History

Monday will be the 21st anniversary of this game, which despite its quotidian appearance and baleful result (a 10-7 loss on the road in San Francisco) has an important place in baseball history. If you want to play along, take a look at the box score, or, to give a big hint, at the play-by-play listing to see if you can figure out what it is. I’ll wait……

OK. Done? Well, in the long storied history of baseball, there are only two players who have the the following chatacteristics:

  • They are known by their initials.
  • They played for the Atlanta Braves
  • They have become color commentators.
  • They have Polish surnames

I trust all of you can combine those characteristics without much trouble to figure out that I’m talking about C.J. Nitkowski and A.J. Pierzynski. April 28th, 2004 was the one and only time that A.J. batted against C.J., in the eighth inning with one out and two on. C.J.: if you read this, tell us what you remember about this at-bat on your Monday night broadcast.

Tonight

Merrill Kelly (which sounds to me like a US Army General for some reason) versus Grant Holmes (whose hair is now so long that the Kenny Powers references are no longer pertinent — I open lookalike nominations — until then I’m going with “Sherlocks.”) The first three runs scored on out-of-field experiences: two from the Braves (Ozuna, Murphy) and one from the D-Backs (Suarez). But Holmes had a long fourth inning that changed the lead and his fortunes — four runs tallied (including another homer from Suarez) to make it 5-2. Two innings later, Suarez hit his third homer off Sherlocks to make it 6-2.

So the good news is that if Eugenio Suarez had had flulike symptoms tonight, Holmes would only have given up 2 runs in 5 2/3 innings of work. Unfortunately, in the universe we actually live in, six runs in 5 2/3 innings is a bad pitching performance.In other words, he Blewitt, so that’s who replaced him. Definite Folk Hero Possibility™ (acronym DFHP) Eli White hit a two run homer in the seventh to cut the lead to 6-4.

The Braves’ opportunity came in the 8th. The Snakes were pitching Jalen Beeks, the son of Clarence Beeks, head of Lyndhurst Security who worked for Mortimer and Randolph Duke in Trading Places. After getting the first two outs, he walked Olson and Murphy and then gave up a single to Ozzie Albies and a double to dead center from Michael Harris II to cough up the lead. As his father said in another context: “Don’t try anything funny or the whore loses a kidney.” (I don’t think there are many contextx in which that sentence makes a lot of sense.)

Daysbel Hernandez had a nice eighth inning, at which point the Snakes brought in Irish rap star Drey Jameson. He promptly walked the first two he faced and then threw a wild pitch, and another walk creating an insurance opportunity with the bases loaded and one out for Matt Olson. Unfortunately, Matt hadn’t paid his premiums and hit into a double play.

The botton of the 9th kicked off with Raisel Iglesias against Suarez, whose three previous homers in the game should have told Iglesias to be careful. He wasn’t nearly careful enough. Four homers and a tie game. Iggy now has two losses and two blown saves in 9 appearances. I leave it to the rest of you to discuss the long term significance of this.

Free baseball. In the 10th, the Braves scored the Manfred Man without benefit of a hit: groundout and wild pitch. The more of these newfangled extra inning games I watch, I start to think that the road team really needs to score the Manfred Man in almost every inning to keep from putting intolerable pressure on the pitcher in the bottom of the inning. Scoring the Manfred Man in the top of the inning is like an ante in poker… it gets you into the hand, but doesn’t guarantee anything. If you’re lucky it will be enough… if not, it gives you a reasonable chance to get to the next inning and start over again.

Dylan Lee was called on to try and get the save in the bottom of the 10th. Corbin Carroll grounded out, advancing the Manfred Man to 3rd. At this point, the Braves played the infield in. Given what I said in the previous paragraph, I’m not sure this is the right strategy, though my feeling about that is tentative. It certainly paid off here, though, as Perdomo hit one to Nick Allen that kept the runner on third. Lee vs. Grichuk. Grichuk hit a bouncer down the third base line and Austin Riley made a great throw to nip Grichuk at first, although it required a replay overturn to do so.

This was, as was noted immediately, the second game in MLB history in which a team lost a game in which they had a player hit four homers. The other one of course, was Bob Horner‘s game in 1986. But it’s actually the third: Ed Delahanty’s 1896 effort is the third. Most of these records implicitly go back to 1900 only.

First back-to-back wins on the road and a chance for a Sunday sweep tomorrow, assuming they don’t play a Sunday lineup.