The Irregular Season
First, I hope everyone in Atlanta is safe, particularly krussell, who’s now our good luck charm.
Second, these last two days off have been excruciating, but they remind me that the off-season is six months long if you don’t make the playoffs, but only five months long if you win the World Series. There’s only one way to get that extra month of baseball, and it starts now.
Third, on the Monday Manfred Mess. As we sit here tonight, there is still a reasonable probability that no more than one game will be needed. There is also a reasonable possibility that the Braves and Mets will have to play two games on Monday, after which one or both fly out to best-of-three road series.
Much finger pointing… the original rainout was a Braves-concocted move of dubious validity. The Mets’ refusal to use any off-days before the end of the season raised the stakes. ESPN refused to move the Sunday night Mets game to Sunday afternoon so that the Mets and Braves could play on Monday instead of Thursday. (That would have at least reduced Monday to no more than one game. A Monday or Tuesday doubleheader was, as I understand it, nixed by the Braves. NOAA’s forecasts were sufficiently hazy that a Wednesday night game was given a fighting chance as late as Tuesday. And then of course there Rob Manfred, who has the ability and Bowie Kuhn-given authority to override all this and impose whatever he wanted to, punted. Finally, God decided where and when the path of the hurricane would eventuate. So that’s six culprits: Braves, Mets, ESPN, NOAA, Manfred and God. All five but Manfred admit that Manfred is not all that good at this part of his job. So I’ll stick with him.
Watching the Twins
I watched the Twins game last night. People complaining that the Braves aren’t performing that well down the stretch should be condemned to watch the Twins butcher baseball plays. The Twins’ collapse means that Kansas City will probably not have a great deal of motivation this weekend. When I detailed Playoff Races I have Known a couple of weeks ago, I should have mentioned that in many of them, the last opponent had little to play for but it didn’t stop them from winning games. I have no doubt that there is some impact of “nothing to play for” at the margin, but it’s definitely at the margin. As Kris Kristofferson put in Janis Joplin’s mouth: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Don’t be surprised to see wins from Kansas City or Milwaukee or San Diego this weekend, even as they have little to play for and are all getting their rotations in positions for the playoffs. So all this “they have nothing to play for” stuff is good in theory, but rarely seems to make much difference in practice.
The Game
I have to be honest. (Actually, there is zero reason I have to be honest, so let’s just say I choose to be honest.) When I think of the Kansas City Royals, I think of Amos Otis, George Brett, and Larry Gura. (Why Larry Gura? If we start to try and figure out what sticks in my cranium, we’re going to be here for a while.) If pressed, I guess I can conjure up Ned Yost and John Schuerholz, but those are really Braves names, not KC names to me. So Kansas City occupies one of the big blank areas of my mind that are, well, blank. Suffice it to say that the name Brady Singer has never remained long enough in my cerebral protoplasm to lay down an impression.
So let’s face it: as a knowledgable baseball pundit, I’m a nearly complete fraud. I can look up Bobby Witt Jr.‘s stats as well as the rest of you, but to pretend that I did anything other than watch Max Fried pitch to a bunch of pale blue guys would be a false claim.
Fried and Singer dominated the first time through the lineup, but Sean Murphy temporarily silenced his critics with a two-run shot in the bottom of the fourth. In the bottom of the eighth, Marcell Ozuna caught KC napping. (I was also napping, awaiting the top of the ninth, but I have an excuse; I was drunk.) He stole third and came home on a wild throw from the catcher to give the Braves their third run.
In what was conceivably his last home game on the Truist Park mound, Max Fried was Sandy Koufax. He got to 2 outs in the 9th, just under 100 pitches with three hits and 9 Ks. The curveball ws unhittable. If that was his last home performance in Truist, it was a great one. Raisel Iglesias got the last out to preserve the shutout.
Mets lose 8-4.
Diamondbacks lose 5-3. It’s sort of a 3 way tie but the Diamondbacks have two games in hand.
Yeah boi. Go Drunkards and Monks.
It’s so impressive that Fried (with one extra pitch from Iglesias) got us a win in game time of 1:59. Even more impressive that JonathanF got the recap up within 2:20 of the first pitch. That’s got to be an all time record.
Speaking of records, I’d bet this is the first time Atlanta braves pitchers have tossed a multiple pitcher Maddux; that is, combining on a shutout in under 100 pitches.
