To paraphrase My Cousin Vinny’s opening statement: everything that happened in that game was crap.
We had Bad Charlie Morton; with Ronald Acuña Jr. getting a much-needed day off, and Austin Riley still day-to-day, the offense was down its starting right fielder, third baseman, and catcher, and the offense went back to its punchless status quo in meekly surrendering to Javier Assad and the Cubs. Admittedly, Assad is having a great year, but still.
The one good thing about the game: Ray Short got another two hits, and the lone RBI for the good guys.
Flush this one down the furthest memory hole you can find, everybody.
This season is beginning to remind me of 1999. Lots of injuries and key guys performing below their historic norms but we’re still on pace for 100 wins somehow.
IDK, this team looks punch less, disinterested and not playing with any fire what so ever. Acuna is definitely not 100 percent. I am not sure what do with Kelenic and Duvall, but the Braves need some balls. I would love to have Joc back to fuel the fire
Most of the Braves batters are hitting in the low to mid .200s. Ozuma is the only one really performing, and he’s hardly leadership material. Mostly, its tiring watching the Braves gaze passively as strikes whiz past and then swing with furious abandon at balls in the dirt. And then mope dejectedly back to the dugout
Slumps and injuries happen in baseball. I think Atlanta is looking towards the playoffs in just about every decision they make, including possibly having guys rest for longer than necessary with injuries. The amazing part to me has been our starting pitching. If we get both hitting and pitching going at the same time I think we will be almost unbeatable. As noted in an earlier thread, if you would have told me we would have this many key injuries and only two players OPSing above .800 at this time, I would take a 26 – 14 record any day of the week.
Agreed here. I’m also hoping I’m reading the tea leaves correctly that they’re being cautious with injuries.
Fried vs. an objectively bad SP tonight. I like the dub.
Yup, 1/4 of the season in, we’re on a pace for 105 wins & I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe that the team has room to improve.
That’s the story of the season so far (for me, anyway).
FWIW, 18 of our next 23 games come vs. clubs below .500.
Got my first look at the Rome club last night and thought I’d share some bits.
Drue Hackenburg got the start in Game 1 of the doubleheader and mostly looked excellent. the fastball was 95-6 and was mostly pounded into the ground. It looked like he was tipping his change because the Asheville hitters were on that throughout his outing. The slider was very effective and easily his best pitch. 2 major quibbles are that the contact he did give up was loud — several 100+ ground balls and several hard lineouts — and that he still has no real out pitch. He took 85 pitches to record 14 outs with several long at-bats. Asheville has essentially no hitting prospects so this isn’t a good sign.
Ambioris Tavaras sure looks like a ballplayer! He made 2 great stops at short and turned a couple sweet double plays on balls where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to get one. On the other hand, the swing and miss is real. 4 and 1/2 tools doesn’t cut it.
EJ Exposito has been the talk of the Braves position players this spring, but he is already 23 and has never put up close to this type of production before. He absolutely murdered a home run that must have been at least 450 feet and squared up a couple other balls for hits. Defensively he looked poor at first base (he was the DH in the other game). Get the guy to Mississippi already 🙂
Kevin Kilpatrick is another 23 year old having a breakout season for the Emperors. He is very thin and small framed, although he looked good in the field and is very fast. Perhaps a 5th outfielder down the line.
Stephen Paolini is a long levered right fielder who was a surprise 5th round pick dog years ago as a toolsy youngster. Braves scouts have been adamant over the years that there is a hitter in there but his 35-40% strikeout rates have swallowed that up so far. He looked like a T-ball kid with no Barrel control at all so I’m guessing the experiment is nearing its end 🙁
Sam Strickland is a 25 year old reliever who I am mentioning because he just might land in a MLB bullpen one day and happens to be a dead ringer for Jesse Chavez. Ya never know!