Uncle Charlie Morton threw six innings of one-hit ball on Sunday funday as the Braves beat Oakland, 3-1, to win the 3-game series.
The Braves got the good version of Morton on Sunday. In his past few starts, Uncle Charlie has struggled. On Sunday funday, however, Charlie allowed just one hit and worked around five walks before leaving with the lead. Dylan Lee (2-1, 1.71) blew the lead in the seventh, giving up a long-ball, but the Braves answered in the bottom of the seventh to make him the winner.
Marcell OHzuna walked in the bottom of the first to reach base for the millionth straight game. OHzuna then advanced on a passed ball by Kyle McCann and scored on a Matt Olson single. Less than 24 hours after these two teams combined for 20 runs and 29 hits, they played to a 1-0 count through six.
Lee gave up the lead in Zack Gelof homered to left-center. The Braves responded immediately, however. Adam Duvall drew a one-out walk, Jarred Kelenic doubled, and Sean Murphy followed with a perfectly-placed double of his own to give the Braves the lead. Murphy’s double flopped just inside the right-field line, a whopping 85.6 mph off the bat with a 59 degree launch angle. The Braves deserved some of these bloops. Murphy’s double was hit 7.4 mph harder than Kelenic’s.
Sunday funday security runs
OHzuna doubled to leadoff the bottom of the eighth on Sunday funday. He gave way to J.P. Martinez, who scored easily on an Ozzie Albies single to right, providing all the margin the Braves needed.
Raisel Iglesias was lights out in the ninth, working a clean inning. The Braves improve to 33-24 and head to Boston for that wonky two-game set with their “natural” interleave rival Red Sox.
Sunday funday wraps up a stretch where the Braves have played 15 games in 14 days. After a day off tomorrow, galavanting around Boston enjoying tea parties or golf or whatever, Fried-day comes early the day after Monday. Max Fried will take on Kutter Crawford on Tuesday evening.
Nice to see Chatlie get things back in order and Matty O is putting some good swings together and hopefully Riley is righting the ship. Losing RAJ as our lead off hitter is tough since we don’t have an obvious replacement. I actually don’t hate Kelenic in that role. He had two hits in the game he took over for Ronald, one off a lefty.
The thing about Harris is that after the beginning of the year last year, he was pretty patient. Now he is the opposite of patient and I agree with you. Giving Kelenic a try seems smart.
Kelenic has been one of our better hitters lately.
The worst thing I still see is folks swinging at balls and taking strikes. It’s like every day is opposite day.
Maybe we’ll get a few more bounces going our way.
Pros:
• Morton looked good through the first two innings, with the average RPM on his curveball a little higher than the yearly average leading into today’s game
• The BABIP shenanigans went our way today, with a few timely bloops and flares falling in
• Iggy had a nice quick 9th inning; always good to see
Cons:
• Morton’s command definitely wavered as he went deeper into the game; 5 walks issued is not good at all
• Arcia’s flyout in the 5th was yet ANOTHER barreled out for the Braves
Kelenic’s stat line might make sense for the leadoff spot, but I do wonder about his mental game and if that might be too much pressure on him. I thought his situation was made in a lab for this lineup: stick him at 8 hole and let him hit fastballs because the rest of the lineup is humming. Alas….
Why do y’all reckon the defensive metrics don’t like Kelenic? He’s not grading out well at all.
I don’t understand that either. He has a great arm and seems to cover a good amount of ground. Do defensive metrics take into consideration the positioning of an outfielder when not able to make a play? That really shouldn’t be held against the fielder if that is the case. He “appears” to be a sizable upgrade to Eddie in left field for sure.
FWIW, it looks like his UZR is actually just fine (UZR/150 of +17.2) – I think part of the challenge is the positional adjustment in left field dings a bunch of his value. That said, I don’t know why OAA / FRAA doesn’t like him.
His positioning shouldn’t ding him, it should ding the team. It isn’t like he is just going out to the dirt spot like in Little League. If the team data is wrong or the pitcher pitches away from his positioning it is weird to me that he gets hit for it.
Just to be clear what I’m looking at is not positioning, it’s positional adjustment. Left field is basically at the bottom of the defensive spectrum, like how shortstop is at the top of the defensive spectrum. From a WAR perspective, it’s easier to find a guy who can fill in at left field than it is to find a guy who can fill in at an up-the-middle defensive position – it requires less throwing arm and less mobility than almost any other position on the diamond. That’s why the positional adjustment is there.
So you basically have to be a Gold Glove-caliber player to get positive dWAR in LF. That’s dumb, but whatever. As a former outfielder, I uniquely enjoy having 3 guys who can play CF (when Acuna was healthy) in the OF. It was rough watching Ozuna and Rosario in LF.
I’m starting to really like Kelenic — like getting into “favorite Braves player” territory. I’m aware he’s not nearly as valuable as Dansby was, but he has a Dansby-esque quality to him. Good looking, All-American, and plays with tremendous passion and energy. He really looks like he’s having fun out of there, and I think he himself is surprised when he makes a big defensive player, which is just funny. I feel the same way about Harris, but I’m just a sucker for the passion, the first-pumping, the celebrations, etc. Ozzie and Ronnie are there for me on that. Riley, Olson, and Murphy are too boring. d’Arnaud is funny but just not as good looking and All-American.
Look, it’s a slow Monday and I’m gonna break down the sex appeal of each player. Deal with it. Lol
With the exceptions of Ozzie and Olson (who I don’t think is that bad) I feel like we have good defenders at each position.
I like Kelenic. Plays hard, sure looks like good defense to me, capable of getting into one. All the tools are clearly there, and I’m willing to give him the rest of the summer to try to click on offense. A guy making the minimum, making plays on defense and OPSing .750, is a guy who deserves more chances to kick to a higher gear.
I think I can speak for Bethany, and probably many others around here, when I say that he’s not as good-looking as Max Fried. That’s a mighty tough bar to clear.
I think it’s long past time we discussed the best-looking Braves, though. Let’s go!
Ryan, who you got?
Oh dear. I gotta go with our thicc 3B. The ladies love him.
Snit, 100%
I think Fried is gone, so I’m not really thinking about Fried as an option. I think my answer is Kelenic. Fried’s facial hair is weird too. Weird smile. With that said, I would trade places with Fried any day in the sex appeal department.
this thread so far is serious Kerry Ligtenberg erasure.
How the mighty hath fallen.
Give me the Sid Breams of the world.
Bream had the ‘stache. That’s worth its own spot in the rankings.
There is nothing wrong with Kelenic. Even if he is a measly 1.5 WAR player with strong defense this year, he’s still worth keeping around bc he’s 3-4 years from his prime. Good chance to be a cost-controlled league-average left fielder or better over the next few years. We just need to trade for Kyle Tucker to play RF and move Ronald to DH next year.
Yeah, I’m definitely wondering just how durable Acuna really is. And we’re paying him so little that it’s not worth trying to get that extra squeeze out of RF for him. Unfortunately, we already have a DH and 1B and he probably doesn’t want to give up on RF.
The Braves signed former Marlin Brian Anderson for the bench. Too bad he wasn’t signed 2 weeks ago, he would have been better than Zach Short at third.
Matzek was transferred to the 60 day IL. He might be done.
Anderson has been awful since 2020. We will see
Even if Matzek is done he will forever be a Braves legend and will never be forgotten.
Amen. The Night Shift was our Nasty Boys.
Still better than Short. I think he would have at least caught that pop up that cost us a game.
I like the Anderson signing. I was for signing him before we got Kelenic. I think he has more in the tank.