Thanks to a 2-1 loss to the Rockies on Wednesday afternoon, the Braves did not end up with a .500 April. Chris Sale was excellent, going seven innings, giving up just two runs on five hits, with 10 K’s and no walks. But the offense struggled mightily against some pitchers I had never heard of, scoring just one run on three hits. That, by the way, was the fewest hits given up by the Rockies in Coors Field in nearly three years.
Many of us had convinced ourselves that the Rockies are so bad that a sweep in Denver was inevitable, and that a 15-15 April record was in the cards. Even so, to be 14-16 after an 0-7 start to the season is not bad at all. Since the 0-7 start, the Braves are winning at a .608 clip. Keep that up for the rest of the season, and they will finish with 94 wins. Will they finish with 94 wins? How the hell should I know?
I’ve said before that I tend to be an optimist. I think that’s true, but I think a better way to put it is that I try hard not to react too negatively to individual games, especially this early in the season. As Rusty recently noted, each game is just 1/162 of the season. That is obvious, but it’s also profound. At least it is to me. You shouldn’t get too high or too low based on small sample sizes, especially as small as one game.
Here’s an example of what I’m getting at. The strong start by Sale was very encouraging. If the Braves are going to compete for the postseason, they need Sale to be solid. His first few starts were less than encouraging. But today’s performance indicates that he still has the stuff to be the Chris Sale of last year. The offense’s performance was dispiriting, but I’m willing to overlook that. I think it’s probably a better sign for success during the rest of the season to lose 2-1 with Sale looking sharp, than it would be to have won a 10-9 game with Sale getting shelled.
If you’ve thought at all about what I’ve said so far, you will have noticed my internal inconsistency. The optimist in me is willing to take Sale’s performance as predictive of stronger outings going forward, while I’m willing to chalk today’s offensive underperformance as just one of those days. Tip your cap to the rookie pitcher and all that.
I’m not consistent–I’m not even saying I’m right. This is just how I cope.
Since I’ve already copped to being inconsistent, I’ll go ahead and say that today’s one-game sample of the third coming of Eddie Rosario is enough for me. DFA him already.
One more instance of my not consistently following the “don’t get too high or too low” philosophy: I really want to take at least two out of three from the Dodgers in ATL this weekend. I’ll be thrilled if we sweep, and pretty disconsolate if we get swept. I know there will still be nearly 130 to play even after the Dodgers series, but winning this series is really important. So do this for my psyche, please.
One game is one game. I know we’ve got 162 to play (and hopefully more).
But given the hole that the Braves dug for themselves, today was not a day (IMO) to sit Murphy and Verdugo. And to move MHIII to leadoff (which he’s not best situated for) and to give a hapless Eddie Rosario a start.
I think it was important to win today and come back home at .500 – – to face the Dodgers of all teams.
Today’s line-up was a Bobby Cox Sunday special (when the Braves were typically in 1st place by a few games). And what a great start by Sale to waste.
Co-sign this entire comment
As has probably already been noted on this at some point in the last month, no team who started the season 0-7 has ever made the playoffs. Now, the expanded playoff format may mitigate the relevance of that historical factoid somewhat.
Still, it have been nice to see Snit treat the opportunity for a sweep and .500 opening month with some urgency.
Agreed on all fronts!
Given some of the roster moves this front office makes, I’d never guess the payroll was over $200 million.
Bobby Cox used Sunday lineups because, unlike us, he had the singular disadvantage of having to manage live human people. We all invest time in watching these games, and it’s frustrating when it looks like we’re not making every effort to deliver a win every game. If this was a simulation or a dice game, we could all rightly complain when a manager did something sub-optimal. It’s more complicated than that.
Consider two scenarios:
Scenario 1: Your starting pitcher has been knocked around pretty regularly for as long as you can remember. He’s especially ineffective the 3rd time through the order. He’s given up 3 runs through 5 innings, and he’s at 85 pitches, and he’s about to go through the lineup a 3rd time. Do you send him back out for the 6th inning?
Scenario 2: It’s April 28th. You’re 3 games out of the final wild card position, and you’re in the 4th game of a 6 game NL West road trip. Your starting pitcher has been knocked around pretty regularly for as long as you can remember. He’s especially ineffective the 3rd time through the order. He’s given up 3 runs through 5 innings, and he’s at 85 pitches, and he’s about to go through the lineup a 3rd time. Your bullpen isn’t very deep, and tomorrow’s starting pitcher has been pretty much the same story as today’s starting pitcher. You’ve got a 3 run lead, and you’re playing the worst team in the league. Do you send him back out for the 6th inning?
