So I’m back from the land down under, where women glow and men plunder. Actually, I saw precious little glowing and no plundering at all, And there was certainly no chundering, so I may have missed the real Australia. In any case, my experiment to see if the Braves would go undefeated if only I would leave the North American continent ends with a negative result. So I’m back.
But in my 30 hour return to my native soil, I managed to pick up a throwback souvenir: Covid. So my grand plans to shower you all with riches from the Retrosheet database will have to wait another week. It was all I could do to (a) stay awake; and (b) watch a play through rheumy eyes and a hacking cough. But I now own a spiffy new pulse oximeter which, with some effort, I can get to reveal near life-sustaining levels of lung function.
But there’s a silver lining here: getting Covid seems so 2021. And you know what else seems so 2021? A Braves World Series Championship. So maybe coming down with Covid is just my way of getting the conditions right for another big run, this time against the Phillies. Remind yourself that on July 5th 2021, the Braves were two games under .500 and tied for fifth place in the division. True, they were only five games back instead of the 9 game deficit they find themselves in now, but a good series against the Phillies (no I don’t think a sweep is required) will serve notice that the postseason is a mere three months away.
The Phillies come into the series without Harper, Realmuto or Schwarber.That guarantees nothing, of course, but the likes of Rafael Marchan, Bryson Stott and Christian Pache will not be gracing Wheaties boxes any time soon. At least for this series, the Phillies bottom four are as feckless as ours.
When Max Fried faces Aaron Nola you expect low scoring, particularly when both lineups get towards the bottom. And in the first three innings nobody scored. But Nola did it the old fashioned way: nine up and nine down. Fried, by contrast tried to see how many hits you can give up without yielding a run.
In the middle innings, the Phillies kept hitting. Fried ended up going 6, but giving up 11 hits and 5 runs. At that point I passed out, which means I missed the inning where the Phillies scored another 3 on three Atlanta errors. The Braves managed three on two homers by Riley and Albies.
I really wanted to go to sleep at that point, but I punished myself just a bit more to watch this to the end. I was rewarded with a three run Ozuna dinger that brought the Braves once again frustratingly close. The frustration came from a ninth inning array of Adam Duvall, Orlando Arcia and Eli White. Watching Eli make the last out suggested that the return of Eddie Rosario might be sooner rather than later.
There were some good things in this effort, among them three homers by the Braves. We’re still going to win most games with six runs on homers. Just not tonight. One sloppy defensive inning threw this game away, but the Braves were outplayed in this game. Go get ’em tomorrow.
I haven’t been able to sell my tickets for any price for the last three games. Our fans already know…sigh…
Thanks for your selflessness, Jonathan. I couldn’t make it through the game and I feel fine. I was even enjoying the Braves radio commentary on Apple’s second audio channel. (It’s been a long time since I heard Joe Simpson. I know he’s not that popular around here, but I always liked him.)
There was a Philthies fan on Twitter pontificating about how the importance of this win can’t be overstated blah blah. Actually it doesn’t matter for the reasons you mentioned. I also seem to recall the Braves wiped the floor with the Nats in the 2019 regular season, but we know how the postseason turned out.
On the bright side, the Mets got absolutely blasted by the Pirates, so at least there’s that.
I actually think today’s game is extremely important for Scwellenbach. He doesn’t have to pitch a shut out or even win but he does need 6 solid innings. This will show that he can hang with the good teams. If he does poorly, a demotion may be in order, but even more importantly, Atlanta will intensify looking on the trade market for a 5th starter. Given injury and age concerns, they may be looking for a 2nd or 3rd starter and let Charlie get a little more rest as a number 5.
Missed last night’s Apple+ affair. It was sushi & Japanese whiskey instead. Sounds like it was a Bad News Braves effort.
Don’t love the pitching matchup tonight, but… y’never know. Let’s get these last 2.
Feel better, JonF.
I think Eddie might make a good platoon with Duvall, but wouldn’t Senzel make a good replacement for Duvall? He can field and take walks and no one could hit worse than Duvall. Duvall has a lot of swing and miss in his game. Senzel might even be able to back up Arcia better than Short.