To be honest, I didn’t start watching till the 8th. But I’ve had a pretty good track record with recap nights where I didn’t manage to watch the game – I’ll trade watching them lose for not watching them win every single time!
The headline on the game, obviously, is that Chris Sale is back to being Chris Sale. Over his last two starts, he’s gone 13 2/3 innings and gotten 20 strikeouts while giving up just ten hits, two walks, and two runs.
To quote John Wick:
The offense did its classic thing of lulling itself to sleep when facing an anonymous right-hander who sounds like the name of the American president in a movie from the ’90s – this time, his name was Andrew Abbott. I will probably not remember his name by next week.
The Braves managed to squander a number of opportunities, stranding multiple baserunners in both the second and the fourth innings, and leaving the bases loaded in the seventh, having walked them loaded after Ozzie Albies got thrown out at home on a fielder’s choice. (He was running on contact as the infield was back, but Eli White bounced the ball directly to the third baseman and Ozzie was dead to rights.)
But then the ninth came around, and the boys put on a show for the home crowd. Sean Murphy worked a walk and immediately got replaced by a pinch runner, which was a good thing, as Michael Harris roped one to the right field corner. While Stuart Fairchild was booking it, right fielder Jake Fraley for some reason threw it to the second baseman, who for some reason double-clutched, allowing Fairchild to slide in just under the tag. A timely and welcome lapse!
The next inning, Raisel Iglesias stranded the Manfred Man by getting two straight strikeouts and then a lineout, three outs on seven pitches. It was just his sixth perfect frame out of fourteen games pitched, and the fewest pitches he’s thrown all year. Absolutely vintage stuff.
FThe following inning, the Braves took full advantage. The Reds intentionally walked Austin Riley to face Marcell Ozuna, who appeared to tweak his hammy on an earlier at-bat in the 8th and who explained after the game that Brian Snitker had told him he’d pull him from the game the moment he had to run the bases. Fortunately, he flied out to end that at-bat in the 8th, which meant he was still in the lineup in the 10th, as he strode to the plate with Riley on first and ghost runner Alex Verdugo on second.
On the fourth pitch, he scalded a sinker into left for a walkoff single; it would have been a double if the game hadn’t ended the second Verdugo touched home.
Chalk up a W for the good guys. As of tonight, the Braves are just one game under .500.
Let’s go get ’em tomorrow!
Even in very good seasons, there are a half-dozen games a year which you throw away from mental mistakes. This game is the one you file away on the other side. We were the recipient of a win tonight from very odd play with one out in the 9th. Francona had already swapped out his entirely novice first baseman for Spencer Steer an inning earlier, but Steer’s failure (I think, but I’m open to being corrected) to being anywhere relevant on the play led directly to the tying run. If he lines up with home plate I have no doubt the throw comes home and Fairchild is probably not sent on the play… if he had been, he would have been out by 10 feet. Now he might have scored on a subsequent play, of course — there was only one out. But the run on that play was a game-tying gift.
It’s hard to say for certain, but when the ball is in the deep RF corner then the 2B needs to go out into the OF grass and get in line with the 1B so that there’s a picket-fence of cutoff options from the RF on the warning track to home plate. It’s a very long throw, it won’t always be accurate. If the RF looks up and sees two guys lined up to home then he’s gonna throw it in that direction.
On that play the 2B really has no other place to be. There’s no play at 2B or 3B, and both are covered by other fielders already anyways. The camera work followed the ball, so we won’t know where the 1B was, but I’m assuming he was probably near the IF grass. They needed a second cutoff option out in the OF grass so that the RF throw is obvious and there’s no decision to make.
Again, I don’t know exactly where Steer was, but if you watch the replay, he was nowhere near the infield grass. Watch the relay throw home…. you get a great view of where Steer should have been and it is completely empty. The standard positioning on that play (I think) is for two cutoff men (2nd baseman and 1st baseman) directly in a line to home, with the 2nd baseman on the outfield grass in line and the 1st baseman in line on the infield grass. The pitcher backs up the throw home and the third baseman backs up the shortstop who is covering second for a possible throw there to get Harris. Neither the second nor first basemen were in position. I suspect the second baseman thought his job on initially seeing the play was to serve as a cutoff man to second base. When it was clear that Harris was going to make second, he just kinda stopped and then was surprised when the ball was thrown to him, because he didn’t think he had anything to do. That’s what makes figuring out where Steer was crucial, because he should have been calling for a throw home and been the cutoff man. (Has anyone yet glommed on to how much I hate pure mental blunders? When you lack physical skills, you focus on those.)
