A good verb to describe what the Braves did to the Fish tonight: “sonned.” Miami got sonned tonight, absolutely obliterated on every side of the ball.
Chris Sale did Chris Sale things – after giving up a sac fly in the first, he retired 18 of the last twenty men he faced, striking out eight while yielding no walks and just four singles, one in the third and one in the fourth. Ho hum. He’s a Hall of Famer, and it’s just hard to overstate what a privilege it is to watch a master at his craft.
And the offense went about its business as though offended that the Nationals actually have had a higher-scoring offense this year. (Astonishingly, tonight’s outburst only cut the deficit by one, as Washington beat IWOTM 8-4.)
The bats didn’t let the sole Marlin run go unanswered, as Ozzie Albies and Mauricio Dubon singled in front of a three-run Austin Riley home run. He’s raised his seasonal OPS by 80 points in the first few weeks of May. And it stayed 3-1 until the sixth, when things came unglued. First came four straight singles by the top of the lineup: Ronald, Michael, Matt, Ozzie.
And then up strode Dom Smith, who’s been a banjo hitter this month: coming into this game, he had 31 plate appearances in May, with eight singles and just one double and one walk, leading to the bizarre batting line of .310/.323/.345. Well, he fouled off seven pitches, worked the count to full, and then blasted the first curveball Junk threw him into the bleachers, blowing the game wide open.
He wasn’t quite done, either. In the eighth, he hit a ball nearly as hard but not quite as far. Remarkably, the Marlins outfielders managed to have a communications error – I don’t know how, there were fewer than 10,000 people at the game and you could just about hear a pin drop – and as they collided, the ball popped out and began to roll, and by the time just about every member of the team had kicked the ball three times, Dom Smith filled in the diamond on your scorecard and went to go suck wind in the dugout. The scorer credited him with a “triple,” which is charitable. He hit the snot out of that ball, though.
One more against these chuckleheads tomorrow, with yet another 6:40 start time, before the Braves get to fly the friendly skies back to sunny Cobb County, to play those slugging Natspos. (My thoughts: don’t throw strikes to James Wood.)
(JC’d myself). 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.
I’m loving the Dom Smith Experience. That AB leading to the HR in the 6th was a masterclass in how to battle and stay alive.
Not a perfect comparison, but Dominic Smith reminds me of the Braves picking up Matt Franco off the scrap heap from the Mets in 2002 and getting 30 HRs and a 0.912 OPS out of him in 81 games.
I’m not sure if I’m missing the joke, but Matt Franco had 6 HRs and said .912 OPS in 2002. 1.1 bWAR off the scrap heap was indeed impressive.
Ah, 2002, the year where 5 top-PA accumulators at C, 1B, 2B, SS, and 3B all had OPSes below 100.
He had 30 RBI so probably a misread line. But I had forgotten we had Matt Franco, though now I vaguely remember.
That was the season that convinced half the team they needed to start juicing and we went from an anemic offense to a historic offense in 2003 without significant roster changes
We had a Julio Franco/Matt Franco platoon at first base in 2002 that cost very little and produced quite well.
Matt Franco must have been hurt in the NLDS though because Julio started every game.
For a while I was thinking of Dom Smith as this year’s Pablo Sandoval – heavyish (though Sandoval was more like fat) bat-only veteran, hot start, then fading. Then I looked at Sandoval’s final 2021 numbers and realized how truly bad he was after the first few weeks. Through May 1 he was at .348/.464/.739 (basically roided-Bonds numbers), but from May 2 until he was dumped at the end of July he hit .100/.138/.160. He did still have 0.8 WPA for the year despite a negative WAR, even though his clutch-situation numbers for the full year weren’t that great.
I had also forgotten that he was “traded” to the Indians (who immediately released him) for Eddie Rosario. That worked out ok.
The Matt Franco comp is terrific. But if you truly want something to dream on, I’d love if he could be our new Matt Diaz.
I don’t think Sandoval ever looked as good or had as good an at-bat as the one Dom had yesterday. Given the rest of his skillset, he’s got to hit at a pretty high level to be really valuable, but he looks to me like he’ll be a nice bench piece even if he comes down from this high.
Yeah, I misread the BRef page. 30 HRs in 81 games would have been nutso.
i think if he was doing that he’d have played more
RE: Was the 2003 team juicing
I think Javy and Marcus Giles were juicing. They both put in seasons they never had before and never did again. But I do think that it was more like 2023 where everybody was a little better, and then the lineup just became so deep that it became an “all boats rise” situation where the lineup reaches a critical mass that you deplete the other team’s pitching in a 3-4 game series. A 50 OPS point difference in one player is really not that crazy once you realize that’s just one more base hit and maybe one more walk every couple of weeks or so.
I do think that this year’s lineup has the potential to do that with how well Weiss is handling platoons. We just need Acuna and Riley to get hot.
I think Sheff was likely juicing also. He was named in the BALCO thing with Bonds and that has kept him out of the HOF.
STOP THE PRESSES
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/05/braves-claim-maverick-handley-orioles-catcher-waivers.html
We just claimed a Baltimore Orioles catcher on waivers! No, not that one. Not that one, either.
That’s a kick-ass name tho and apropos for a catcher.
Oh, and he’s a Stanford guy. Maybe he can give legal advice Tromp.
Today is Kent Hrbek’s birthday. To honor him, find someone smaller than you and push them over.
I think it was AAR who had Eric Davis as a possible comp for Acuña due to injuries. Well, Acuña is out of the game with a thumb injury now.
Maybe a more talented Buxton? Buxton and RAJ have both only played 120 games in a season twice. (Didn’t realize that Buxton had a 90% career SB success percentage.) Bob Horner had a similar inability to stay healthy, though he got just over 120 games a couple more times.
Strider doesn’t have his best fastball tonight, but it’s hard enough that it’s keeping guys off balance with that and his secondaries which are doing well.
If Walt has a flawed pattern emerging, it’s of not getting a bullpen arm ready quick enough — e.g. not having someone warming up as the bottom of the seventh began. But with this bullpen, one can hardly blame him.
Huh? Our bullpen is great. Or maybe I’m misreading what you’re implying.
I thought he pulled Strider at the perfect time. Gave him the benefit of the doubt after the homer, he got a quick out, then after the 4 pitch walk it was obvious he was done.
It’s not a deep bullpen. How many arms do you REALLY trust? Iggy, Robert Suarez (and you don’t want him angainst lefties) and Lee, although he’s due for regression. Probably Fuentes, but they’re still figuring out the usage on him. Kinley’s been wobbly. The “B” pen is a loss waiting to happen which means you’re locked into the top guys, and you need to be careful on usage.
I don’t know if he has ever been considered much of a prospect, but 25 year old catcher Adam Zebrowski is slashing 263/352/513 at Double A. Looking at his history he has typically had a slow adjustment period with each promotion, but has been a pretty good hitter for a catcher after figuring it out. Don’t know how he is defensively.
I wonder why Suarez came in a 5 run game instead of Reylo who was also warming up. Maybe Reylo didn’t feel good.
I’m loving this year’s version of MHII. Long may it continue.
Nice way to finish in South Florida…
Went to Jays/Yanks tonight. Decent game, but nobody was really paying attention.
Right now, it’s all about the Knicks — the one team NY can pretty much agree on.
Through 17 games, Harris had a .600 OPS. In the 32 games since, he has a .966 OPS. Man, this dude is streaky.