Aaron Judge opened the scoring with a solo home run in the first, and the Yankees went on to add a second run in that inning before Grant Holmes settled down for the next 4, until New York reached Holmes again in the 6th. Holmes looked to be about to work out of a bases loaded, one out situation after a nice stop and throw from Nacho Alvarez Jr. resulted in a force out at home. However, he went on to hit Jorbit Vivas with a pitch with 2 outs. Grant threw 100 pitches in completing 6 innings, allowing 7 hits and 2 walks, and striking out only 2. Marcus Stroman went 6 innings for the Yankees, who take the series 2 games to 1.
The Yankees added a 4th run in the 7th off new Braves acquisition Dane Dunning. Dunning ended up going 3 innings, allowing 2 hits, a walk, and striking out 2. Apparently Dunning has an option, so don’t be surprised if he’s rewarded for his good work with a big fat trip to Gwinnett. Rob Copenhaver’s idea from the previous thread to piggyback Dunning with Joey Wentz might be a better outcome for both Dunning and the Braves.
Matt Olson homered onto the roof of The Chophouse in the 6th, and Ronald Acuna Jr. homered in the 9th to account for all of the Braves offense.
Looking Back
I want to go back to Saturday’s game for a moment. Saturday was Exhibit A as to why Brian Snitker may be prone to stay with his starting pitchers this season a bit longer than we might always like. I bring this up, because this wasn’t always the case. The 2020 Braves had an outstanding bullpen, but the starting pitching? It wasn’t so much that the 2020 team had a bad starting rotation as it was that the 2020 Braves didn’t have a starting rotation. In that truncated 60 game season, the Braves went through 14 starting pitchers. The 4th and 5th starters by games started were Touki Toussaint, Robbie Erlin, Huascar Ynoa, and Josh Tomlin, with 5 starts each. None of those 4 averaged even 5 innings per game.
On the other hand, the bullpen was incredibly deep, including Will Smith (0.94 WHIP,) Shane Greene (1.12,) A.J. Minter (1.11,) Chris Martin (0.61,) Darren O’Day (0.80,) Tyler Matzek (1.14,) and Grant Dayton (1.21) Mark Melancon had all 11 of the saves, with a 1.28 WHIP. Sort of an inverse of this season, at least while more of our starters were healthy. The way Snit mixed and matched that bullpen to keep them all fresh, all while covering 5, 6, or even 7 innings seemingly every other day was masterful.
Looking Ahead
The Giants come to town on Monday, at 7:15 Eastern. Bryce Elder and Hayden Birdsong scheduled.
I miss having a good bullpen.
It seems to me that a good bullpen would be the cheapest thing a team could build into a strength quickly. Get a couple of decent guys and surround them with fungible rookies throwing 98. The Marlins seem to work this way, with varying degrees of success.
We suck.
I’m ready for the trade deadline to get here to see who gets moved, and I’m ready to see more kids play. Nacho showed he’s a little closer, and he can go back and rake at AAA like he was so he can be trade bait in the offseason. This has been a frustrating season, but we’re re-stocking the farm, we’ll re-stock it even more at the deadline, prospects are developing, and we’ll probably see another starting pitcher emerge from AAA before the end of the season.
Any thoughts about Jazzhandsgate? The national media has chosen to make that the storyline of the series.
My thought is, why is Eddie Perez coaching the other team?
If the Braves’ policy is to “stick one in his ribs” as Jeffy said, then you’ve lost plausible deniability.
If you’re not going to do anything, whining about it just makes you look ineffectual and weak.
I can’t believe I’ve talked myself into defending Chisholm’s boo-hoo gesture. :/
I think the season’s frustrations really boiled over with Eddie. Eddie’s never had any problems on the staff, and he’s probably just as pissed as everybody. But Eddie, please don’t point at your head when you’re mad at an opposing player.
I’m sure Eddie was just trying to tell Jazz “think.” Sure, yeah, that could work.
The real story is that the Braves had the audacity to stand up to the Yankees which is the team every red blooded American wants to see in every World Series
LOL, stampton.
We’re 3-13 on Sundays, including losses in the last 9 in a row. I don’t know what that means, other than Chick-Fil-A would be a good ownership fit here.
Rumor is that the Sunday recapper is on the hot seat.
That’s funny! It would also force players to say “it was my pleasure” after a win during the post-game interview. Could it be renamed The Pasture at Chick-Fil-A Field? Given CFA’s origins in Georgia, that’s actually not a bad idea.
“MLB insider Bob Nightengale of USA Today’s reporting seems to corroborate that. In his latest article, he re-iterated the rumor that Marcell Ozuna, Raisel Iglesias and Pierce Johnson were all available and would likely be shopped around at the deadline by the Braves. What’s new from Nightengale is a rumor concerning what the Braves are going to do during the offseason. Apparently, they are indeed going to be hearing other teams out when it comes to offers for Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II and Sean Murphy as well.”
full link :
https://www.batterypower.com/2025/7/20/24470640/atlanta-braves-mlb-trade-rumors-ozzie-albies-michael-harris-sean-murphy-marcell-ozuna-deadline
Profar with a 683 OPS is fitting right in with this team.
His OBP is awful in particular. Just .269. And he’s hitting leadoff. Been giving him a pass because it’s a small sample, but he hasn’t been very good so far.
Bryce Elder is so bad and we can’t even replace him.
We went into this season with Elder as our 8th starter. I just can’t be mad that Elder is on the mound. And I still want to to continue to see if there’s a good pitcher in there somewhere.
Am I mad that Bryce Elder is on the mound? Very well, then I am mad that Bryce Elder is on the mound. I am large, I contain multitudes.
Drake Baldwin is quickly becoming my second favorite Brave. He consistently takes a great approach at the plate and rarely gets cheated or swings at garbage. I hope we get to enjoy him in Atlanta for many years to come.
Our catchers have not been a problem this year.
EDIT: That’s 27 runs in 4 games since the ASG. Gonna need a lot more of that.
Yeah, i’m good with the Baldwin/Murphy C/DH combo, they both need to be in the lineup. Ozunas days are done, too bad he has zero trade value unless we can package him and minors for some longer term help.
https://x.com/dobrienatl/status/1947510051607888138?s=46&t=WSNPrB2JyUoeKSn2PZsXZg
Acuna is more of a class act than we give him credit for. I also think he might be throwing some shade at the rest of the lineup. “No, it’s not the coaches. You need to play better.”
My guess is that Hyers was brought in to implement some philosophical changes, but because they just brought in one guy – they didn’t do a clean sweep of the coaching staff – the new message has run into conflict with a lot of the existing practices. I can’t prove any of this, but incoherence among the coaches would explain a lot of what we’re seeing on the field.
recapped.
If this is the end of the road for the Big Bear in Atlanta, then he will have been paid around $95M to produce 10.8 fWAR, which is a $8.7M cost per WAR. So even though it was extremely streaky, the Ozuna ended up being worth pretty close to his contract after all.