It might be that Bobby Cox and Brian Snitker have been wildly successful despite consistently making the same mistakes over and over again. No one is perfect. However, I think it’s worth re-considering the assumptions behind why we believe these consistencies are mistakes.
You’ve been clear about your position and don’t need this kind of belaboring. They’re playing the long game, trying to win 162 games not necessarily this single game, and there are lots of considerations–particularly the endurance of our relief pitchers. I think probably everyone agrees with all that, so to some extent you’re railing against a strawman that believes there are no such considerations, and you should pull every starter at the first sign of weakness and play every game like it’s a 1-game play-in.
There is room between the extremes. It’s also entirely possible (probable?) that the success of Cox and Snitker had nothing to do with how good they are/were at these particular types of decisions. Much more important is to be a manager of people, command respect, and inspire people toward greatness. You can be kind of an idiot at the small stuff and still be wildly successful.
Well, this was pretty much the situation Monday when there was discussion about the wisdom of leaving Elder in or not. But, if that’s a strawman, point taken. Managing is hard, and for whatever reason, this is the thing I get wound up about.
Mac, in his wisdom, instituted a no politics and no religion rule, partly because you’re never going to change anybody’s mind, but mainly because you’re just going to irritate some people who would otherwise be a friend and ally. I’ll apply both those principles to this subject.
I think this is a common perspective when it comes to criticism of elite level professionals in general. Could be a manager, an athlete, a doctor, a politician. You’ll get the same kinds of reactions from someone each time. All those things are hard to do, hard even to conceptualize in their complexity to a novice, and it’s easy for some average Joe to criticize, especially in hindsight. We really do get it. All that said, even the best managers and coaches do really stupid things, sometimes with regularity. Sure they could be playing 4D chess, but often not, and fans like to vent when they are disappointed over a loss.
An example from football is a critical game where Raheem Morris had 2 time outs and didn’t call one with something like 20 seconds left. Probably cost the game. Now, Morris has attributes that make him a good defensive coordinator and at least a passable NFL head coach. I could not be any kind of NFL coach because I lack many of those attributes. Knowing when to use time outs isn’t one of them, however, and I don’t want to be told to pipe down and leave it to the pros. It’s entirely possible that we do know more than the pros about a tiny little aspect of what they do while being inept at the rest of it.
I’ve obviously been beating a dead horse of blaming Anthopoulos for a lot of the problems I see with the team, which have a lot to do with roster construction. Eddie Rosario feels like Hector Neris to me – I don’t blame Snitker for using a guy on the 26-man roster as much as I blame the guy who put them on the roster in the first place.
THAT SAID, I agree with Tfloyd above – it’s really easy to overextrapolate from a single crappy game. In general, the team we’ve watched over the past two weeks is the team we thought we were going to get, and I’m broadly a lot happier than I was in early April. We still have a lot of holes, but the core is more or less what we thought we had.
Look for some major promotions coming in the farm the next few weeks. Guys that have been around our top 25 are catching fire.
Vaya con dios, BDLC.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/05/yankees-claim-bryan-de-la-cruz.html
Also, the Orioles just demoted Charlie Morton to the bullpen. I wonder if we bring him back on a salary dump.
He was doing very poorly at Gwinnett also. (Most of Gwinnett’s team has been terrible.) Some of these Double A pitchers will doubtlessly replace them soon.
Also would like to point out that there are 2 open roster spots on the 40 man after Anderson and BDLC were removed.
I was wondering who would fill them. I would think there’s a waiver wire reliever we might be able to pick up and stash in the back of our bullpen.
Hurston Waldrep couldn’t make it out of the first inning tonight, although his final line wasn’t awful.
0.2 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 34 pitches (15 strikes)
I guess he just didn’t have it. I think it may be time to focus his energies on a career as a reliever.
I was expecting Ian Anderson to clear waivers and come back to Atlanta on a minor league deal. Is that even a possibility now?
He cleared waivers and was outrighted to Gwinnett.
Oh, and Jesse Chavez signed another MiLB contract.
Add Teoscar Hernandez to the list of PED suspects. Career year at 32
Holmes going Matzek style.
Yamamoto might no-hit this team.
Holmes has been terrific tonight. Big mistake on that 0-2 to Mookie, though. Meanwhile Yamamoto is showing why he has become the best pitcher in baseball.
Recapped