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.
I can tell you it is on YouTube TV.
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.
In Friday night’s game, the bases were loaded with none out and Riley took a high strike 3. It was a clear ball, but he didn’t challenge. Acuna then wasted a challenge on a 1-1 (I think) strike with nobody on base. Earlier in the game, Acuna had let a clear ball go for a strike and not challenged. It seems that Acuna uses most of our challenges and he is just bad at it, both in recognition of the zone and leverage.
When there was no challenge on the Riley call, I made up the following fantasy: That Walt Weiss knew he had to come to grips with Acuna’s ridiculous, profligate use of challenges. But is it wise to single out your star player? So with the day off and what-not, they decided to make a rule not obviously targeted at Acuna. “Hey guys, let’s not use these things until at least the 7th inning.” A great fantasy, which would explain the non-use early in the game.
And then Ronald’s typical, absurdist appeal. Another of my fantasies that I have had to abandon. I love Acuna, and I imagine that what it takes to be his star self (in the great, productive sense) involves a lot of self-belief that we normal mortals can only, well, imagine. But his selfish, unproductive use of challenges (like the basepaths) has tipped well into the self-absorption zone. I hope Weiss can get both (challenges plus wasteful outs on the basepaths) sorted out.
I am puzzling through Statcast’s rating of batter challenges. Of 261 players rated, Acuña is not last. However, Dubón is. (Acuña is 258th.) https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/abs-challenges?sort=net_net_chal&sortDir=desc&page=5&pageSize=50 By their calculations, the combined challenges of these two has cost Atlanta 1 run.
I would say that Mauricio tried a few, noticed that he wasn’t very good at it, and wisely gave up.
Fascinating data. Just to note that Ronald has “only” challenged eight. In my misperception, he was at least challenging once a game.
Acuña won a challenge last night, but I agree – Acuña’s decisions on when and whether to challenge have been pretty questionable, but that’s also been true for the rest of the team. To this point in the season, ABS challenges have been the greatest weakness of this club, and when you can say that, you’re doing pretty well!
Milt “Bags” Jackson – absolute legend. I adore the MJQ album The Comedy, but probably the most famous piece he wrote was Bags’ Groove, which Miles Davis recorded:
I remember listening in my car in the parking lot of Gwinnett Place Mall so many years ago when Jermaine Dye came up to bat for the first time. My wife asked me why I wanted to hear this at-bat and I replied “Because you only have one and if you happen to hit a home run, it will be remembered until the day you die”. And of course, he did it! I hated it when we traded him. He was a special player.
I watched on TV as Jason Heyward hit a home run off of Carlos Zambrano in his very first at-bat. He did it the same way as Reyes – it was his very first MLB swing and it was on an 2-0 pitch. Heyward’s landed deep in the Braves bullpen. I always wondered “Did Jason ever hit another ball that went as far as the one he hit on his first swing?”.
A minor thing – if you change the criteria from “first at-bat” to “first plate appearance”, how much does this list change?
Actually, it was first plate appearance, not at-bat. If I change it to at-bat, we lose a bunch of players whose first game (I’m only looking at first game batting) did not include a plate appearance — largely guys who walked or sacrificed as a pinch-hitter. In any case, rather than 117/17636, it’s 125/13457.
Jonathan, why are the denominators so different?
As I said, I am only using a player’s first game. So if he has only one plate appearance in that game, and it doesn’t result in an at-bat, he’s out of the denominator. I think a lot of player’s initial appearance was a pinch hitting appearance. And many of those may have been bunts… we go back to the early 20th century. And you’d also drop out if none of your first-game appearances were at-bats.
There is of course a second possibility… that I messed something up. I’ll try and take some time this afternoon and figure it out.
It’s interesting that perhaps two of the three most heralded Braves prospects of the last…twenty years, maybe more? came up as huge power hitters and ended up losing that power pretty early to turn into role players.
Hopefully won’t happen to Acuna!
In 2016, Aaron Judge didn’t just hit a HR in his 1st MLB PA. He followed a guy named Tyler Austin, who did just that. So, B2B HRs from 2 guys in their 1st PAs. Those odds gotta be pretty long.
And… how ’bout them Mets? That loss today — now 11 in a row — bordered on cruel.
BTW, that’s some pretty cool Miles.
Not a great start
I just paid $11 to watch a damn baseball game. Screw you, Manfred and the owners.
MLB has become like NFL & NBA… money grab everywhere.
Was at the Yanks game on Saturday with a buddy & he wanted to rush home to catch the Knicks/Hawks playoff game. When I reminded him that it was only on Amazon Prime… & he just sighed and offered a look of disgust.
Hey… a rally!
sports on TV are brutal, NHL playoffs, ESPN, but not ESPN+ for the Bruins game. its all exhausting.
Aaron Bummer dancing in fire again…
Quite a play by Riley & Olson to extinguish things.
note that anyone batting 9th gets a benefit from batting before Acuna. Dubon hit over .300 batting 9th and now Harris is on fire batting 9th. Just sayin’. Whether Acuna is hitting or not, the guy hitting before him gets better pitches to hit.
Let’s get em in order for the 8th and 9th and get the hell out with seeing Turner, Schwarber and Harper again.
Nice work, Mr. Suarez
Right… Iglesias vs. Harper… no thanks (ever).
Great..
Whew….
Broom time. Ronald has still got it.
Interviewer: You have more HRs here at Citizens Bank than any other visiting park. Any reason why?
Michael Harris: Maybe the hostility…
Whew. It would have been an Aaron (bummer) to pay $10.99 plus tax and lose in the 9th.
What else is on Peacock for the month I have remaining? Real Housewives? Milf Island? Anybody know? Something without that Matthew Broderick AI commercial, preferably.
Recapped