For a short, oval track, the first Speedway Classic sure took a long and winding road. The wild and windy night that the rain washed away on Saturday, resumed on Sunday at 1:00 Eastern. As Braves Journal’s self-proclaimed innings eater, it’s only appropriate that I play the Hurston Waldrep to JonathanF’s Spencer Strider. You can see JonathanF’s thoughts on Saturday night here: God Hates Gimmicks: Suspended After 4 Outs – Braves Journal.
In NASCAR, “If you ain’t first, you’re last” is a philosophical outlook on the importance of winning. In a baseball game, it is literal. On Sunday, Eli White made sure the Reds finished last, hitting 2 home runs and driving in all 4 of the Braves runs. White put the Braves ahead for good with a 3-run homer in the top of the 2nd, and added a solo homer in the 7th. Michael Harris II continued his hot hitting, going 2 – 4 with a double, and Jurickson Profar and Drake Baldwin also added 2 hits apiece.
Waldrep, who was driven up from Gwinnett and arrived in Bristol around 9:30 am, ate 5 2/3 innings and they were delicious. 3 hits allowed, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts, and 1 run, earned. The bullpen did bullpen things, but managed to hold the Reds scoreless the rest of the way. Raisel Iglesias picked up his 14th save, settling down to get 3 outs after giving up singles to the first 2 batters. A nice play by Eli in right field on Matt McLain‘s drive to the wall kept the tying run from reaching 2nd.
If you’ve been paying attention at all this season, you won’t be surprised to hear that Austin Riley came out of the game with lower abdominal pain. You might be surprised to hear that he hurt it running down and catching Elly De La Cruz in a rundown. No further news at press time.
The Braves take the series 2 games to 1. Milwaukee comes to town on Monday at 7:15 Eastern. Spencer Strider and Quinn Priester scheduled.
Twitter was super big mad that it rained and the Speedway people didn’t have an ability to control that. People are saying they won’t do this again. Yeah, right, this thing was so cool if Mother Nature cooperated. Next year they should do Houston and Cleveland.
Twitter is why I read Braves Journal.
The funny thing about our bullpen this year is that AA clearly preferred old guys with a history over young guys with no history. Baseball is more and more a young guys game. As many players are showing, just about ANY 22 year old is better than a 36-38 year old. And I’m not sure 27 is peak any more. We need to give a lot of those pitching prospects a chance at relieving and have more of the “old guys” at AAA.
The fact that Darrell Waltrip got a win at 78 years old yesterday undermines your conclusion.
Wasn’t it nice to hear Hurston Waldrep’s account of the day as given to Tom Verducci (and saying “yes, sir”, too, wow). Who doesn’t love the story of the humble rookie being put into the big game and making good? Maybe it’s a stretch to call it a big game, but still…
What a day for Waldrep. I still think his real value will be as a late-inning reliever, but he held his own today under really difficult circumstances.
His control still isn’t that great and he’s not sitting upper 90’s. As a reliever you’d imagine his velocity would be a little higher, which would be lethal with his splitter.
Michael Harris since 7-1-25: .309/.330/.526 wRC+135.
Dave O’Brien now reporting that it will be Fedde on Monday. Wentz Tuesday, and Strider Wednesday.
One thing I cannot do based on the results of the game is criticize Austin Cox. He started on extremely short notice and gave up a run in 1/3 of an inning during the worst downpour I’ve ever seen a team try to play through. Too bad the top of the 1st and that 1/3 of an inning even counted for anyone. I will also give Snitker credit for not trying to send Strider out there and letting him wait a few days for his next start. There is absolutely no reason to push it a this point.
What pretentious bastards.
You guys punch in these accounts of the game just to be acknowledged for your ego-driven efforts. The Braves are having a down year. It happens to every team. I’ve followed the Braves since they moved to Atlanta, when I was 9. They sucked, more than they excelled. Ted Turner finally made the Braves popular. He eventually learned that their success was more dependent upon having BASEBALL PEOPLE making baseball decisions. He probably saved the franchise by committing to baseball people to run the team. Years ago, through several fan groups, Michael Rapaport, (not the actor) an actual writer from New York, was a regular contributor to many fan pages. He’s actually written books and loved the Braves, for whatever reason being a New Yorker, since they were in Milwaukee. His offerings never made you think they were about HIM, but about the team.
It is the easiest thing on earth to be critical. You guys like to be smarmy and act like you’re actually experts, like Brian Kenny and so many of those self-absorbed tools. Please, if your interest is in the Braves, or in discussing their performance, do so. All of the pretentious stuff needs to go.
Support the team, IF YOU’RE ACTUALLY FANS, or whine in private.
You have a wonderful platform…why go douchebag on it?
It was my understanding that there would be no expectations.
Braves Journal definitely has a personality. Most people here are older guys who are well-read both in literary fiction and baseball analytics. It’s not much rah rah. The recaps are not meant to be the dry recounting of the game like what you’d read on espn.com. People return to Braves Journal because they find like-minded people that they like to discuss the club with. If you don’t like it, I’d say go to House That Hank Built or Reddit rather than trying to change the personality here. Life’s too short for blasting off at randos on the internet because you don’t see the world the same way.
Welcome, Freddy. I confess to being more than a little self-absorbed and way more than a little pretentious, but I’m not sure where Braves Journal isn’t “supporting the team.” I am still planning on 99 wins, just to pretentiously reiterate one observation I made in the last week.
But if you’d care to engage, I’d like to discuss your take on Ted Turner. Before Ted bought the team, are you saying that BASEBALL PEOPLE weren’t in charge? And how exactly do you define BASEBALL PEOPLE? Is Alex Anthopolous BASEBALL PEOPLE? Derek Schiller? No one here at Braves Journal is in charge of anything Braves-related, but I think we all acknowledge that Alex Anthopolous is in charge, even as we both praise and criticize him. (The boundaries of his control versus Derek Schiller’s is something we don’t often discuss here, but if you want to start such a conversation, feel free.) Is it enough to acknowledge that he is in charge, or does support require that we celebrate his every thought and action? If so, I think if you asked Alex Anthopolous, he would take Braves Journal’s side on this one over yours. Unless you actually are Alex Anthopolous, in which case I’d advise you to stop using Freddy as a sockpuppet and make some damn moves that improve the team, as a BASEBALL PERSON would.
Great performance by Waldrep. I hope he can stick around. Actually a really nice game to watch on a Sunday for once.
@Freddy, LOL, you seem like a lovely guy but may have mistaken Braves Journal for Facebook, Twitter or BatteryPower?
I’ve never seen the Braves Journal be able to trigger folks. But you know what they see: when you’re getting flak, it means you’re right over your target. 😉
I’m typically not a fan of gimmicks. But I imagine for all those folks in TN that love baseball (and the Braves; maybe the Reds too), I bet this was a really cool experience.
East Tennessee was very much “Reds Country” before the Braves came to Atlanta. West Tennessee was “Cardinals Country.”
I would be guilty of being overly-optimistic at times, but when we’re this bad, there’s not much optimism left.
Is Nashville a potential expansion site for baseball?
It’s definitely on the list of the largest markets without a major league team – and I would expect that expanding to 32 teams would make all the scheduling a bit mathematically easier.
(At the very top of the list, I typically see North Jersey, just because the NYC Metro area is so unbelievably huge. But the odds probably aren’t very high that they would actually add a team there, given that the market is already covered and the Mets and Yankees would probably object; much easier to add a new team to a completely new city.)
Let’s expand to 32 teams and 8 divisions so we can share the NL Southeast with Nashville, Miami, and Washington 😀
There was a story in the Athletic awhile back about an ownership group for Nashville, a team name (the Stars), and even a ballpark location. I calculated then that this ballpark would be almost exactly the same distance from my house in Knoxville as Truist, and that would be true for anyone to the northeast of Knoxville as well. For people in the Chattanooga area, Truist would be considerably closer than Nashville. I also get the impression that people in the Memphis area would be highly resistant to rooting for a Nashville-based team (hard feelings over the Oilers/Titans linger).
Meanwhile the Nashville ownership group was surprised to find that East Tennessee is in the Eastern time zone.
All in all, it didn’t sound like a great setup but what do I know.
Riley back to the IL.
https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/braves-austin-riley-back-to-il-with-abdominal-strain/
Riley wasn’t hitting, and showcasing Nacho was working pretty well. I am firmly opposed to anyone being in pain, but this move sounds like a win for everybody, even Riley.
On purely ethical grounds, would it be more ethical to wish pain on a cenobite, or to wish them an absence of pain?
I like the idea of moving Strider to Wednesday. There is zero reason to do anything cute with the one legitimate (kind of 2 if Waldrep sticks) 2026 starting rotation pieces. Strider’s health is more important than trying to make sure he gets the ball every 5 days.
I am so amused that Eli White has 15 career home runs in the other 47 contiguous states, but he leads all MLB hitters in lifetime homers in Tennessee.
JonathanF, can you get your database out and come up with an all-time major league home run leader in Kentucky?
I know Juan Francisco hit a ball out of the Great American Ballpark.
AAR, unfortunately, I don’t think anyone can. MLB ball in Louisville predates the Retrosheet records. But we know that baseball was played at Eclipse Park, Louisville Baseball Park, one game in Ludlow Baseball Park, and one game is Star Baseball Park in Covington, KY. We have box scores for none of them.
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/PK_LOU01.htm
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/L/PK_LUD01.htm
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/C/PK_COV01.htm
Well, here are the home run leaders for the Colonels, anyway: https://stathead.com/tiny/n475w
The top five are:
Clarke and Wagner both made the Hall of Fame after Barney Dreyfus, who owned both the Louisville Colonels and the Pittsburgh Pirates, moved them both to Pittsburgh. We don’t have their splits in Louisville, but Clarke had an exact 50-50 split home and away for the 30 home runs he hit from 1901 to 1915; Wagner played until 1917, but for whatever reason, hit just 27 at home and 51 away.
Louisville may not have been a particularly homer-happy park, given the relatively low home run totals at the top of their franchise list; in general, 61 players hit at least 35 total homers between 1882-1899.
So I’d surmise that the top homer hitter in Kentucky history probably set his mark with a total under 20.
Apparently, Browning hit 12 in Louisville: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/event_hr.fcgi?id=brownpe01&t=b
But Fred Clarke hit 21… that has to be the Kentucky record: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/event_hr.fcgi?id=clarkfr01&t=b
Oh that is fabulous – well spotted!
Dang, weirdly enough, as a Louisvillian, I almost chimed in earlier when y’all were talking expansion targets with a joke wondering why Louisville is not on anyone’s list for new franchises, given how we tied (!) against Brooklyn for the 1890 World Series and all.
But 100% here for any Colonels discussion. It is forever mind-blowing to me that Honus Wagner played here. And Chicken Wolf’s story is so tragic, it’s definitely worth reading the SABR bio that AAR linked. I wonder sometimes what might’ve happened if the city hadn’t lost the Colonels then, if there’s some alternate timeline where we could’ve held on as a tiny-market team, and how the city’s history might’ve changed, even in some small way, along with it. Alas. (Though the worst pro sports loss here might’ve been Louisville losing the Kentucky Colonels with the ABA/NBA merger, this is a basketball-crazy city and we were one of the best teams in the ABA. Not that I was around for any of it yet.)
Profar leading off the game with a homer and then the Braves not scoring again is the most 2025 thing.
Nick Allen, MLB’s “most-polarizing player.”
Interesting video. I don’t see Allen as being what I think of polarizing, but that makes a lot of sense. Personnally I hope Atlanta brings him back next year – just not as a starter.
I really liked the Nick Allen acquisition, and I had hoped he would improve ever so slightly on offense to threaten 2 WAR. Early on it looked like he would do that, but he has regressed to being as weak a hitter as ever. He has a pretty good chase and whiff percentage, and he squares up the ball fairly well, but he produces weak contact almost exclusively. That says to me that the only way Nick Allen can really improve at the plate is to increase his abysmal bat speed (64 mph), which probably means strength gains. Not sure if he can do much with his physical limitations. Maybe Profar can help…
Soroka headed to the IL…again. Left his first start with the Cubs.
Poor guy is just snake bit.
Man, was he good early in his career when he was healthy.
recapped.