Chris Sale starts this party facing his former team. Sale comes into today’s game with a 10-2 record, a 2.91 ERA, and an incredible 6.69 K/BB rate. Chad Kuhl will counter Sale and he’ll be making his 1st start of the year. If you’re looking for a common denominator in these guys, I can say with full confidence that they both have beards. As a reminder, this is a makeup game from April 27th and the Braves will be back at home against the Pirates for a 3 game series.
Braves Lineup
It’s maddening, I tell ya. Adam Duvall is carrying a .093/.129/.113 line against RHP and yet he continues to get starts against them. Orlando Arcia is back in the lineup.
Got JCed, but I just commented that Duvall isn’t even grading out well defensively anymore. I think his days are numbered. The moment that either AA makes an acquisition or Harris returns, I think he gets DFA.
I think Drake Baldwin is probably being shopped as one of our trade chips. AA has established that he prefers veteran catchers, and Baldwin is blocked by Murphy and TDA anyway.
This about the most punchless outfield in baseball. Aside from Kelenic there is absolutely nothing there. Even Harris wasn’t great before he got hurt but Duvall, Laureano, Wall, Anderson, etc are just bleak. Couple that with the offensive hole at shortstop and it’s not hard to understand why we struggle.
Again looking helpless against a guy with an era over 5.
Laureano, Anderson sounds like our outfield married Lou Reed.
That was a particularly insipid series of plate appearances against the eminently hittable Jared Shuster.
Going down in order against Jared Shuster is genuinely galling. It’s like getting shut down by Kyle Davies.
Duvall is not even hitting lefties right now. He looks totally lost at the plate.
You gotta feel for Sale. He is pitching great and his offense is offensive.
Duvall looks finished. But who doesn’t right now? We are about to lose a series to the worst team in baseball. But hey, Nacho isn’t ready yet.
I mean, he isn’t. He’s a 5’10 middle infielder with little power who has spent about a year and a half in the minors, during which time he has done decently but not superbly, and he put up a sub-.700 OPS in Double-A this year. I just don’t get the idea that he’s any kind of answer.
Could he outhit Zach Short and Luke Williams? Maybe, but so could Smitty’s barber. On the other hand, if he comes up here and faceplants, it could push his overall development time out by another year.
It just feels like a lot of folks are hoping that a punch-and-judy hitter will come up here and experience instant success, without getting the bat knocked out of his hands by the kinds of 100-mph fastballs that he simply is not seeing in Triple-A.
In my opinion, even if he could outhit Short or even Arcia, I don’t think he could do so by enough to really make a difference. We need bats from outside the organization.
If he’s so terrible he’s going to get the bat knocked out of his hands now, what will change in a year? The question is can he field the position well enough. Probably not. We will likely see.
I mean… that’s what the minor leagues are for. If there’s any chance of getting him a little better at an area he’s not very good at right now, it’s gonna happen on the farm, not in the Show.
When the Braves hitters are good they are very good, but when the they are bad, they are just, eh, horrid.
Oh, man. I really thought Marcell got into that.
The amount of bad luck on well struck batted balls sometimes is incredible. It’s made me stop watching….well that and just terrible approaches.
Just 10 feet further on so many balls would’ve had us next to the Phillies. Not meant to be with the ball tinkering this year by MLB.
DFA or fire someone. Probably Duvall, but I don’t particularly care who. This is pathetic.
It’s very hard to watch and frustrating. The Braves are hitting worse against a ragtag set of pitchers than the White Sox are against a frontline star. And the White Sox are a terrible hitting team.
They can’t even get a runner past 2nd base.
Yeah something needs to happen. A DFA, a firing, something. Hoping water will find its level isn’t working
The Braves are getting three-hit in a bullpen game against the worst team in the majors. And they haven’t attempted a single steal against a catcher who has a 6% CS rate.
To be fair, we haven’t had many base runners
I am 120 miles from Chicago. I considered driving down there. I chose to stay home. I chose wisely.
Snitker’s post-game press conference was especially pathetic. Zero answers and potential solutions … except to keep at it.
Keep grinding…sounds a lot like my dentist.
Looks like Bryce Harper might have pulled a hammy tonight.
Went to an early-evening rock show last night, caught the ATL/CWS boxscore as the game ended & thought: “Well, that’s a game that’ll inspire some overreaction.”
But yeah, any useful help we get will come from another club. Dunno about the pieces in the system to trade, but this (hopefully) will be another AA-to-the-rescue trade deadline. Right now, we got what we got.
Also, FWIW, it looks like Harper, Schwarber & Realmuto could be out for awhile. Given our injury misfortunes, that almost sounds fair to me.
The price to acquire anyone of any note at the deadline is gonna be brutal, as evidenced by the fact that AA hasn’t been able to bring anyone in yet – ordinarily, his first moves are at least a month out from the deadline, and the prices are only gonna get crazier the closer we get to the deadline. Yankees fans are starting to panic as their first-half juggernaut has been slowing, the Phillies lost some huge stars, and we’re about as close to “everyone knows we’re desperate” as any team in baseball.
I think we need to trade Huascar Ynoa for Mike Trout. Get it done, Wren.
I’m thinking more possible-lightning-in-a-bottle rental types (like a Tommy Pham) rather than any borderline stars.
I think that is highly unlikely. Pham is a known clubhouse cancer, and that doesn’t fly with the Braves.
Does anyone think the Braves should stand pat? I am not suggesting waive a white fiag or giving up on the season. However, we cannot afford to add to the payroll thanks the 3rd tier ramification, nor can we afford to give up the few good prospects that we have. Morton and Fried are gone next year, so that creates 2 holes in the starting rotation. And no one knows if Sale will continue to be healthy. I am also not sold on Waldrep. Decent velocity, but low spin rates, ala Ian Anderson. Just bring back Pillar get a decent bullpen addition and call it a day. Prices are too high, or like Alex said, AA would have already added. Go for the wild card, you never know, after all the DBacks were in the world series last year. Go get them next year if you can’t make noise is the PS this year. Also, Acuna will probably struggle like he did in 2022 after the surgery. Division is tightening up. Even the Nats are good
Pham was a floated trade candidate the last several years and the Braves didn’t acquire him then either. Seems like a former teammate of Pham’s or someone who had been in the same organization with Pham at one time was highly against it.
Also, if we’re acquiring a platoon bat, it needs to be a LHB.
Pham is an example of a player who’d fit the bill in the sense that he’d be a rental & can still play. Doesn’t have to be Pham.
Also, FWIW, we had Josh Donaldson, who wasn’t exactly Mr. Warmth.