Who we beat
In general, this particular Astros club looks like many Mets teams in recent years, with some impressive star players but a bad record, and some truly inexplicable bullpen and roster management decisions stemming from their crippling lack of depth. Dana Brown has his work cut out for him.
On our side, Michael Harris II kicked a ball in the outfield, but I’m not worried about him. Ronald Acuna Jr. finally got his first homer of the year, and it was a majestic 422-foot moonshot to center. About him I don’t worry either. Orlando Arcia was the man of the hour once more: in this series, he went 5-8 with three runs scored and five batted in, including both the tying run and the go-ahead run in today’s game. Oh, and Marcell hit another, and he’s still leading the majors in homers, tied with some guy named Mike Trout.
What, me worry?
Oh, well, I guess there is the issue of the pitching. The team’s ERA is 4.41, 9th-worst in baseball. The starters’ ERA is 4.93, fifth-worst in baseball.
The pen has been good enough: judging by the metrics, and with the caveat that most of the sites with advanced stats haven’t incorporated today’s games into their calculations, the Atlanta bullpen has either been top-10 or top-15 in baseball. But it certainly has not been among the most dominant in the game, and Brian Snitker has been forced to go to his pen early and often enough that our announcers have already started to raise concerns.
Today was a pretty good example of much of the above. Max Fried had a mediocre start, going five innings and allowing more than two baserunners an inning, on seven hits and four walks against just two strikeouts.
Snitker then went to the bullpen for the next five frames, with Jesse Chavez, Pierce Johnson, Joe Jimenez, A.J. Minter, and Raisel Iglesias combining to yield just a single additional run.
Iglesias got the save in extras, and he really needs the off day tomorrow, as he pitched on Sunday, got warm on Monday but didn’t come into the game, was needed for a one-out save on Tuesday, and then pitched a full inning today.
Frankly, we probably wouldn’t have swept the series without Jose Abreu, who went 0-6 with a walk and a crippling error amid the rally that tied the game in the eighth. At this rate, he may need to retire before the year ends.
Bad?
A glass-half-empty guy might note, with some annoyance and concern, that over the past five games, our offense has scored just 13 runs from the first through the seventh innings, about half of them in the Sunday game to the Marlins that Marcell Ozuna won on the last pitch.
Good?
A glass-half-full guy might note that the team has scored 14 runs in the eighth inning or later over that same span and you certainly can’t complain about the team’s knack for situational hitting.
Well, we’re 12-5 on the season, and while sweeping the Astros isn’t quite as impressive in 2024 as in previous years, Atlanta has the best record in the majors, the best offense in the majors, and has more or less produced in line with expectations.
Thank u, next
These are the times that try men’s souls, as someone else said about something else, and with Sean Murphy and Ozzie Albies out for a while and Spencer Strider out for the year, the early going of this year is a good opportunity for our boys to audition for a bigger role on the team. Chris Sale, Charlie Morton, and Darius Vines have been announced as the starters for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as we get ready to play the other Texas team.
Bring on the Gers!
There’s a lot that can be hidden on this team if Acuña starts going off. As Alex discussed, Murphy and Albies on the shelf for a bit leaves the team with 7 good (to great) hitters and 2 that are below average. As long as the other 7 are hitting, hiding the 2 will be easy until we’re back to an elite 1-9.
Overall, I think the pitching will be fine. As an entire staff, I’d wager bullpen will be in top 5 and rotation in top-10 by season’s end.
Thanks AAR. I like the glass half-full-view.
So what’s to make of Max? Anything you guys see why he is struggling as bad as he is. He looked pretty terrible yesterday and got lucky with only three runs.
His ERA is 7.71. Not good. The other 3 advanced metrics have him at 4.93, 5.16, and 4.44. Also, not good.
Early FB velo is the highest of his career.
Slider is the slowest of his career.
According to Fangraphs, every single one of his pitches are in the negative for value.
Either he’s injured, which there’s no particular reason to believe, or he’s slumping and struggling to find his feel. I’m much more inclined to believe the latter and bet on the back of his baseball card. As with Ronald, I have full confidence that Max will find himself. He’s always been prone to a stinker here and there, though it’s not common to see him string a few of them together like this. But absent additional information, optimism is warranted.
Reynaldo Lopez is averaging 95.2 MPH on his FB as a starter.
Wasn’t long ago that in these very pages, fans were publicly flagellated just for honestly opining that our starting rotation wasn’t the best in baseball.
Not many people will argue that our rotation is the best in baseball without Strider. However, no one was expecting Lopez to be close to as good as he has been, There will be regression but hopefully we’ll see some improvement with Sale, Morton and especially Fried.
RIP Dickey Betts
When the Georgia Music Hall of Fame was open in Macon, a friend and I went. A curator walked us through a lot of the exhibits. He described the first visit of Dickie Betts and how every time Dickie walked past a picture or mention of Phil Walden Dickie said “son of a bitch” or something worse.
Also, I understand that collection (great) is now in Athens and is supposed to be installed in a new facility in the “Classic Center.” They had an original vinyl of Robert Johnson singing the Statesboro Blues and a digitally remastered version of that.