Thanks tfloyd… something to calculate while I watch these two games.
You would lose your bet, but it’s close. There are two games that Retrosheet seems to indicate are Madduxes with more than one pitcher, but I think the Retrosheet pitch counts are just wrong, as they are oftten partial before this century.
This game https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL199505150.shtml is a possibilitiy, but the reliever pitch counts are clearly wrong.
In this game Retrosheet lists Rick Mahler with only 65 pitches and Bruce Sutter with none. That’s wrong, so we have to call it unverified. The pitch counts are conspicuously missing from the boxscore in both games.
There are two reliable games in which the pitchers combined for fewer than 100 pitches in a shutout. In both of them, the starter was — Greg Maddux:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL200004030.shtml Maddux and Remlinger 96 pitches
and
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200104110.shtml Maddux, Remlinger and Rocker 97 pitches
JF, you’re a gem. Seek, and JonathanF shall find. My guess was that, back in the day, a pitcher with a pitch count well under 100 while tossing a shutout would never be relieved. Those two examples reveal one possible scenario I had overlooked. Both were in early April, before Maddux was fully stretched out. Still, I guess we can say that what Max and Iggy did last night–the multiple-pitcher-Maddux–had never been done unless one of the pitchers was actually Greg Maddux.
All the right teams are winning at the moment, just need the scores to hold
Wore the lucky hat, paid off. Sat with a bunch of Royals tonight that had no idea what they were walking into. Ok I jest we’re not that cool. Fried shoved tonight, absolutely awesome. Come back and see what happens? Unlikely. Hat tip though. That was nails. We still can’t hit but it we give up zero I guess I like our chances.
When Max is on, he’s just such a pleasure to watch. Ice in his veins and sheer artistry with every hammer.
Let’s go, Brew Crew!
UPDATE: Mets lose! We are tied!!
Diamondbacks lose!
I think I’ve worked it out. Since the Braves and Mets are now tied, they are guaranteed to be within two of each other after Sunday. The only way they don’t then have to play is if both of them are one or two in front of the Dbacks, since they both have tiebreakers over the Dbacks. If either the Braves or the Mets finish tied or behind the Dbacks, they have to play at least one.
But there’s a catch. If, say, the Braves win their next two and the Mets lose both and the Dbacks also lose both, the Braves would have to play two against the Mets but they’d get in the playoffs no matter what happened, which would give them a huge incentive to forfeit at least one of the games… Ready for this Mr Manfred?
But it’s worse than that. If all three teams have the same record in the next two games, the Braves and Mets could lock out the Dbacks by each agreeing to forfeit one game on Monday. How would that look?
Greetings from Birmingham, Ala…
Well, everything kinda worked out tonight, right? And Max was mighty, an absolute ace. Here’s to an inspiring ending & a half-dozen more starts from #54. (Personally, I’d love to go into the Monday tilt already in the post-season & then vanquish the Mets anyway.)
When I think of the Royals, to me, Amos Otis, Frank White & George Brett obviously personified the franchise in KC’s early decades, but I always think of RHP Steve Busby, who had 3 big early seasons, which included 2 no-hitters; then he hurt his shoulder & was never the same. What Herb Score was to the Indians, Steve Busby was to the Royals. Potential greatness halted.
Tomorrow night’s pitcher Seth Lugo has become an amazing story this year. He once was a Mets middle reliever that we kicked around a bit. Now he’s a no-stuff starter who’s had a terrific year. Saw him dominate the Yanks a couple weeks ago & he was almost Maddux-like. Strike, strike, strike…
Probably not going to see much of it, unfortunately. I’ll be in a football stadium about 60 miles SW of here. Same gametime. Go Dogs/Braves.
If nobody has mentioned the particulars, the Twins sat 70-53 on 8/17, 2 games out of first and in second position in the wild card. Then they ran off a face melting 12-25 to end their hopes. I doubt it will be remembered as one of the great collapses because they didn’t hold any kind of huge lead, but it was more protracted than the Red Sox and Braves collapses of 2011, spanning nearly a quarter of the season rather than 25 games or so, with every bit as putrid a winning percentage.
Seeing Max walk off the mound to that ovation put a lump in my throat.
He was the prospect everyone followed during the rebuild and he lived up to every bit of potential.
I hope that wasn’t his last start in a Braves uniform, but if it was, I’ll remember it as fondly as the game 6 clincher.
JonathanF with a new thread: