On Nicknames
I know for Braves fans in general, and even for Braves Journal devotées, this can be a contentious issue, and in some cases might even infringe the No Politics prime directive of Braves Journal. But, whatever your feelings about team nicknames, I hope we can all agree that Guardians is entirely stupid.
On Ohio
My favorite song about Ohio is actually about Texas, though the first verse is completely about Ohio:
On Franchises
We owe the Cleveland franchise 1995. I’m not saying we didn’t deserve to win that series, but we could have lost it, I think everyone will agree. That said, the Cleveland franchise is tied with the White Sox for franchises that occupy almost no space in my mind. I can pretty quickly come up with Larry Doby, Bob Feller, and Jim Thome. By now, I think Francisco Lindor is a Met. (I’m even worse on the White Sox — for years I could only think of Paul Konerko.) Pressed, I know they have José Ramírez, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play before tonight. His Bref page is outstanding, though. Looking at the starting lineup, they also have Carlos Santana, although his famous song, Oye como va?, was actually written by former Cleveland manager Tito Francona.
Cleveland fans who wander over here — this is entirely my fault, not Cleveland’s. When I was a kid I could name the starting lineup of every team, but there are now more teams and I am nowhere near kid status. I have to choose things to discard from my brain — I have chosen the Guardians. Feel free to ignore the Braves and we’re even.
Odds and Ends on the Mets Series
On Wednesday the Braves (really, former Brave Carlos Carrasco) spotted the Mets 6 runs in the first two innings, but then scored 9 in the 4th to take the lead and a subsequent two-run jack by Marcell Ozuna made it 11-6. The Braves scored their 11 runs on just 8 hits, which is the fifth time this season the Braves have had more runs than hits. Alex commented that more runs than hits is the sign of offensive efficiency. I’m not sure about that: it’s really more a sign of walks and homers. Walks put guys on base without hits and homers score people with maximal efficiency.
In any case, the fifth game in a season with more runs than hits ties a Braves record with 40 games left to play (1999, 2013, 2019, 2021, 2023). So from 60 years of baseball, the Braves had five of these games in 4 of the last 7 years, and really 4 of 6 since 2020 oughtn’t count and only twice in the first 50 years. Given the importance of walks, and Tim Hyers focus on plate selectivity, you might think he is respnsible, but it seems more like a general trend, since Kevin Seitzer had a lot of success in this area as well.
The fact that the Braves have such a terrible record in one run games shows that efficiency isn’t everything. I’d take a few dozen extra hits, even if half of them led to no runs.
There is one other game in MLB history where a team gave up 6 runs early and came back to win 11-6. It was this game in which Tampa Bay also scored 11 runs on 8 hits. So maybe it’s something about scoring 11 consecutive runs.
In the comments and the recap, several people commented that they lost interest and turned to other activities when the Mets had a 6-0 lead in the second inning. What do the odds say? In the Retrosheet era I have boxscores from 219,369 games. Of those, 1995 (about 1%) have one team leading by 6-0 after two innings. Out of those, there were 76 comebacks, so there’s almost a 4 percent chance!
The Game
The Braves started Third. (I’m going with that for the moment because of its ability to be used in future Abbott-Costello routines.) In addition, Ronald Acuña Jr. returned from his calf injury.
The opening of the game saw several odd plays. Michael Harris II is knocking the cover off the ball, but when he knocked the glove off Guardians’ starting pitcher Joey Cantillo it only led to a fielder’s choice. More puzzling was Fredi Gonzalez‘ (I mistakenly typed “Fredo” and I think that may be a better name for him) decision to send Jurickson Profar home on a play in which he was thrown out by about 30 feet. (I remind everyone there are only 90 feet between bases.) CJ sorta kinda tried to defend the send as “perfect relays” but the woes at 3rd base coach continue. I’m willing to grant that Matt Tuiasosopo was too conservative but Fredi is beginning to cross the barrier from “aggressive” to “suicidal.” The Mets announcer criticized Profar from lollygagging from first on a two out hit the other day in which he might possibly have scored and Fredi could be seen expressing his displeasure. Well, this time Profar ran and was rewarded with an idiotic baserunning out. Somebody must keep track of this stuff, right?
In the 4th inning, RAJ was called out for interfering with the second baseman fielding a ball. The second baseman took a highly eccentric path to baseball to get that call, but coming as it did before a subsequent hit probably cost the Braves a run. Even after that, however, the Braves opened the scoring with a hit and two walks. (The second walk was punctuated by a fan wandering onto the field, just to provide a bit more Clevelander hijinks.)
Cantillo was replaced by Matt Festa in the 6th. If Festa ever pitches for the Braves (and doesn’t every relief pitcher eventually pitch in Atlanta?) I hereby declare that his nickname will be “Uncle.”
Third got through the Sixth (see how this is shaping up?) brilliantly. Two hits yielded, both to Steven Kwan. 7 K’s and 2 walks, and an ERA which is now just a hair above 1 — anything below 1.1 is the Gibson Line. (I wouldn’t have dared compare Third to Gibson if he were still alive. He’d come to my house and hit me in the head with a baseball.)
Daysbel Hernández pitched a perfect 7th. Tyler Kinley pitched a perfect 8-pitch 8th. MH II knocked in Eli White for an insurance run in the top of the 9th, and completely ruining the opening I had written which started “Dave Justice hit a homer for the only run of the game as Atlanta beat Cleveland 1-0.” It wasn’t that funny anyway, so I’ll take the insurance run.
The Braves had three guys thrown out stealing, one guy thrown out at the plate, and one more base runner eliminated on runner’s interference tonight. AAR, that’s how you make an offense inefficient.
Raisel Iglesias got his third straight outing for the attempted save. He inefficiently used 15 pitches to finish it off.
It seems like the most economically efficient approach for the Braves offense is to collect walks and homers and avoid getting caught stealing. Just as I suspected!
Michael still hasn’t walked this month, and that has nothing to do with where his hands are. I so want him to get to the next level. I keep hoping.
I’m totally here for Uncle Festa.
In his postgame interview, Thurston Waldrep III twice referred to the Indians I mean Guardians lineup as being “passive.” As the opposite of “aggressive,” I get it, but I’d never heard anyone say this, as opposed to the more diplomatic “selective” or “patient.” Is this a new bit of baseball jargon or is a gaffe that would be considered insulting?
Also, it seems to me that Cleveland missed a trick by not changing their name back to Spiders. Yes, the Cleveland Spiders lost a lot, but nobody remembers that and the name is just offbeat and gross enough to catch on with young guys. IMO.
If they had 86’d that cartoon mascot in ‘86 there’s probably less of a deal about the name. Similar to Braves and Chief Nocahoma.
Keith Law’s concern about Waldrep was that his fastball, though plus velocity, was too straight for success. Waldrep uses the fastball like a change up though. You’re trying to be on time for all his off speed stuff without knowing the break and boom, a fastball is on your hands. Doesn’t matter if it’s straight if it’s by you. If it were his bread and butter, yeah, it’s not good enough to get major league hitters out
CJ described the same thing in the broadcast last night. Third was never going to be successful until he either got the fastball to move or developed a pitch that looked like a fastball and moved. He did the latter… very quickly, with a splitter than he now uses on about a quarter of his pitches, dropping the four-seam fastball to a surprise 8%.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/hurston-waldrep-694462?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
A lot has been said about the sinker, but his new cutter is essential since it keeps lefties honest. Really great progress for him.
Because AA will seemingly not offer real money to any free agent expect Nola, he probably has to remain a starter, but I still believe Waldrep could be an absolutely elite closer. He possess a ++pitch and clearly has the makeup for the 9th.
OK, I’ll bite on defending the Guardians’ name. At first, I, too, thought it was dumb, but after learning about the Guardians of Traffic statues the name is based on, I actually think it’s kinda neat (those statues are super cool). I feel like sports team names are inherently absurd (what is a Met? a Phillie??), we just don’t notice because they’ve been around forever. So when they’re new, they stick out.
I know some gave them grief for, if they were going to change the name, not making a broader break with the past, but I actually think it’s cool the way they did it. Literally just changed one syllable; kept the color scheme, similar uniforms, etc— they gave people who weren’t going to be happy about the change a lot of entry points in. Feels sorta like they brought people along vs. shaming them/ shutting them out. I feel like, ultimately, we as fans are pretty adaptable about this stuff if given the opportunity.
While I wish every year we would change our name, I don’t begrudge anyone who feels differently; we all come to these things in our own ways. But I will go on record as being still fully on-board with the Atlanta Hammers idea from this very blog.
As long as they play like statues, they can be named after statues.
More on Waldrep from Stephen Sutton-Brown at Baseball Prospectus. He’s getting his cutter up to 93, which is on the higher end for that pitch.
https://x.com/srbrown70/status/1956788215039332842
https://x.com/srbrown70/status/1956780968020201559
Tuned in just in time to see the biggest hit of the year for Nick Allen
Looks like we are going to make a chase to get as close as possible to .500.
Recapped