Sonny Gray started for the Cardinals – he could have doubled as the weather forecast. The Cardinals prevailed through 2 rain delays to salvage the last game of the 3 game series.
Sunny lasted until 1 out in the bottom of the third, at which point it turned gray. When play resumed, Sonny was pulled in favor of Steven Matz while the Braves sent starter Davis Daniel back out to the mound. As the assistant coach in “Rudy” said to prospective walk-ons, “Your main value to us is, we don’t care if you get hurt.” Daniel managed to go 4 innings, and was pulled with a 3 – 1 lead after the second rain delay came with two out in the top of the 5th. Matt Olson‘s 2 run single the on last at bat before the return of the gray providing that margin.
Jesse Chavez came out for the bottom of the fifth, and as Skip Caray perhaps would have noted, some Braves fans may have done so as well. Sadly, Jesse allowed St. Louis to tie the game in that 5th, then gave up the Cardinals’ final 2 runs in the bottom of the 6th, courtesy of a 2 run homer by Jose Fermin. Jesse’s ERA stands at 9.00, and it’s possible we may have seen his final appearance, pending the Braves seemingly never-ending capacity to fill up the IL with pitchers.
Jurickson Profar drove in the Braves final run in the 7th with his 3rd hit of the game. Atlanta got the tying run to 2nd in the 8th, and again with 0 out in the 9th (and to 3rd with 2 out in the 9th) but could not tie the game. Olson ended with 3 RBIs for the Braves, and Michael Harris II added 2 hits. Daniel allowed only 2 hits in his 4 innings, walking 3 and striking out 5. Wander Suero pitched 2 perfect innings after replacing Chavez with a runner on in the 7th. Suero struck out the side in that inning.
The Braves take a 42 – 53 record into the All-Star break, and are in 4th place, 12.5 games behind the first place Phillies, and 9.5 behind the Padres for the last wild-card spot. The Yankees come to town on Friday at 7:15 Eastern.
And another one-run loss… imagine that?
Maybe I should enjoy the short respite from this kinda baseball & get back into some overlooked movies this week.
That said, I do look forward to the Yankees series. It’ll be pretty weird facing Max Fried.
At least it’s stress-free baseball the rest of the way.
I’ve been on vacation with my wife so haven’t been around here as much but it looks like the draft yesterday was animated by the desire to fill a needed position – shortstop – rather than a strategy to take the best player available. Instead, they wound up with some guys who were regarded as big overdrafts, even in David O’Brien’s coverage.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6492377/2025/07/14/braves-draft-3-shortstops-roundup/
Makes me concerned that they are acting reactively, not proactively. Several of the guys they took almost certainly would have lasted until later selections, like 3rd-round pick Cody Miller, taken with the 96th overall pick though DOB notes he wasn’t on any predraft top 250 prospect list.
Maybe they have some big swings lined up later in the draft, guys who they intend to sign for way over slot. But the first day is concerning to me.
Drafting for need in MLB is criminally stupid. The whiff rate on baseball draft picks, especially high schoolers, is so high and the development timelines are so long that it almost never makes sense to draft for need. You would need an elite college player who is almost major league ready, and if such a player exists, you should probably take him no matter what your needs. Yes, you can emphasize pitching (as the Red Sox did) or position talent (as we should now do), but drafting a high school SS because your major league club has a black hole at the position says to me that these guys do not have the analytical minds that we once thought.
Not to mention that you should be drafting shortstop every year because it is so difficult to fill, and if you draft a guy who can hit but not field the position, you can always move him off it.
It seems we went underslot on Southisene (1st round), but Lodise (2nd round) had ratings as high as 22nd overall. So that might very well have been the best player available. I haven’t seen any ratings for Miller (3rd round). If they needed a left fielder and they drafted a bunch of left fielders, then that would have been reactive. Regardless of 2025 performance, we are barren with up-the-middle players, so I don’t have a problem with taking a bunch of up-the-middle guys. I’d rather them be perceived as reactive than keep drafting a bunch of pitchers when 8 of 10 top prospects are pitchers. My only issue is that these guys are built like shortstops. Even a guy built like Shewmake, in theory, could have filled out and pushed to a corner. These all seem like shortstops or busts.
If the shortstops had been the best guys available at those spots, that would’ve been totally understandable. But like you said, Miller was unranked by everybody.
I feel like this team has a run in them with the right moves. I could see a salary for salary swap involving Iglesias. I also think that Ozuna could very much be a target, which would allow Murphy and Baldwin rotate between C and DH. Giving both regular ABs should prove beneficial.
Also, grabbing a SS that has some actual skill at getting on base.
However, none of this will matter if the Braves cannot get their pitching healthy and performing.
Sorry, I haven’t been around that much. Life is incredibly busy and I truly miss the camaraderie of this blog. Hope everyone is well!
I have no issues taking three straight shortstops because they’re the most athletic and can easily go to different positions. There’s a decent chance all three end up at other positions and it’s a common draft strategy. Miller is going to sign under slot, and the savings from day one are going to be used to keep Conner Essenburg and Briggs McKenzie out of college, and the success of this class really depends on them in my estimation.
Keith Law didn’t love our first round and he’s been down on our drafts the last few years. I like Keith, but it’s really, really hard to evaluate drafts as they’re happening, and the rankings change dramatically even a few years later.
For example, he didn’t have Drake Baldwin in his 2022 top 100 and he might win Rookie of the Year; Roman Anthony was 52nd and he’s the best prospect in baseball; Druw Jones was number one and he might be out of baseball in a few years. He’s correct more often than not, and you have to hope our front office sees something he doesn’t.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3409886/2022/07/10/mlb-draft-2022-top-100-ranking/
The best player on almost every HS team is the SS. We’re not drafting for need, we’re drafting for potential. The quick fixes are at the college level and apparently we don’t need anything right away (lol), or we don’t think the college middle infield crop is all that. I have no idea. The only targets that are close to “sure things” are the top end college pitchers, and they are an arm injury waiting to happen. We need to lose a lot more games in order to get into a position to draft one.
I’m still not sure how we didn’t score with 1st and 2nd and no one out and Olson, Acuna, and Murphy coming up. We didn’t even need a hit at that point to get a run to tie. Olson striking out (as Braves have done all season) was criminal.
It does reinforce the idea that we need 5 runs to win.
There’s also the issue that there just aren’t a ton of great shortstops. It’s a league wide issue. That’s why Dansby got what he got. I’d take 10 shortstops same way we take so many pitchers and figure it out later.
Agreed that it’s hard to evaluate a draft as it’s happening. And I think that’s why the draft TV ratings are so bad; people don’t know what they’re looking at.
“Ah, another nice white young man from an upper middle class family I’ve never heard of! I betcha he’s going to be the elite one!”
Unless they draft a guy who throws an 85 mph fastball i cant really criticize anything, I also don’t mind a shotgun approach to restocking the organization up the middle.
On paper, my only minor issue is with the 3rd person chosen – Cody Miller. Generally when someone like Miller is chosen so much earlier than expected, scouts see something in him that no one else does. Let’s hope they are right.
Unfortunately our current scouting organization has had to deal with a pretty lousy minor league system according to ratings for the last several years. Of course, when guys like AJSS, Schwelly, and farther back Kyle Wright, Soroka, Anderson, … graduate and then get hurt, it puts a damper on things. 5 of our 8 starting position players coming from the minors is pretty good, but there seems to be nothing in the pipeline and at least 2 of those 5 are looking really, really bad.