West coast baseball doesn’t work well for those in the upper 60’s in age. The slightly better performance (or maybe it was outcome, not performance) over the weekend was sufficient to suppress the “I really don’t want to do this” feeling like 2025, but the spirit wasn’t that willing and the flesh was that weak. So, this recap relies totally on secondary accounts. My new BravesVision account wasn’t utilized at all.
A simple premise understood by many is that if your team does not score at least one run, it can never win. When the opposing starting pitcher has a WPA of 46.1, Bubba, you just got beat. The King family is supposed to benefit Atlanta, but Michael King did not. 7 IP, 5 K, 0BB, 6 hits (all singles). When the strikeout to walk ratio is “to infinity and beyond,” then you probably did o.k.
WE all know by now that Grant Holmes has been an excellent find and an excellent reclamation project. He is usually pretty good, which is better than 99.99% of the background population and at least in the middle of “replacement players and better.” Weiss perceived the wall coming on and pulled Holmes in the 5th at 4.67 (I REFUSE to use the .1 .2 system to describe THIRDS of an inning. Why not put .3 and .7?) By that point, Holmes had given up a solo home run to Manny Machado which would be the only run of the game. None of the other 2 hits nor the 5 walks given up by Holmes came in. So, Holmes lowered his E.R.A. and pulled the “L.” What a night. If only the Braves offense had contributed something.
Actually, the Braves offense did contribute some, but in a very inefficient and improperly sequenced way. Kind of a “make up game” for Friday and Saturday. The Braves managed 7 hits and 1 walk. And every one of those was still on base at the end of the respective inning.
Wake up guys. West Coast swings don’t have to play out like Brazilian failures to attach the bungee cords (though in the past, often they have been such).
Thanks Cliff. I refuse also. I always write 1/3 and 2/3.
The Braves (#1) and the Padres (#2) have the 2 best bullpens in MLB.
But there’s no doubt who has the scarier closer… and our guy is good.
Dom Smith is in LF tonight (yikes) and Tellez at DH. Yaz in RF.
I like to think that this is Weiss making a statement to AA that carrying both Smith and Tellez on this roster is a poor idea.
Well,’if you had to choose between Dom or Rowdy for left field, Walt made the right call. But Dom hasn’t played much in the field for several years, and when he did he was one of the worst in the game.
Bowman says that Weiss was trying to stack as many LHB as he could in the lineup vs Canning, who has struggled against LHB.
JR, you’re not going to stick in the majors walking guys with a 4 run lead.
Most of this has been Richie’s fault all the way, but that pitch Song hit was pretty nice.
Ritchie isn’t ready for this, and it’s not doing his development any favors to keep starting him.
Hurston Waldrep will probably be up after one more rehab start.
I don’t know what’s going on with BravesVision audio and visual, but they are both terrible right now.
Time to pull Ritchie and put Cookie in.
Edit: he did a great job baring down and recovering from the 1 bad inning. Probably earned another start.
Fuentes must not be available to go on back to back days since Cookie is in for the 6th.
I know it’s only June 24 (at midnight), but it feels like this one would be a crappy game to lose.
Nice to see JR rally back & keep us in the game w/o sacrificing the bullpen.
And Mauricio Dubon… the big hits continue.
So much for chasing every win.
Leaving in Carrasco when Driggy is well rested is just baffling.
Horrific bullpen management all around. Iglesias is not a two-inning guy.
Yes, this is Walt’s worst managed game of the year. Even if Suarez was unavailable, there was no reason not to go to Fuentes or Karinchak in the 7th.
I might just take a break from watching, this team is infuriating in so many respects at the moment.
Defensive positioning
Wtf bullpen usage
From best offense to 2nd worst
Baldwin K’s at 60% since returning
Hardly any HR’s anymore
Offensive sequencing is terrible
Horrible luck on hard hit balls
This team just isn’t built for the long haul. They overperformed massively for the first two and a half months and are now crashing back massively to the mean. The Phillies are 5.5 games back, which is nothing with over three months to go.
There’s no one or two trades that will salvage this team. They’re good entertainment through the summer, but let’s face it, they haven’t won a playoff series since 2021.
This season was way more fun when the Braves were actively chasing wins and Walt was aggressively managing the bullpen.
I genuinely don’t understand how Fuentes wasn’t available after throwing literally four pitches on Monday. I know they’ve been hesitant to have him pitch on back-to-back days, but he did it 5/18 and 5/19, and then again on 6/4 and 6/5! But even if he is unavailable, why not turn to Suarez in that spot? He’s well-rested and you’ve trusted him in high leverage as early as the 6th inning multiple times this year. Or perhaps better yet, with two LHH due up in the 6th, why not deploy Lee?
Instead they turn to Cookie Carrasco, who was allowed to pitch in the 6th and 7th innings of a one-run game and was only removed after giving up the lead. By the time Walt did actually deploy his high leverage arms, it was too little too late.
The Braves seem to think they can cruise to the postseason because they banked a bunch of wins in April and May, but if they keep messing around like this, they might find themselves in a dogfight just to grab a playoff spot.
EDIT: I just realized that in the postgame presser, Walt said Suarez was dealing with “right arm soreness.” Yeesh. Anyway, point still stands — they had other backend bullpen arms they could have used but didn’t.
Recapped