May the 4th was with us.
Austin Riley homered twice and drove in all 4 runs, and Bryce Elder struck out 6 and held the Dodgers to 2 runs in 5+ innings to lead the Braves to the victory.
Riley drove in Alex Verdugo twice, and Pierce Johnson bailed Elder out of a 1st and 3rd, nobody out situation in the 5th, allowing only one run to score on a ground out. Dylan Lee replaced Johnson with one out in the 6th, and promptly allowed pinch hitter Miguel Rojas‘s 1st home run of the season to cut the lead to 4 – 3. Daysbel Hernandez cleaned up that mess.
Los Angeles got the tying run to 3rd in the 9th off Raisel Iglesias. An infield single by Andy Pages was followed by a stolen base by pinch runner Hyeseong Kim, who took 3rd when Drake Baldwin had to throw down to 1st to retire pinch hitter Will Smith, who had struck out. A C-3 PO if you will. However, Iglesias was able to close the game with 2 more strikeouts, leaving Shohei Ohtani on deck.
It’s never comfortable with Elder, and it’s never comfortable with the Dodgers, but it’s the 3rd reasonable start in a row for Bryce. Although he was not able to get through 6 innings this time, considering the competition it was probably his best of the 3.
The Braves salvage a game from the 3 game series; Cincinnati comes to town on Monday at 7:15. AJ Smith-Shawver is scheduled against Brady Singer, and the game will be on MLB network.
Never tell me the odds.
C3 PO. Were you waiting to use that one? Nice
Thanks for that. It was actually the last thing I added, or else we might have been subjected to Dodgers wookie.
Dodgers Wookiee would have been fine. C-3PO is btilluant! Great job, Rusty.
Yeah, this is really excellent work. Nicely done!
Just enough Rasiel Room at the end.
As for best looking Dodger, how can you omit Ron Cey?
Eric Karros had a formidable mug as well
Raised Room! Nice. He really did well to get out of the mess.
Watch Cey in the 1990 Columbo episode Uneasy Lies the Crown before you state that so confidently.
cey
Raisel Room. Well done. Slightly less room needed than Reitsma Room, but some padding is needed none the less.
I liked it better when we had relievers that didn’t require us to have padded rooms.
I’m not sure Rasiel Room can be used per Braves Journal Glossary, since we already have Reitsma Room. Though to be sure, Reitsma Room was a good 7 runs or so, while Rasiel just seems to need 3 or 4.
KInd of the difference between a great room and a den.
Have you forgotten Matt Kemp?
I’ve done my best to forget Matt Kemp.
https://x.com/mlbtraderumors/status/1919540726876033370 AA is such an idiot.
AJSS… wowzers
I didn’t watch an inning, but I saw the push notification on my phone that told me AJSS had a no-no through seven. My good heavens. Stick around a while, kid.
Stayed for the whole thing tonight. AJSS’s fastball was so good. The secondary pitches still need work, but there was very little solid contact against the heater. One of the best pitched games I’ve seen in a while. The offense is still meh, but the defense was spectacular. The middle-schooler we have playing SS can really pick it. Hope the Reds’ LF is able to recover quickly. That was a scary situation. Nobody in the stadium had any idea what was going on, including the umps it seemed like. What a wild play.
I just watched the 90-second highlight reel on MLB.tv. Looks like that splitter’s a real weapon right now. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know he had this in him. But he looks like he’s making some real progress this year. I’m so happy for him, and boy do we need him to step up.
Completely secondary, but I just… don’t feel it’s right to give Olson a homer on that play. It’s a little like the idea of a “team error” — I don’t think it’s fair in the box score for either the pitcher or the hitter. I wouldn’t give the fielder an error as he made an attempt at a terrific play. But if I could, I’d call it a double with two extra bases on a team error not credited to any individual player, and I’d probably make both Riley and Olson’s runs unearned.
Sorry to say it like this, but if the only way Matt Olson can get an inside-the-park homer is a genuine on-field tragedy, maybe it just shouldn’t go into the books as a home run at all.
ASS is only 22, the upside is evident. Hopefully they don’t jerk him around as much as they did Elder last year.
I thought it was an out live, and even after the replay I’m not sure it shouldn’t have been called an out. What’s he supposed to do, make a football-move after hitting the ground with his broken arm? I’m just glad it was two runs we didn’t truly need in the end.
They only showed it once, and I’m not going to look at it again, but I agree, I thought it should have been a catch. I don’t think the wall knocked the ball out; I thought it rolled out of his glove after he shook it off his hand, which would be a voluntary motion. I suppose there was not enough evidence to overturn.
Most inside-the-parkers involve some nonsense in the outfield.
Broken forearm is brutal. Poor kid. Glad he didn’t break his neck though.
Watching AJSS kick-ass was so wonderful. I think this team is going to be okay. (though the thought of a playoff series against LA or San Diego is not fun right now)
Hard to demote Elder after Strider comes back and I don’t want to see AJ go down either. Bring back the 6-man?
I would definitely bring back the 6-man rotation. There’s not a single pitcher in the rotation that couldn’t use a workload reduction.
As we all predicted, our starting shortstop is on a 162-game pace for 4.2 fWAR. I’m glad that Atlanta appreciates great shortstop defense because he is fun to watch. The announcers said his glasses make him look like Mark Lemke, which is apt. He definitely has that David Eckstein little-guy-spark-plug energy to him. He’s a nice throwback.
recapped.