As I already stated on the previous thread…I completely forgot that it was a day game. Granted, I’m in the process of taking 2 college courses, both of which are heavy in the assignments right now as they’re quick 6 week courses to re-up my teacher certification. Yes, we teachers have to pay for our own classes and that REALLY sucks. Anywho, I submitted all my assignments and here I am at an hour til midnight writing about a game I sure wish I didn’t miss.
Let’s talk about Max Fried
When Spencer Strider went down in game 1 of the season, all eyes laid heavily on Max Fried to save the Braves in game 2 of the season. He lasted 0.2 innings. Ok…so it was his first game of the season, let’s give Fried a little grace. 2nd game, 7 earned runs in 4.1 innings. Shit! We’re DOOOOOMED. Rocking a cool 18 ERA after his 2nd start, Max decided to strap on his big boy pants:
- Start 3: 6.1 IP, 1 ER
- Start 4: 5 IP, 3 R
- Start 5: 9 IP, 0 R
- Start 6: 6 IP, 0 R
- Start 7: 7 IP, 4 R
- Start 8: 7 IP, 0H, 0R
From a 40.50 ERA down to a 3.57 ERA. While I’ll never say “Spencer Who?”, Varsity is looking like he’s back to being one bad mutha. And I absolutely LOVE this clip. Dude in the box knows he’s doooooomed and Varsity is already walking off the mound.
The offense did enough to win the game, and yes, it’s only the LolMets, but the Braves top 4 are OPSing .716, .781, .703 and .664, when last year they were 1.012, .849, .861, and .993. Can we have those guys back? Who would have ever thought that pitching would be the reason this team is 24-12?
And yes, the Mets are laughing at the Braves because of this…
…but at least we know that the Mets will always…
Wow, that close again on a no-hitter.
I will say, once so many no-hitters became combined, then I stopped caring quite as much. It has always been looked at as an individual achievement, and once it stopped being that, then I think it’s taken a dent in my eyes. If Fried was still on the mound in the 9th, I would have been really disappointed if he gave it up.
I’m kinda diggin’ that the offense is struggling right now. It was such a bait-and-switch to see the team mash all regular season only to go cold in the playoffs. Hopefully there’s some intangible benefit to them struggling early in the year.
DOB had the exact numbers on his pod if you want to go listen, but Ozuna is now at a 162-game run of dominance going back to last year. He got hot on May 2nd of last year, so May 2nd to May 2nd, he’s had a 1.000+ OPS, hit 47 bombs and driven in 130 runs.
I do think that to some extent Ozuna is an opportunistic hitter. He’s a great fastball hitter, great mistake pitch hitter, but doesn’t seem to be the most disciplined hitter against good pitching. So he enjoys the benefit of getting a lot of fastballs in this lineup, he sees more crappy pitching because we usually get deep into a team’s staff in a series, and he’s made the most of it. In the playoffs, I fear we won’t see anything close to this because teams will pitch him more carefully and with better pitching. But we’ll see.
Was really rooting for the no-hitter because I wanted to see the new depths of self-flagellation that the Met folk might’ve broken out. Now that would’ve been quite a ride home on the 7 train.
Instead, they got, what they considered, some kind of moral victory. Very Met-like, nonetheless.
Break out the brooms, fellas.