In computer science and AI, the trendy concept is “vibe coding,” which has a fairly wide range of meanings in practice, but in theory is something like: tell the AI what you feel you want, and the AI will create the program for you. Whether this is merely a description of the world, a good thing or a bad thing or the end of the universe as we know it is a matter of intense discussion, some of it coming from the AIs themselves.
Right now, the Braves are playing vibes baseball. They feel like they’re going to win.. and they win. (The Mets are playing vibes baseball as well, it’s just the difference between good vibes and bad vibes.) Tonight’s game was a case in point. Cristopher Sánchez is a really good pitcher, but he has never beaten the Braves. His first pitch of the game was hit over the wall by Ronald Acuña Jr., but Brandon Marsh turned it into an out. But then in the third inning he gave up three two-out runs on an error, a walk and a couple of dink hits serving as the filling of a solid single sandwich. Other than that he pitched great, and if the Phillies had better vibes, he’d have left with a 1-0 lead instead of a 3-1 deficit.
On the other side, Chris Sale was Chris Sale. Sale threw no bad pitches, though facing Felix Reyes in his first MLB at bat, he gave up a homer. That was the only run he allowed, and he struck out Reyes representing the tying run in the 7th. In his last 19 innings at the Bank, he has given up two runs.
The Phillies also went down meekly against Dylan Lee and Robert Suarez.
The Vibes are real. (Also, if you get a chance, listen to vibraphonist Milt Jackson’s great work with the Modern Jazz Quartet. He was for real too.)
ABS Turnaround
I’m not keeping track of this but others are (though until they start putting it in the box score, I’m not sure it happens.). The Braves had the worst percentage of challenges in baseball going into tonight, but they got a bunch right, tonight even one from Deadeye Acuña. Learning something? Lucky? No idea?
Homers in Initial At Bats
Welcome to MLB, Felix Reyes. He joins (in the Retrosheet database) 119 players who hit a homer in his first at-bat against 18,129 who did not. That’s about one out of every 150 players. It happened twice last year: by Zach Cole (against Atlanta) and Matt Gorski (something so unPittsburgh like they released him). It also happened twice 2024: Jhonkensy Noel and Jasson Dominguez. Like any completely random high-variance stat like this, the players who have hit a homer in their first plate appearance are an interesting mix of people you’ve never heard of (Cuno Barragan) great players (Aaron Judge, Bert Campaneris) and weird one-offs (Hoyt Wilhelm, Chuck Tanner, Tommy Milone). Among the Braves to achieve this immortality are Jordan Schafer, Jermaine Dye and Jason Heyward.
But the weird three, the only three players to hit a homer in their debut at-bat between 9/1/2012 and 6/1/2015 are the trio of Braves left-fielders-to-be: Jurickson Profar, Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario.
Potential sweep tomorrow. Sherlocks against Andrew Painter in the Sunday night Peacock game. I have recap duty and I don’t have Peacock, so I may have to get inventive. Vibe on.
Two cliches I’d like to invoke at this point.
1) I’d rather be lucky than good.
2) Luck is the residue of design.
I hope the Braves are getting some of both this year. First tonight’s matchup showed the Braves as both lucky and good. And the Braves are so far showing that AA knew better than the fans or critics what this team needed.
Do you have NBC Sports Network? Looks like the “Peacock-only” Sunday night games will also be broadcast on NBCSN.
The vibes for this team are indeed strong. That’s largely because they are playing great baseball. If anything, they are playing even better than their record. They’ve scored more than anyone in MLB and given up fewer runs than anyone. The Pyththagorean record is even better than the actual record.
I think the pitching may be better a little lucky so far, but the offense has been a little unlucky. At least a couple of hitters (RAJ and MHII) don’t have results that represent how well they are hitting the ball.
There is a long way to go, but you’ve got to love the start of this season.