Some Meandering Thoughts
The Internet wasn’t giving me the origin of the phrase “They have our number,” so I turned to AI, in my case Claude (which I always imagine to be Claude Raymond) and it suggests that it was simply a reference to having your telephone number, which implies that you have some familiarity with them. But does it? Back when I was a kid there was a thing called the telephone book, in which you could get anyone’s number other than the few rich folks who had unlisted numbers. Honestly, if “I’ve got your number” just comes from “I know how to contact you,” then (a) the 100,000 usages in sports are just stupid; and (b) we all could have dated Jenny. Anybody got an alternate origin for the phrase?
In any case, having won all five contests previously played, the cliché is “They have our number.” Well, we got it back, or we got an unlisted number, or we changed our number and aren’t giving it to the Padres, or something.
Except that everyone knows our number: it’s 13. Two games, two homers. If he hits 114 homers this will be the coolest season ever even if we never win another game. I would sign Sean Newcomb and start him every game in return for seeing Ronald get a homer in every game this season. It seems that you can’t stop Ronald, even when you know his number….it’s right there on his back.
The Game
Ummm… I thought it was starting at 7:15, so I got off the golf course at 6 and only saw the last two innings. I went back and watched the highlights and there were a fair number of them. tfloyd was actually there, so if you have any questions about the game itself, ask them in the comments and tfloyd will do his best to answer… and his best is really really good. If he doesn’t answer, don’t worry. I have his number.
Ronald hit a homer, but it was 40 feet shorter than his last one. He must be getting tired.
Correction from Yesterday
Hubris. Some idiot yesterday said: “I’m not even going to look it up, because I’m very sure this was the longest elapsed time between the 165th and 166th home run in any player’s career.” Curiosity got the best of me, and I was wrong. Two words. Colby Rasmus. His 166th (and last) homer came 375 days after his 165th. Close was Gus Triandos, who hit 167 in his carrer, with the 166th, off Sandy Koufax, coming 318 days after his 165th, with his last one coming 15 days later. Take no one’s word for anything… ask to see the proof.
And That Reminds Me….
There seems to be a general impression that Ronald was rushed back after his last torn ACL in 2021. He had a down season, and substantial knee pain, in 2022. He followed this up with an MVP year in 2023. So, learning from this experience, he was not brought back until May, essentially a full year after his ACL injury, as opposed to the approximately 9 months before. Assume Ronald puts on a 2023-like show for the rest of this season. Does this mean the Braves braintrust was correct to take their time? I’m here to say: I have no idea, and you don’t, and the Braves almost certainly don’t. Experience is a teacher, but the inferences we draw from experience are pretty subjective. No two injuries are exactly the same. Once injured, Ronald might well have rehabbed very differently, in a way that he would have been perfectly fine after 9 months. The Braves may have brought Ronald back at the perfect moment. It might also have been much later than required, or much too early. Let’s wait and see.
And, a Bit of Trivia
Speaking of Claude Raymond, he is one of only four baseball players to play both for the Milwaukee Braves and the Atlanta Braves but not be part of the ftranchise in the 1965/1966 period when the Braves moved to Atlanta. The others are Joey Jay, Charley Lau and Bob Uecker. If you already knew that, you have my number.
Dylan Cease against Shabbos Schwellenbach (in this case, pitching on the goyische shabbos) in the rubber game tomorrow. If you don’t know, the “rubber game” comes from contract bridge.
Here’s an interesting etymological discussion of the phrase: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/33712
Seems like everyone agrees that Charles Dickens used the phrase in Bleak House in the 1850s, and someone claims the Oxford English Dictionary associates it with the earlier phrase “to take measure of” – essentially, you’ve sized them up, and you’ve got their number.
Nice to see the lads make it look easy! Grant Holmes is having such a better year than I ever dreamed.
That’s exactly where I was hoping to find an origin, but my Google-fu let me down. And Claude clearly has no idea what he’s talking about — Blown Save for Claude.
I find the gematria supposition the most interesting. Especially since one of Ronald’s nicknames is La Bestia, which means that his number is 666.
Thank you AAR for adding the words gematria and isopsephy to my vocabulary. Now I just need to figure out how to casually drop them into conversations. Having read the discussion I will throw my support for the meaning, “the number of the beast,” Which as JonathanF notes, is 13
I inexplicably drafted Harris on my fantasy team even though I was probably more down on him as a player than most coming into this year. And he’s this weird fantasy player where he’s obviously terrible at the plate, but he racks up RBIs (he’s on pace for 98 RBIs) and steals (on pace for almost 30), so he gets enough points where you don’t want to just drop him.
