The Deadline

It came and went. Raisel Iglesias and Marcell Ozuna are still Braves, as is everyone else who was a Brave yesterday except for Rafael Montero and Enyel De Los Santos. The newest Brave, Tyler Kinley, left Coors Field in an attempt to replicate Pierce Johnson. I gather from reading today’s comments that people are not happy about this, particularly with regard to Raisel Iglesias. Teams that are not going to the playoffs do not need closers, particularly not closers who make $16 MM per annum. Four bad teams traded their closers to contending teams: Camilo Doval, Jhoan Duran, Ryan Helsley, and Kyle Finnegan are all changing laundry. Raisel will keep pitching for us.

The Cubs and Phillies were rumored to be interested in Iglesias, but no deal was made. In the end, it is certainly possible that no one made an offer which would save any money or acquire any players with any prospective value. Those who wanted to save money by getting rid of Iglesias to anyone who would have him should note that the Braves only owe him a little over $5 million for the rest of the year, about what the Battery earns from a lunch shift. AA was interviewed and said he was uninterested in salary dumps and essentially said that no one offered the Braves anything they were interested in for players of above-replacement level.

Frenchy opined that there was no way they’d dump Iglesias “just to save $1 million.” I think my math is closer to right than Frenchy’s, though of course someone might have possibly insisted we retain $4 million of salary.

I don’t usually read the comments while I’m recapping, but I made an exception today. Y’all are mad! Look, I get it. It certainly doesn’t look like the Braves are doing much (or indeed anything) to improve themselves. But look at it this way: there are 55 games left in the season and 100 wins is still possible.

Whut Happened? (2025 Starting Pitching)

Lots has gone wrong this year. And I think it’s perfectly fair to say that hitters who stopped hitting are the big problem. But lately, the hitters have started hitting (although yesterday did happen too) and, if anything, the results in terms of wins and losses are worse. But the cause of this is pretty to easy to see, so I made a graph:

Beyond being what my late wife would have called “a bunch of scribble-scrabble,” what is this? The two lines are the two main indices of starting pitching prowess. The blue line is ERA and the red line is starting pitcher innings pitched. Both are moving averages with a 10 day look-back window. Note that the innings-pitched axis (on the right) is upside down, so that “down” is good on both lines. The fact that these lines follow one another so closely show just how interrelated they are — starting pitchers who pitch a lot of innings also tend to have lower ERAs.

We see starting pitching that started a little subpar but which improved consistently through mid-May. It then deteriorated through early June and then picked up steam again until the last week of June.

Then it fell apart.

And the reason isn’t hard to see. I have placed the last start of the five starters on the 60-day IL on the graph. We survived Lopez without any real difficulty. The exit of AJSS wasn’t really a big problem either, coming as it did just as Spencer Strider was coming into form. But when we lost Sale and Schwellenbach, it just all fell apart. Even before the loss of Schwellenbach, the loss of Sale started us on a very bad path, from which you end up pitching Zombie Carlos Carrasco.

The Carrasco Era Begins

I am quite comfortable in predicting that the Carlos Carrasco Era will last no more than two months. Carrasco hasn’t pitched in the major leagues since early May. I know there are wags among you who wonder if he’s on a major league team now. He was 4th in the Cy Young voting a mere 7 years ago. However, a lot of things were different seven years ago. Sydney Sweeney wasn’t old enough to drink, for example.

Carrasco apparently means Executioner in Spanish. (It means Holm Oak Tree as well, but that’s obviously irrelevant.) His nickname in BRef is “Cookie,” but I’m going with The Executioner.

The Executioner executed a perfect first inning but yielded a run in the 2nd. Elly De La Cruz hit a low line drive missile to center to make it 3-0 in the 3rd. With that, the Braves quest for 100 wins was in definite jeopardy.

The Executioner was opposed by Andrew Abbott, one of the MLB Abbott pitchers with two hands. The Braves loaded the bases against him with nobody out in the fourth and, miraculously, managed to score one run! (Yes, that’s less than the run expectancy of 2.3 runs, but this is the 2025 Braves we’re talking about.)

In the 6th, the Braves loaded the bases once again with no one out, with the same three guys coming to the plate. This time we scored two when newest Red Ke’Bryan Hayes made an error. So that’s a cumulative expectation of 4.6 runs that has turned into 3. But it tied the game.

The Executioner, smelling blood, got through the sixth to put up a “quality start.” He struck out 5 and walked 2.

So stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but we entered the 7th inning with a tie game and both teams in their bullpen. Newest Brave Tyler Kinley made his debut in the bottom of the 7th. He loaded the bases with one out. But a popup and a strikout ended the threat.

In the 8th, the Braves loaded the bases with no outs for the third time. An Eli White single gave the Braves the lead. A Luke Williams double made it 6-3. White scored on a Matt Olson groundout, Williams scored on a Riley blooper. Albies knocked in two more with another single. Murphy doubled in another run. The 8th ended 11-3 — 8 runs scored. So for those paying attention, that’s three times with the bases loaded and nobody out — expected runs: 6.9; actual runs: 11. See? Above average offense with runners in scoring position.

If you thought you could coast from there, you haven’t been paying much attention. After three batters, Dane Dunning had made it 11-6. Once the next two batters singled, Dunning was done inning. Giving up 5 hits in a row is fairly rare for a pitcher. Dylan Lee came on and gave up the 6th hit in a row to make it 11-7. The 7th straight hit, a double, made it 11-8 and brought the tying run the plate with no one out. Then the eighth straight hit, a homer from Spencer Steer, tied it up at 11.

So I did some calculations. This is the third time both teams have scored 8 runs in an inning, but you knew that if you listened to Gaudin. I’ll give you uniqueness: Of 209,118 regular season baseball games, 5307 had both teams score one run in the first, 752 had both teams score 2 in the 2nd, 262 had both score 3 in the 3rd, 28 had both score 4 in the 4th, 11 had both teams score 5 in the 5th, and one game had both teams score 6 in the 6th. That’s it. There has never been a game in which both teams scored 7 in the 7th, 8 in the 8th, or 9 in the 9th. Baseball history.

A 16 run 8th was of course followed by a hitless 9th.

In free baseball, Olson scored on two straight sac flies. Who needs a hit?

That brought on…. Raisel! Who else? Three quick outs, and 100 wins is still in play.

Friday day game tomorrow.