The Pictures

Mac used to describe Keith Lockhart‘s presence on the Braves as clearly attributable to compromising pictures he had of Bobby Cox. Well, there is no question that Carlos Carrasco somehow got pictures of Alex Anthopolous doing something he shouldn’t. Just as the Braves move on from José Suarez and Joel Payamps (and let me be clear — the replacements might not be any better — doesn’t matter) there is no conceivable reason for a great team to employ Carlos Carrasco at this point. Last year? Sure… why not? But not this year. (And I heard Walt Weiss talk about proactive managing in Colorado. You want to be proactive? Fly Karinchak or Daysbel out here for a couple of days. At least there’s some conceiveable purpose.)

So the Braves today rewarded Anthony Molina‘s two scoreless innings last night by putting him on a plane to Gwinnett. I fully understand that they didn’t want to use Molina tonight or maybe tomorrow after two innings of work, so he’s occupying a dead space on the roster. But why replace him with Carlos Carrasco, ho you actually had to sign again to make that happen?

Everything I have read about Carlos Carrasco suggests that he is an oustanding human being. His foundation builds schools across Latin America. He works with cancer charities. He himself has come back from a bout of chronic myelogenous leukemia. He likes pizza. But I found this quote:

“Baseball is not forever. I know at some point we stop playing baseball, but I want all those people and fans to remember me as a good human being and what I did on the field and off the field, too.”

I promise to do so, Cookie. But you gotta stop playing first. At least for us.

Et Tu, AAR?

Look… I expect our new insect overlords to say things like “This is becoming a permission-to-the-walk-the-dog game.” That’s just who he is. But you, Alex? “I definitely turned that game off. I guess I should have had a little more faith!” This inspired me to write a song parody of the George Michael song, but it lies now on the cutting room floor. My standards aren’t that high, but this effort was beneath them. The source material just wasn’t conducive to my limited talents. So, in a word Alex: Faith.

The Game

I said last night that it’s a bad idea in general to spot the other team six runs. Drake Baldwin spent the first 5 inning driving in four runs. assisted by a very long Austin Riley homer for another two, and RBIs from Eli White and Ozzie Albies to make it 8-1 after five. Chris Sale has neve blown a seven run lead in his career, as I pointed out last week. Chris Sale has never lost more than a 5 run lead. But y’know, I keep watching. How much brain damage could be done watching the same MC Hammer ad another 300 times? A ninth inning blast from Matt Olson capped off the evening.

Mauricio Dubón made a great catch. It wasn’t so much the catch itself as complete disregard for his body. Be careful out there, Mauricio.

I wasn’t recapping when Greg Maddux pitched, but recapping Chris Sale games has to be similar… first you run out of adjectives, then you run out of verbs, then the adverbs start to go, and you’re left with interjections. Wow.

The worrisome issue in this game was that Ronald Acuña Jr. tweaked a hammy. It didn’t look all that serious, but you never know. I know that while Ronald has had some serious injuries in his career, he also overreacts to minor injuries. I’m calling this one minor until I hear differently.

So we’re now 24-10. As the strongest advocate for 162-0, I tend to focus on the 10 to figure out what went wrong. But, truth be told, not much. Strider debut tomorrow. Potential sweep tomorrow, followed by a week of insomniac mode.