Moi?

I am always ambivalent when I am told some guy is “playing hurt.” On the one hand, you’re getting a lot of money to play and no one likes a prima donna forced to the pine by a pesky hangnail. On the other hand, you’re part of a team, and “playing hurt” has a number of potentially poor consequences, since almost by definition you have to be a worse player when you;re hurting. It’s true that sometimes Player A at 40% is way better than his replacement at 100%, but I think sometimes a player rushes back because he thinks he’s indispensable at almost any level of performance and, frankly, that’s never true.

That said, guys playing hurt have created some of the most indelible sports moments of all time: Willis Reed in 1970 hobbling out onto the court in game 7 of the NBA finals (although his presence was more morale-boosting than directly relevant to the outcome) and, of course, Kirk Gibson’s 1988 home run (go ahead and watch the entire at-bat — note that Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola, after the home run, are completely silent for a minute and 15 seconds… it’s by far the most amazing restraint in broadcasting history.,,, nothing like it will ever happen again.)

But that’s the way sports play tricks on us. We forget all the times when the hurtin’ hero comes out and fails. Bill Buckner is the most famous, but he’d been playing hurt for 11 years when the ball went through his legs in the 1986 series.

Why do I bring this up? Because I’m playing hurt and I don’t want to let the Braves down, but fortunately I do less than nothing to decide who wins a game. But no Retrosheet noodling today, I’m afraid.

The Game

Canada’s Remaining Team came to Truist, bringing with them the lanky former top three Cy Young finalist and former Brave Kevin Gausman. He did not do these two things at the same time. I was as excited as anyone when Gausman came to Atlanta and as excited as anyone to see him go. His year in Atlanta that spanned the 2018-19 seasons was just disappointing: there is no other team he played for (and he’s played for five franchises) in which he put up less than a 100 ERA+. He wasn’t terrible, but he was disappointing. The Blue Jays are paying him a lot of loonies, though, for a team that won’t sniff the playoffs this year.

When teams aren’t scoring runs, managers often decide to get aggressive on basepaths. But if you optimally weren’t going to be aggressive before, aggression will, on average, cost you more runs than it gains you. The Braves lost an opportunity in the first when Michael Harris II was caught stealing, but got one back when Jorge Soler was sent home on a play that would have seem him thrown out with a good throw. Overall, “getting aggressive on the bases” is less a strategy than part of the Action Fallacy:

  • Something must be done;
  • This is something;
  • Therefore, we must do this.

But Soler scored and the Braves proceeded to score two more. Overall, it looked like the Gausman innings I remember in Atlanta, except that it was pitched in the bottom of the inning.

Tha Braves gave a run back in the third when Orlando Arcia briefly forgot how to catch the ball and muffed two. (It was a temporary lapse, he made a nice leaping play in the seventh.)

Gausman then settled down (or the Braves hitters did) and Max Fried was maxxing, giving up only one in the third on Arcia’s erratic fielding and stranding two singles that led off the sixth, striking out the next three. He departed after seven with 5 hits yielded and 8 strikeouts and only one walk. (By the way, this was not necessarily hibernation mode: home plate umpire Bill Miller was Eric Gregging — except for both sides.)

Joe Jiménez pitched a perfect eighth and Raisel Iglesias struck out the first two and then gave up two singles before striking out Springer to end the game.

Easy peasy. See? I can win even when I don’t have my best stuff.

In Other News

NASCAR’s Chase Elliott threw out the first pitch wearing a Dansby Swanson jersey. I’m actually charmed by that in that implies that the Braves PR Department is admirably lax. No one would be allowed to throw out the first ball in Fenway wearing a Mookie Betts jersey.

When Fantasies Collide With Reality

I’m in a home run-only fantasy pool and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is on my team. A good home run stretch by Vlad in September can earn me a few hundred bucks. That’s what I hate about fantasy baseball.

Finally

Thanks to every one of you who have been so generous with your comments and sentiments in my current situation. I wouldn’t have thought it would help that much, but it does.