Anyway, my expectations are so low for him that when he literally does anything (his 2-RBI single yesterday), I think something amazing happens. And that’s kinda the same for Verdugo, Albies, and Allen. Yesterday’s win is what happens when those 4 just do absolutely anything at the plate. Verdugo had a couple singles, Albies had a couple of singles, Harris had a single, and Allen had that infield single that bounced off the bag. So if those guys do anything at all, this team scores runs because 1-4 is pretty darn good, especially if Baldwin is in the lineup.
Back to Harris, it’s so frustrating that he can be a terrible hitter at the plate and may very well end up with 100 RBIs simply because he’s almost always coming to the plate with runners on. His defense and base running is so good that if he could play a full season and muster a .750 OPS, he could be a 5 WAR player. Maddening.
Thanks, JF and AAR. I don’t come here primarily for the lessons in etymology and numerology, but I do come here knowing I will learn something new and interesting. There is no other baseball site that offers quite what this one does.
Speaking of numbers, what this team needs more than anything right now is for Ozzie and MHII to regress positively toward their career norms. Both are OPS ing over 150 points below their career average. I’m cautiously optimistic that both will start to do more—they couldn’t get much worse than they have been!
I am confident in Harris but not Albies. I worry Albies is in terminal decline and that will become increasingly obvious
I also worry that Ozzie may be in permanent decline. But it’s not like he’s 33; he is still just 28. Even so, I don’t think he will ever have an OPS if 850, like he has done at least a couple of times before. I’d be thrilled right now with an OPS of 750. With his poor defense, that would not make him especially valuable, but it would be a darn sight better than what we’re getting now. As to Harris, he may also never have an OPS of 850 again (as he did as a rookie) but given his age and athletic ability he stands a much better chance. In any event, as Rob points out, he is quite valuable with an OPS of 750. The problem now is that both are 150 points shy of even 750.
Yeah but you’re forgetting about my totally unsubstantiated theory that Ozzie is actually in his 30’s
I had not forgotten that; in fact my original draft added the words “at least officially” after the number 28. Your unsubstantiated theory about his age may indeed be the explanation for his decline. I’ve always been a huge Ozzie fan so I really don’t want to believe it, though.
I think I can combine several of our hobby horses!
Ronald Acuna
is the big kahuna
Gets isopsephyl respect
in his City Connect
Edit: responded to the wrong comment!
Your subtlety is lost on me Professor Floyd, but I’m sure the others appreciate it!
Schwellenbach throws too many strikes. Is that even a fair criticism? There’s worse qualities for sure. I think he’s a keeper.
Ozzie’s looking like a spry youngster still in his twenties.
Harris swings at anything thrown in between the dugouts. That’s his biggest problem.
What I would do with him is tell him to take anything that’s not middle-middle for 4 weeks. I think he will be surprised at some of the pitches that are called balls and learn to trust his eyes. Yes, you’ll be rung up looking a few times but that’s not that bad an outcome to me, not nearly so bad as hitting a chopper to first on a pitcher’s pitch 0-0
Just don’t get too invested. This isn’t a winning team. But they could be, if some certain stuff happens. But right now the record is well deserved
Sure, we spent zero dollars on the bullpen in the offseason. But we purchased some beautiful land near the Battery, and that’s what counts. Real estate transactions fly forever.
I know we won’t do it, but we either need to break the core up or make a change in the coaching staff. This clearly isn’t working and it seems like our “good players” don’t show up like other teams good players. Waiting and hoping under performing player suddenly figure it out seems like a sketchy strategy. Like was mentioned above, no investment in the bullpen or really anywhere else aside from Profar and we get what we get. RAJ makes a huge difference but will it be enough? We could be buried with a sweep in Philly this week.
Who do you want to “break up” from the core? Acuna, Ozuna, Olson, and Riley are all top 10 at their positions. Drake Baldwin is looking like a top 10 player at his position. I don’t see any of them getting traded. They could certainly upgrade CF, 2B, LF, and SS, and they could trade Murphy at the deadline if they feel like Baldwin is definitely ready. I don’t see them trading Harris for a variety of reasons. So C, 1B, 3B, CF, and RF are fairly well locked in. So if you want to “break up the core”, I think the only guy from the “core” you would trade is Albies. So all this to say that if they could trade Albies along with prospects and pieces to get a long-term 2B, SS, or LF, then I hope they can do it, but I just think Albies is the only “core” player to jettison.
So could you trade Murphy, Albies, and pitching down the system like JR Ritchie for a cost-controlled SS, 2B, or LF? That would make a lot of sense.
Recapped.