All winning teams are alike; each losing team loses in its own way. Some might say this winning Braves team is so consistent that they are boring. In the last six weeks, they have lost two games in a row only once. In most three game segments since then, they’ve taken at least two of the three. The winning percentage hasn’t dipped below .667 for over a month. Wouldn’t it be more interesting to follow a streaky team—like say the Phillies, who lost ten in a row early and now have won 16 of 20?
Absolutely not. I’ll take the consistent play of our Braves any day. Today’s 8-4 win over the Fish was yet another example of their resilience. After losing 12-0 on Monday, and today falling behind 4-2 after 3 innings, they evened it with single runs in the 5th and 6th, and then pulled away with a 3-run 8th and another run in the 9th.
In each of my last two recaps, I said “there’s a lot to like about this Braves team.” I’m sorry for being unoriginal, but it’s still true. What was good today? Martin Perez was not good in the first, giving up 3 runs on a leadoff solo homer and a two run double. But he hung in there, and went 5 innings surrendering only one more run. He also struck out ten Fish in those 5 innings—the first time in his career he’s struck out 10 in a game (I never would have guessed that one). Perez has been terrific in whatever role Weiss has asked him to play.
Fuentes, Lee, Suarez, and Iglesias went the last four and held them scoreless. Didi had his first outing on consecutive days—and just as he has in all his recent outings, he looked great. Lee’s ERA is now 0.79, Suarez is 0.44, and Iggy still hasn’t surrendered a run all year. Those three probably won’t keep ERAs under 1.00 all year, but they are absolutely dominant, and the best trio at the backend since O’Ventbrel 15 years ago.
The offense, without the newly IL-ed Baldwin but with Ronald making his first start since coming off the IL, struck for a couple in the 1st on a sac fly by Ozzie and a single from Harris. After falling behind 4-2, the comeback started in the 5th with doubles by RAJ and Olson (Ronald scored 3 runs on the day). MHII crushed a solo homer to center in the 6th to tie it. In the 8th, the Braves loaded the bases on three walks. With two outs, Dubon (who had 3 hits on the day) hit a slow roller between 1st and 2nd. The first baseman fielded it but the SS was late to cover 2nd so a run scored. Olson knocked in 2 more with a single to left to make it 7-4. Kim drove in a run in the 9th to make it 8-4. He’s off to a slow start offensively and defensively, but he’s going to be fine. As Weiss said in the post-game, and not for the first time, baseball is hard and it moves fast. It can take a while to get adjusted after a long layoff.
To my layman’s eyes, the Tim Hyers approach is really paying off. They walked 8 times today. The winning rally in the 8th featured a couple of two-out ground ball hits to the opposite field driving in the three runners who had walked.
So yes, I like this Braves team. You know what I don’t like? The Miami Marlins. Mac called them Pure Evil. That’s not exactly how I feel. It’s more that they are a waste of an MLB franchise. Attendance was announced today as 7,524, but there weren’t that many actually there. I’ll admit I resented the heck out of their winning two World Series in the first ten years of their existence, while our Braves won 14 Division titles in a row with only one WS crown. And the Fish finished second to the Braves in both of their title years. But I’m over that now. I dislike the Phillies and the Mets (and I still can’t stand the Cardinals), but the Fish aren’t worthy of that.
Speaking of the Phillies, they lost to Cincy today. The Braves lead is back to 8. And as I write, the Mets have blown a 5 run lead and trail 9-6. (h/t to Big D) It’s been a good day. Tomorrow is a Junk-Sale matchup. Should be an even better day. One good day after another may make for poor fiction, but it makes for a great baseball season.
It’s got to be killing the Marlins that the key play of the game featured their shortstop jogging to cover second.
Why was this a day game?
The businessman’s special gets higher attendance than usual night games do. LMAO
CJ and Wiley explained that rush hour traffic makes the Marlins Stadium (whatever its current dumb name is) hard to get to, so they (the Marlins, not CJ and Wiley) decided to experiment with an earlier start time.
When I’ve been in Miami I decided it was too much trouble to try to get to a game and find parking in that location, although I’d gone to Marlins games several times at Joe Robbie/Hard Rock Stadium. Also, the area around the current ballyard is reputedly not the best to be walking around in at night, though that could be a slander for all I know.
Really good recap, tfloyd!
Thanks
A touching reminiscence from Coppy about Bobby Cox:
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/bobby-cox-was-more-than-just-a-hall-of-fame-manager/
If there’s a bad spot for a Tolstoy reference I have yet to encounter it.
I love that we scored the decisive runs on a bunch of BS. The offense had been scuffling and believing you are lucky is helpful for the psyche. Maybe we can score double digits off the Junkballer.
As for the Phils, they finally lost. If I’d told you prior to the season that they’d run off a 16-4 stretch before Memorial Day, you’d assume we were staring up at Kyle Schwarber’s ample bottom in the standings. But here we sit 8 games up after forgetting how to hit for a week.
Just watched that amazing Maddux documentary that Timo shared. There’s about a 7-minute stretch starting around minute 42 where Maddux and Bonds analyze their encounters and it’s genuinely thrilling – two grandmasters discussing the philosophy of how they approached their at-bats, each facing the best in the game.
The biggest problem yesterday was that the Braves struck out 11 times and 6 of those were by Riley and Yaz. We thought they were coming out of it and they sunk back in.
