Bryce Elder and the Atlanta Braves host the San Diego Padres and Yu Darvish. After last night’s results, it’s hard to be confident going into this on, but Bryce Elder sometimes surprises when we least expect it. Game time is 6:10 CT/7:10 ET.
Austin Riley Still Out and D’Arnaud Needs a Day
And then there’s this…
I’m not sure how many Braves Journalers saw it, but David Fletcher got himself mixed in with the Shohei Ohtani debacle:
So…when the Braves say there’s not really someone to bring up, they really do mean it. The good thing about the Fletcher situation is that the Braves might be able to void his contract if allegations are true. If it’s 100% that he bet on baseball, he’ll be out of the league by the All Star break.
Braves Transactions
I’ve talked about it before. I’m not near the smartest man on here, but for some reason, after studying his moves these past few years, I have a pretty good sense of what AA is going to do when he makes a transaction. A well known Braves reporter tweeted that he thought Ray Kerr would get sent down with Pierce Johnson was ready because the Braves wanted to keep the depth in the form of Jackson Stephens. To me, that made very little sense. The Braves signed Jackson Stephens to a split contract, and yes, he had to be DFA’d, but anyone that has studied Jackson Stephens would know that he’s been DFA’d and released several times by the Braves and yet he continues to come back. Why? Because it’s the only MLB team that will provide him MLB money from time to time in exchange for average pitching. It’s quite simple, really.
Tomorrow’s Doubleheader
Braves and Padres will play 2 tomorrow, one at 11:20 CT and 12:20ET and the other at 5:20 CT/6:20 ET. The pitching matchups will be Dylan Cease vs. Reynaldo Lopez and Randy Vasquez vs. Chris Sale.
Braves Lineup
Will the real Ronald Acuña Jr. please stand up?
Don’t yourself short, Boss, you’re pretty sharp.
And I’m with you, not very confident facing Darvish…dude just deals! If the Braves struck out 18 times against Matt Waldron, Darvish may have himself a Kerry Wood night…or get roughed up by a pissed off group.
I’m hoping the latter happens.
I would’ve been disappointed if Ray Kerr got sent down. We know what Jackson Stevens is, and sometimes we want that; Ray Kerr has upside and it’d be good to figure out now if that upside is real.
ATL people, any idea how long this delay is going to be?
All night, apparently!
No lose is good news
Riley out of the lineup again for the Sunday night game. The Braves are currently working with a 2 man bench.
Walk, dinger
Bryce Elder and his 1.511 WHIP since last July can walk and keep on walking.
Please… enough of Elder. Teams with a pulse destroy him.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that a 6.46 era isn’t good, even for a 5th starter
The umpire is also giving him a tiny zone.
Walk the dog time.
No more Sunday night games this year, please.
Ronnie now struggling in all phases. Seems like his head hasn’t been in it for a while with the base running gaffs and now dropping a fly ball. It’s a long season but this is now more than just a little cold spell. Somebody needs to get in their backside pretty hard and wake the team up
I’d say this nearly team wide offensive slump goes back to a week or two before the end of last season.
Team was on pace to demolish the HR record, then suddenly they just stopped hitting dingers in bunches. They tied it thanks to Ozuna, then the offensive cold spell continued in the playoffs.
This is the same continued cold spell, IMO.
Does this mean some teams cracked the code? Is that even possible to tell?
The Braves now seam to be a team in the throes of collective depression. They’ve got a bushel basket of long term guaranteed contracts, but no will to win.
Braves fall to 26 – 16.