I’m with you. I think both right-side infielders botched the play. Everyone was throwing shade at the RF but I think he’s least at fault because he shouldn’t have even had to make a decision in the first place. That said, I still can’t believe we sent Fairchild. Chalk it up to a bad decision that worked out.
I think Andrew Abbott was played by Bill Pullman as was nearly every US president in 90’s cinema. It wasn’t his best performance, TBH, and it’s probably what led to Harrison Ford being chosen for the role of President James Marshall in Air Force One.
I’m just glad one of these 2-1 tilts broke our way for a change. In the words of the immortal Bill James, “we were just due”.
Last night, was watching that Fairchild play at the plate inside the Yankee Tavern, post-NYY/SD game. Ironically, I was sitting next to a group of Truist bankers from ATL & was watching w/ them.
As Fairchild was rounding third, I just said, “No-o-o-o…” Thought he’d be out by a mile & he was still almost out by an inch. But that pair of flubs gave him just enough time to get home. Whew.
OK, time to get to .500 & blow past it… we’ve got some relatively unscary clubs coming up on the schedule.
BTW, got to see Tyler Matzek pitch last night. Pretty sure I was the only guy in Yankee Stadium giving him a standing ovation.
This isn’t really related to last night’s game and is more of a general musing: I knew absolutely nothing about Nick Allen when the Braves acquired him, but it’s been really fun watching him play defense. He’s never going to hit, but even with his 79 wRC+, he’s still at 0.7 fWAR on the season thanks to his good glove work. Pretty much all the metrics agree that he’s been good-to-great (particularly Outs Above Average, where he ranks second among all qualified players in MLB).
The guy can really pick it.
Yeah, kudos to AA for finding this guy under the radar.
I’ll take all the credit for being his earliest defender. He’s never going to hit for power, but he’s not a black hole like Arcia, who takes the worst ABs I’ve ever seen with a runner on third and less than 2 outs. It’s nice to have power up and down the lineup, but more important to me is that nobody be totally incompetent as a situational hitter.
I made some remark when Nick started playing regularly to the effect of, Nick Allen’s spent 3 long years proving to everyone that he can’t hit Major League pitching, and Snit goes ahead and runs him out there anyway.
Recently, I went back and started looking at his minor league record, and I was surprised to see he hit .307/.394/.435 in over 800 AAA at bats. He’ll be 27 in October and it’s not impossible that he could be a passable 9 hitter for a season or 2, along with playing great defense.
You said he spent 3 years trying to prove he couldn’t hit only to be ignored. It was a really hilarious comment actually and thus memorable.
How are we still having pitch clock violations? This isn’t new anymore…
Also, Holmes needs to find it quickly
Friedl making a good case for Holmes not going through the order a 3rd time tonight.
Eddie Rosario with the game on the line. Not the guy hitting .300 that was originally in that spot. Or Sean Murphy. Lord love a duck, as my grandma would say.
Launch Snitker into the sun.
His answer: “I thought maybe Eddie could recreate some old magic.” So, this is his logic — “magic” and fairy dust.
Every day with this dullard in the dugout is a day doing this team a disservice.
Snit also said righthanders were 1 – 29 against Pagan. I’m not sure I share his optimism that Eddie was going to be better, but it wasn’t entirely based on magic.
Snit kept running Neris out there until AA had to get rid of him, and I’m pretty sure he’ll force his hand on Eddie too.
I’m guessing the reasoning was that Eddie hit a homer off Pagan last year.
Too bad Eddie is toast though.
As much as I can’t stand that decision, Anthopoulus gave Rosario to Snitker.
There is absolutely zero reason for eddie rosario to be on this roster. Was a horrible decision to have him pinch hit, but Rosario adds zero to the team. Cant hit cant run not good on D, so whats his purpose?
Recapped: https://bravesjournal.com/2025/05/08/eddie-at-the-bat-reds-4-braves-3/