Given the aging demographics of Braves Journal, you wouldn’t expect it to be a hotbed of Elder Abuse. But around here, he seems to be the second-most booed Bryce in MLB. (Can any of you name the third current-MLB Bryce?) Of course, it’s not his fault that he’s being asked to pitch baseball games — for that we can blame Reynaldo Lopez and Spencer Strider, those slackers. And Elder does have the strongest chin of any Brave since we cut Aaron Harang.

Bryce’s ability to dodge bats with AAA stuff is a characteristic that comes and goes. And when it goes… it really goes. The Braves took an early lead but a scratch run and a couple of bombs later, I was ready to paraphrase Hello from The Book of Mormon.

Hello!
My name is Elder, Bryce
And I would like to share with you
The most amazing pitch

It has
So many moving parts
You simply won’t believe how much
This pitch can cause ground balls

But it
Can give up bombs as well
Its why my job is tough!
But, you still have to put me in….

[I could continue this parody for a while… but I suspect most of you don’t know the original, so I’ll stop for now.]

By the time Bryce was ready to shower, it was 5-1. Apparently, Elder Abuse Day is June 15th. I’ll be surprised if Bryce is still on the roster at that point, but not dumbfounded. In his post mortem on Bryce, CJ (if I heard it correctly) said that Bryce should never go through a lineup more than twice. I realize that’s two more times than most of you would like to see, but there is a certain irony that Snitker has a fairly quick hook with good pitchers and a slow hook with bad ones. That said, there is nothing about Elder that doesn’t suggest he would be a cromulent long reliever. (I originally typed “log reliever.” Maybe I meant it subconsciously.)

If the Braves were 9-3, you could chalk up the sleepy play to the fact that they didn’t get to their hotel room until 5 this morning. But excuses like that won’t wash when you’re 3-9. I was up pretty late last night, too, and I got confused when Elder was replaced by Zach Thompson, because I confused him with Zack Thompson. Frankly, by the time he came in, I was drunk enough to confuse him with Old Rough and Ready: Zachary Taylor. The one person I know no one will confuse him with is Zack Wheeler. Zach was called up to replace Bummer while he is on bereavement leave. Bummer indeed. But Zach did fine… he might be one to watch.

Once Bryce left, a glimmer of offense emerged. Marcell Ozuna and Ozzie Albies homered to make it 5-3 in the 8th and I was forced to pay attention again, even though Pierce Johnson gave up another homer in the bottom of the 8th to make it 6-3.

Drake Baldwin got to 3rd in the 9th and that’s the way it ended. Rest up, boys.


Odds and Ends

Tampa Bay is finally playing in a stadium sized to their attendance…. but if the Braves had been properly sized to their attendance back in the ’70s they could have played in my living room.

The Rays (by the way… they don’t fool me –they are still Satanic) pitched Taj Bradley, who was mayor of Los Angeles before his pilgrimage to India. (I’m not sure who’ll get that other than me, but don’t worry — it’s mildly funny at best.)

Yesterday saw Schwarber take on Schwallenbach. The 9th inning here saw Stuart Fairchid against Pete Fairbanks. I already did the programming, so it’s easy to tell you that those two faced each other once in April 2023 and there have been no other double-Fair matchups.

Finally, there is one more day of entries for the Braves Journal Mad Lib Contest. I got some entries today, but your chances of winning are still pretty good.