Experiencing the joys of BravesVision, I saw most of last night’s game. And, for the most part, it was a pleasurable experience.
Besides the obvious Bryce Elder noted in the Title Line, a shout out first to Victor Mederos. I had to dig a little. It appears he was born in Cuba but came to U. S. before highschool (in U. S. domestic draft). He played college ball for Oklahoma State. To this year, in 3 seasons, he had cumulative WAR of -.6. As in “minus.” This year (including last night) he has .4. Great night Friday. Last night, two and one third innings with 1 H, 1K, and 1 BB and no runs, not even “inherited.” Victor, if you don’t usually buy lottery tickets, you need to stop and do that today. This is “Victor Mederos” week and the rest of us are merely observers to this phenomenon.
Back to our Elder. Maybe the All-Star Break did him good. Visually, his work looked much better than recently. WHIP of 1 (5 H and 1BB). 2 solo (important adjective) home runs. 4 K. 6 IP. When Ty France hit the second home run as leadoff man in inning 7, The Great Walt Weiss (TM) saw the one run lead and decided to put Elder aside. With the SEVERE limits on the bullpen, it was the “low leverage” crowd’s opportunity to shine, which usually means opportunity to cough it up. But as Gus Czinski said to Billy Chappell, “Tonight, we don’t suck.”
Danny Young tried first, but he kept letting the first batter move up one base at the time, but got 2 outs. Then, The Great Walt Weiss (TM) brought out secret weapon Victor Mederos. He gave up a walk, but then got a fly ball. Then, he stuck around for 2 more innings and picked up a “save” (and THE HARD WAY holding a one run lead for 2 and one third).
Meanwhile, as we know, you can NEVER win a baseball game if you don’t score. The Braves stretched 4 hits and 2 walks a long way. And, since 2 of the 4 hits were homeruns (by Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies), that got 2 of the runs. The other was a “catcher’s interference” that got Mauricio Dubon on and then Joey Bart doubled him in.
More fun with San Diego tonight. That is 3 out of 4 out of the break. Maybe the offensive funk is lessening. Last weekend’s versions of Austin Riley and Drake Baldwin were vast improvements over the June versions.
From last thread
RE: Stampton
I’m going to include Grant Holmes as being “homegrown”. I get that we acquired him late and he was drafted by the Dodgers, but he pitched zero big league innings before he came to Atlanta.
Accordingly:
Starts by not-homegrown pitchers so far this year: 42
That’s Sale, Perez, Reylo, and Jose Suarez.
Homegrown starters: 57
So we are certainly not close to being “fully homegrown”, though I don’t know why I would have used that term since obviously Chris Sale wasn’t going anywhere. And I was hoping that Reylo would be in the pen this year.
At some point, I assume Perez will be DFA’ed again and replaced with a homegrown starter.
Sale isn’t going anywhere, nor should he, but I feel like we’re moving towards having a mostly-homegrown rotation. For instance, I would not add another starter at the deadline. I’d go get more relievers and maybe another outfielder. And in the offseason, I would not trade for or sign a free agent pitcher.
Sometimes timing is as important as the arm itself. Has anyone seen what Soroka is doing lately? Remember we only got Morton later even though we drafted him.
Having a lovely bounceback campaign, really:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/michael-soroka-647336?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
I have to point out that he has been on the IL for a month though.
Funny about Mederos. Maybe he’ll get the WAR into positive territory soon.
Opinions about his antics on another message board seem divided. Some like the passion, others think its kind of jerky. I suppose this is another case where what’s normal among Latin players comes across as excessive. I don’t suppose I’d like it if Mr. -0.6 WAR was doing it to us. As it is, if it works, keep doing it! 😉
Shorting of shooting Blooper, a Cuban refugee having the week of his life at the highest level can do whatever he wants.
I’m with Rob on that!
Yaz is back. Farmer was released to make room.
I hope Yaz can pick up where he left off. He’s been solidly productive at the plate since the beginning of May (114 wRC+) and seemed to be particularly dialed in after the calendar flipped to July (160 wRC+).
Man, get Acuna back and this lineup doesn’t look half bad. Really not sure what they’ll do with Kim if Jarvis is a cromulent 80-90 wRC+ with good defense. Like how do you mess up such a good thing if the rest of the lineup is at least decent. Kim’s upside is 100 wRC+ anyway, really, so why mess with it when Jarvis is controllable beyond this season? My eyeballs also tell me that Jarvis is a MUCH better defender than Kim.