Well, a lot has changed since we last chatted and we will talk about that, but Reynaldo Lopez is back on the mound and his counterpart, Zack Wheeler, ain’t no slouch either. In the battle for NL East dominance, the Phillies are kinda running away with this thing at the moment, but these Braves have known to get hot late before and I hope it will happen again. However, make no mistake it will be a tough task and I don’t even care about the division anymore. I just want to see a playoff game. Now for the unfun part.
Austin Riley Likely Out for the Season
Austin Riley today underwent an MRI that revealed a right hand fracture. He is expected to miss approximately six to eight weeks. Additionally, the club today returned RHP Reynaldo López from his rehabilitation assignment and reinstated him from the injured list, and optioned RHP Jimmy Herget to Triple-A Gwinnett.
It’s just a long line of misfortunes that have haunted the Braves from day 1 this year.
Transaction a Day AA
The Braves today signed INF Gio Urshela to a major league contract and placed INF Austin Riley on the 10-day injured list, backdated to August 19, with a fractured right hand. To make room on the 40-man roster, Atlanta transferred A.J. Minter to the 60-day injured list.
We discussed A.J. Minter the other day, but the injury will likely end in surgery that will put him out for the year. Will he be a Braves in 2025? I’m not optimistic. Gio Urshela will apparently be our everyday 3B. He’s a career .730 OPS hitter and a solid glove. I’ll take it until the Braves just accept this team for what it is and just send a doggone adult softball lineup out there that just hits dingers.
Braves Lineup, The Best We Got, I Guess
Reynaldo Lopez, you’re up.
The winter is long enough without punting the last 6 weeks on top of it. Let’s see if we can drag this carcass into October, Get Ozzie back and a folk hero to be named later, then give them a big fat dose of Sale, Lopez, and Fried.
At this point, I’m taking anything over .500 this season as a testament to AA’s skill and the talent of whatever players are standing upright today. I have zero expectations left.
Those were back to back awful at bats by Harris. 6 total pitches and 2 k’s.
Laureano giving off Rufino Linares vibes.
Exactly. His paths to balls are… eccentric, and his glove positioning is… unique.
Laureano with three really nice plays in the 9th. That was a nice win.
Look, we can win with 3 ace pitchers and some rag tag offense with a big bopper or two. We’ve lost with an offense full of swing and miss mashers who got outscored by guys who made contact. Let’s see what Gio and Whit can do. There’s enough other talent and power with a healthy Harris and Albies that we can score enough. I’m not giving up
That’s probably one of my favorite regular season wins of all time.
Just a great effort all around.
I missed this game. But if Lopez and Sale keep up the good work and Max becomes Max again, 3-1 wins are just as good as 10-1 wins.
This team has teased with a few false dawns a couple of times this season. My benchmark is still 12-games above .500. Get there and I’ll believe a bit more.
I’m sure others have seen this, but this is almost peak Mets.
https://x.com/MLB/status/1826075621702906028
Recapped