The Braves dropped the final game of their four-game set to the Dodgers Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t do much to dampen an outstanding 8-2 road trip. Since I last talked to you after the team dropped a similar game in San Francisco a week ago, our beloved nine effortlessly swept the Rockies in a three-game set in Denver (and that’s traditionally been extremely difficult to do no matter how bad the Rockies are), and took three of four from Los Angeles in Chavez Ravine, another traditional house of horrors.
As far as today is concerned, Charlie Morton was not at his best. He wasn’t terrible, certainly, but he threw way too many pitches. He allowed two runs on six hits over four-plus innings, allowing the first three Dodgers to reach in the fifth before being pulled down 2-0 having thrown 90..
Meanwhile, the offense couldn’t get anything going against LA starter Bobby Miller. They only scratched a single run on three hits off the rookie starter and collected just five hits total. One of them was a solo homer by Matt Olson for the only tally allowed by Miller. It was Matt’s first bomb since Aug. 13, so that was good to see.
Michael Harris hit a two-out double as the potential tying run to bring Ronald Acuna up in the eighth inning with a chance to drive him in. However, former Brave Shelby Miller (and doesn’t that seem like a lifetime ago) got Ronald to fly out to center field to end the threat and keep the Dodgers up 2-1.
The Dodgers got an insurance run in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-1. The Braves brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth, but nothing came of it.
So the Braves closed the road trip on a not-great foot, but honestly, I don’t know how you can complain after a week like this. They expanded their lead for the best record in the NL to six games with a month left. They’ve expanded their lead over the Phillies for the division lead to 15 games. Our magic number to clinch the NL East is freaking 12. We could do it this week…the first full week of September (!!!), or more likely next week during our four-game series in Philadelphia.
If you wanted to find something to gripe about, I guess you could fret over the fact that we’ve scored two runs in regulation combined in the last two games…but yeah, that seems like a bit of a stretch.
Or you could focus on the fact that the baseball media is pretty clearly gonna find an excuse to give the NL MVP to Mookie Betts. When a bunch of prominent baseball writers are contorting themselves to the point where they’re talking about how Betts is more valuable because he has less around him in the lineup (I’m sorry, I missed where the Dodgers became an offensive black hole outside of Mookie Betts…silly me, I guess), I think the writing is pretty much on the wall there.
To paraphrase, three out of four ain’t bad.
A good reason not to read the National Media. I personally think Ronald showed quite clearly who was better in this series, and that might resonate with voters later on, if they think both are of equal value. Also our line-up is so much deeper than the Dodgers, that for once I don’t fear them this postseason. Now just stay healthy lads…
The national media also say every preseason that the Mets are going to be as good as or better than the Braves. That said, I can see the argument for Betts. Much higher slugging %, almost as high in OBP, and more defensive value, though Acuna has 5% more PA and much better SB numbers. Betts also has played 50+ games at 2B and 16 at SS (with a better-than-league-average RF/9 at SS, for what that’s worth). I’m not convinced that Acuna’s SB are as valuable as they are impressive, if that makes sense. BRef gives Betts 7.9 WAR and Acuna 6.8, so voting for Betts seems defensible. I expect Acuna will win it, though, partly because the power-speed combination is unique (though not all that different from Eric Davis’s 27-80 with a better SB%) and partly because he’s been seen as the frontrunner for most of the year.
I would be interested if Jonathan or someone else who is less lazy than I could look at each of Acuna’s SB attempts and what the batters after him did to get an idea of how many times his SB led to him scoring when he wouldn’t have otherwise and how many times his CS prevented him from scoring when he would have otherwise. I assume that most of the time he didn’t score even after an SB or scored after an SB but would have without it too.
Media members don’t have control over how the Mets eventually do. They do have control over who gets the MVP.
True, but my point was more along the lines of, “Media members can be stupid, but in this case they may be right, even if not for the reasons they’re giving.”
This is basically where I am. Ronald’s crappy defense is really hard to ignore when you watch the games.
The other thing to consider BTW is, if Arizona gets into the playoffs, would Corbin Carroll be able to get into the picture? If they’re in the playoffs, it’ll be hard to argue that he’s not more valuable to the D-backs than Ronald is to us or Betts is to LA, given he’ll be the difference between making the playoffs and not whereas Ronald and Betts probably are not.
JonathanF’s got a new post. The Bar is open for business.