-90% of the games. It just doesn’t happen. You always took 5-5 or sometimes even 4-6 on these and counted it a win. It’s just so hard to handle the time zone change and long flights and play your best. Most shockingly, your cleanup hitter was in a season-worst slump for the whole thing. This team is different, man.
Thanks Roger, that’s corrected. I ran out of fingers on my empty hand.
I’m sure it doesn’t need to be rehashed, but the Hector Olivera trade was so stupid because it amounted to a tanking team giving up young assets for a 30 year old question mark. Even if Olivera had been a league-average third baseman for the next 3 years (and that would’ve been an ambitious projection), it would’ve been a bad trade. The team couldn’t much use his contributions in that window, even if he had been able to make them, and they gave up a useful pitcher in Wood, and a solid prospect in Peraza. He basically had to be an all-star and either continue that production past the usual age of decline or become a trade chip for an even better package than we gave up. It wasn’t hindsight–it had almost zero chance of working out at the time it was made. The fact that he was also of poor personal character was turd icing on the cake.
Ronald continues to inch closer to Mookie on the FanGraphs WAR leaderboard. He’s now at 7.0, with Betts sitting at 7.6. There’s still time for Ronald to overtake Betts in this category, assuming the latter doesn’t have another insane month. Ronald’s already got a solid MVP case, obviously, but this would help to strengthen it even further.
And while we’re at it, Arcia is inching up on Dansby… indeed, he’d be by Dansby already if it weren’t for the time off when he got hit. https://stathead.com/tiny/8QH2H And at about 1/10th the price.
I like to compare 2021-22 Dansby and 2023 Arcia to 2021-23 Lindor. Lindor’s been a bit better, but for $90 million compared to $18 million over those three years, he should be.
I hope blowing the challenge doesn’t bite us later
Riley was safe, but I knew they wouldn’t overturn it. Swipe tags are hard to overturn because you can’t ever say the strings of the glove didn’t graze the player and you can’t say a mound of dirt wasn’t between his foot and the bag. He looked safe full speed and the ump never saw the tag.
Amazing the difference between vintage Charlie and this version. This is the “effectively wild, gut your way through a start” Charlie. Everything starts drifting up and to the arm side when he loses his feel.
8-2 on a Western swing is still an amazing trip
Good to see Lee back. He certainly helps our bullpen.
Bobby Miller looks like Spencer Strider.
He is really good. The Dodgers are the only NL team that might draft better than we do.
Is the Braves history of being totally shut down by rookie pitchers a real thing or is it just something we imagine?
Ben Heller isn’t winning any gold gloves after those two defensive pants
On the second one, it’s not even clear he had a glove.
Well, to paraphrase, three out of four ain’t bad.
Recapped: https://bravesjournal.com/2023/09/03/braves-drop-final-game-to-dodgers-completing-8-2-west-coast-swing/