With the lead we have I’m not sure that AA will allow Baldwin and Acuna to be on the field at the same time until the playoffs. Acuna has looked visibly perturbed whenever Baldwin forces him or DPs.
Riley is way, way in his head. I sure hope they get him working with a sports psychologist.
Another thing I found fascinating in the Maddux documentary is, in his first year or two in the majors, when he was scuffling, he took himself to see a sports psychologist on his own, and told his teammates about it. Back in the late ’80s, that was not a commonplace thing to do. But he simply figured that just as much as he wanted to work on his physical fitness, he wanted to strengthen himself mentally.
I used Savant’s search tool look at all the double plays and some of the fielders’ choices/force plays that Baldwin has hit into with Ronnie at 1B. I’m…not seeing any kind of frustration from Ronnie. Granted, these are all 10-20 second clips that primarily show the play itself rather than the close-up reactions of players and managers, but still, I don’t really see anything. There are a few plays where Ronnie kind of stops running between 1B and 2B, but I would assume that’s just because he knows he’s going to be forced out and isn’t willing to risk injury to try and beat the throw.
Personally, I’m hesitant to use body language to draw conclusions about what another person is thinking or feeling. I’d hope that Ronnie and Drake get along well, and don’t really see a reason to think otherwise.
Baldwin has a Grade 1 strain. Hopefully he only has to miss a month or so.
Eli’s back, Azocar DFA’d.
I don’t think Sugar will make it through this time.
Aaron Nola twirling an 8 hitter through 4
Regarding Acuna’s perturbation, I think we need to develop a stink eye index (SEI) as an analytics-minded site. Otherwise how can we ever know for sure?
Brandon Marsh doing his thing in the 4th in the field (that “triple”) and on the basepaths (why wait for the ball to go through to start running?) I’ll take it.
Phillies lost again?
Oh, it’s a good day already.
Austin must have gotten a quick appointment with that sports psychologist that Alex recommended earlier today.
RAJ is demonstrative. When he is gleeful, it warms the cockles of fans’ hearts. When he is upset, it looks to me like petulance. That will naturally lead people to think that he’s reacting to whatever caused the upset.
I was born in the ’50s. I like my athletes stoic. I am also a dinosaur, just waiting for that last asteroid to finish me off. I don’t hold his many facial expressions against him, and I have no problem with “let the boys play.” But when you live in a demonstrative age, there’s only so many inferences you can draw from these sorts of reactions.
Another example is RAJ’s grimaces when he is hurt. Several of those have been entirely genuine, of course, but his ratio of “serious hurts” to “acting as if he has been mauled” is quite low. (I know this last one is going to be controversial, but that’s why I’m burying it in a comment.)
Sounds like you’re volunteering to develop the stink eye index (SEI).
Jonathan and I are the same age, and I also have traditionally preferred the cool, stoic athlete. “Act like you expect to do great things.” Mr Aaron is the standard for the stoic demeanor.
Having said that, I’m a big RAJ fan, including his demonstrative nature. Maybe I’ve changed in my latter years, but I like that he wears his emotions on his sleeve. I have never heard even a hint that his teammates or his manager or coaches resent his demeanor, and they are the audience that matters the most. I don’t believe for a minute that he harbors any resentment toward Baldwin or anyone else on the team.
I am, of course, also a big fan. And I am not put off by the displays of glee. If there a way to get only the glee, I would have no issues at all. I guess my point is that the glee combined with the petulance causes, definitionally, ambivalence.
I’m with you there. Petulance is one of my least favorite emotions. I choose to believe that Ronald’s grimaces and bad body language are just reflections of sincere disappointment. If I’m wrong about him I’d rather not know.
Tfloyd, weren’t there some issues between RAJ and Markakis & Freeman when he came up? Something about them hazing him by holding him down and rubbing eyeblack off? Also, I remember Freeman (and lots of us) being PO’d when it seemed like RAJ was standing and watching too often when his fly balls hit the wall rather than leaving the field, though I guess that’s more an action than a demeanor. And he was perhaps a little too honest with the press after Freeman went to LA; I don’t remember the exact language, but I think it was something along the lines of Freeman was a good player but he wasn’t going to miss him that much. I don’t mean to overstate it; the team’s reaction when Mattingly had his pitcher hit RAJ (the first/worst time) was clearly very supportive.
Quite an AB by Dom Smith there…
The record (at least since we’ve been tracking pitches) is an 18-pitch homer by Alex Cora off Matt Clement from 2004.
Damn, Dom!
Earl Weaver’s smiling at the Braves’ performance tonight.
Exactly what I was thinking. Don’t walk people; plus a 3-run HR (or two!)
Dom Smith is a winning lottery ticket.
How the heck did he not get at least a hit on that little league HR, when hit smashed it to the wall.
Save some for tomorrow night, fellas…
Is it just me or do position players have a history of dominating us on the mound?
Recapped.
I hadn’t realized that Sale was the active LHP with the most wins, up to 151 after tonight’s game. Second is Jose Quintana with only 115. It looks to me like at the start of this season, Sale’s 144 wins were the fewest by the active LHP with the most wins in a long, long time, probably over 100 years. Kershaw retired at the end of last year, and before him Buehrle, Sabathia, and Petite all apparently had more at different times, and before them you get into Glavine & Randy Johnson, and there’s only a decade or so between them & the Carlton/Kaat generation, who weren’t too far after Warren Spahn, who wasn’t too far after Lefty Grove. I imagine there were others filling in the gaps.