The Padres scored 4 times in the top of the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings to come back from a 3 – 1 deficit and take the series 2 games to 1. San Diego was aided by an Austin Riley error, but mostly by home runs by Gavin Sheets, Jake Cronenworth, and Manny Machado.
Spencer Schwellenbach was strong, striking out 11 in 7 innings, but after the Riley error leading off the 6th, the two out homer by Sheets accounted for 2 unearned runs and tied the game at 3. Cronenworth’s homer came off Spencer in the 7th, and Dylan Lee was touched by Machado in the 8th.
Ozzie Albies had a couple of doubles and extended his hitting streak to 11 games. Ozzie drove in a run and scored one as well. Marcell Ozuna had two hits, and Ronald Acuna Jr. went 1 – 3. Schwellenbach, Lee, and Pierce Johnson combined to throw 104 strikes out of 136 pitches, and the Braves did not walk a batter.
Drake Baldwin started a day game after a night game for the 2nd weekend in a row. Drake will get a day off, along with the rest of the Braves on Memorial Day, then resume Tuesday in Philadelphia at 6:45 on TBS. Strider and Walker will attempt to minimize the runners.
To the comments about breaking up the core, I don’t think it makes sense to say “we either need to fire some coaches or break up the core” in baseball. The parts are interchangeable. It’s not like basketball where a team sort of emerges when the right complementary pieces are assembled and where they’re not, you’re much less than the sum of your parts. If you have talent and you’re not getting the most out of it, the solution is never to get rid of talent in baseball. You should be adding more but also adding coaches who can maximize it and firing those who don’t.
Hyers? For a team that hasn’t been hitting, mostly, it’s a little strange there hasn’t been more criticism aimed at the new hitting coach.
Disclaimer: Maybe Hyers is being flamed; I may not have been looking at the right places.
Double disclaimer: I don’t know anything about being a hitting coach.
Triple disclaimer: I’m not trying to start anything. I’m not in favor of managing with one hand on the panic button all the time.
I dunno Val. Just speaking generally about the idea the team is flawed and needs to be rebuilt or broken up. We just have too many black holes on offense and shaky arms in the pen. Hyers has only been working with these guys for 3 months. The only real disappointment to me is Harris who is not anywhere close to his potential. I think Albies and Raisel might just be washed though I’d love to be proven wrong. Otherwise what did we expect out of Allen and Verdugo? We probably need to make a play for one of the infielders available in free agency to seriously contend again, though I expect us to no such thing.
I think Albies isn’t properly washed or anything, he’s just a second baseman who’s starting to hit decline, and as a result he’s just not that good anymore, and then he hit a rough patch on top of that.
I think Raisel might be washed.
As noted on the MLB site, Albies is hitting .366 (15-for-41) during his current 11-game hitting streak and has upped his ops from .587 to 650. Let’s hope he doesn’t hit too many more rough patches, but overall the news is encouraging.
As far as hitting coaches, it is obviously a small sample size but it appears that Hyers is trying to make some very impatient hitters a little more patient. I’m all for this and think it’s the right approach. However, it is way too early to tell if he’ll be successful. I think a hitting coach’s influence for established veteran hitters is often negligible or it takes a long time to take effect. The result from the non-established guys are mostly encouraging (White, Allen, and especially Baldwin).
RE: Iglesias
I heard somewhere that almost every pitch that’s getting crushed is his slider, and he’s a rare 4-pitch closer. So they’ll probably just drop his slider for the time being. I would think that will allow him to recover to some extent.
RE: Arcia
The best Arcia could come up with was to be the backup on a horrible Rockies team. One of their few good players is their SS Ezequiel Tovar, so Arcia will either have to be a true backup or some kind of supersub.
Arcia was probably my least favorite Brave over the last several years. You need some level of maturity and leadership from the shortstop position, and Arcia was the opposite of that. He created an unnecessary distraction in the 2023 postseason, then doubled down on it, and so I say “good riddance”. Allen is no solution to our SS problems long-term, but if you can’t get offense, at least get elite defense. We got neither from Arcia.
Strider really looks rusty and like he could have used a rehab assignment.
I just have a feeling that he only has so many pitches left in him, and they want to get as many of them at the Major League level as possible.
According to GameDay, his fastballs have been 94-96. I guess time will tell if he gets his old velo back, and if not, we’ll find out if he can succeed without top-end velo.
I think he’ll succeed if he doesn’t have 99 anymore, but unless he changes a lot he won’t be in the conversation for best starter in baseball anymore.
He did settle down into a groove before tiring here in the 5th. He struck out 7 of 20 batters, more than a third of batters faced.
4 2/3, 1 hit, 7 strikeouts looks pretty good. I think the walks (4) will come down.
If he doesn’t have 99 MPH in his arsenal, he’ll need to learn how to get some groundball outs and work more economically. 90 pitches to go 4 2/3 isn’t going to cut it.
Not like it matters much anyway, because the plate approach has largely been poor. You could hang Olson’s bases-loaded turn in the Louvre of crappy at-bats.
Unfortunately, with this anemic offense, the one run he gave up will most likely be enough to beat us.
I look forward to Matt Olson’s next 3-run homer when down 8-1 after such quality work tonight in high-leverage situations.
In fairness, Riley was supposed to ground into a double play to end the fifth. Austin was a touch late and made Turner range too far.
Or when we are up 8-1 (like that ever happens). We don’t have a lot of guys coming up big on offense when we need them right now.
Good job, good effort. Strider and Acuña aren’t fixing this.
Not recapped: