Win, win, win.
This game was uneventful until it wasn’t. RBI singles by Dominic Smith in the 2nd and 4th gave the Braves a 2 – 0 lead, which they held until the bottom of the 8th when Pete Alonso hit a solo home run off Dylan Lee.
One of my pet peeves is when people say, “You can’t charge an error if the player doesn’t touch the ball.” Leody Taveras‘s 1-out routine ground ball directly to Ozzie Albies looked to render a 9th inning lead-off walk by Raisel Iglesias harmless until the ball went directly under Ozzie’s glove and through his legs instead of turning into a potential game ending double play. Now there are runners on 1st and 3rd and things are getting interesting. Next, Ozzie made a diving stop on a ground ball meandering towards right field and was able to throw out Jackson Holliday for the 2nd out, but now the game was tied, and we moved towards extra innings.
When I think about Andruw Jones on the occasion of his formal induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame today, my favorite way to describe him was that “He makes the impossible look hard.” In the 10th inning, Danny Young made a hard situation seemingly impossible. His wild pitch on ball 4 moved ghost-runner Sam Huff to 3rd, and down to first went Dylan Beavers. Damn. Alonso was then intentionally walked to load the bases, as the winning run was already on 3rd. Some definitions now – Uneventful: a first baseman credited with 3 putouts in an inning. Eventful: Matt Olson catching a line drive and doubling a runner off first with no outs and the bases loaded in a tie game in the bottom of the 10th, then catching a fly ball in short right field.
The Braves scored the eventual winning run quickly in the 11th, when Austin Riley doubled in pinch-ghost-runner Jorge Mateo. Not much happened in the bottom of the inning except for Walt Weiss intentionally walking Taveras with 2 out to move the potential tying run to 3rd and the potential winning run to 2nd. The gamble was to pitch to catcher Huff, who was 4 – 32 on the season. Huff was playing only because the Orioles elected (reasonably) to pinch hit for Chadwick Tromp in the 9th. The Orioles apparently have so little regard for Huff that they elected to have Tromp catch the Sunday day game after the Saturday night game, or possibly they have so little value for Tromp that they don’t mind running him into the ground, or both. Weiss’s regard for Huff looks to be self-explanatory. As JonathanF mentioned in the recap of Saturday’s game, Huff is the grandson of NFL legend Sam Huff. The difference between the two turns out that at least the late Mr. Huff might have drawn a walk. The ABS zone on him would have been interesting for sure. A ground ball to 3rd and the Braves secured the series 2 games to 1, with a run differential of +1 over 30 innings.
Reynaldo Lopez went 5 2/3 innings, striking out 6 and allowing 5 hits and a walk. Smith ended up 3 for 5, and Drake Baldwin had 2 hits and walked 3 times. Tyler Kinley went the last 1 1/3 to be credited with the win.
The Braves are 63 – 42 and hold a 6-game lead over the Phillies pending the outcome of Philadelphia’s Sunday night game against the Yankees. On to the Mets on Monday at 7:10 Eastern, Martin Perez and Zac Thornton scheduled.
It’s hard to picture a move showing less respect for a batter than calling an intentional pass to the previous batter to bring (a) the tying run to be a walk away and (b) the winning run into scoring position. And that disrespect is mirrored by deciding that you’d rather run Tromp into the ground than give Huff a start.
What Weiss did was (in my opinion), interesting, bold, and exciting. With two outs and men on first and second, there was some probability distribution across the end-of-inning outcome space {Braves win; Orioles win; it’s still tied}. Not sure exactly what that distribution looked like, but I posit that in moving to two outs, bases loaded, and Huff at the plate, Weiss was not only significantly raising the probability of the Orioles win outcome, but also the probability of the Braves win outcome. It’s interesting to think about which increased more. I think that Huff is just bad enough for the Braves probability to have increased more, even though (maybe?) we would all agree that for an average batter it would look much different (i.e., Orioles win outcome goes up even more and Braves win outcome actually decreases).
I was thinking this morning that there is a case to be made that in the long run losing an 11-inning game can be better than winning an 18-inning game. I wonder if Walt decided just to get this thing over with one way or the other and save the bullpen.
I seem to remember us starting that tailspin that knocked us out of the playoffs after we won that 18 inning game against the Pirates where Julio Lugo was inexplicably ruled safe in 2011, Rusty. Our bullpen was just shot, also Fredi used O’Ventbrel like 70-80 times that season and they just had nothing left in September.
The Phillies win to end the day 5.5 games back.
Baseball is brutal. The Phillies methodically chipped away at our lead for 2 months only to lose half of it back in a week and a half.
Our second run also scored on a play that should’ve been called an error but wasn’t. The left fielder got an inexcusably late jump, then belatedly dove for the ball and trapped what should have been a catch. Our bats and gloves both took the weekend off, and it’s a miracle we got out of there with 2 out of 3. Shows you what the Baltimore faithful have been dealing with. I was at Camden Yards yesterday, and you can’t beat fun at the ol’ ballpark, but I was struck by the fact that there was an entire wing of the upper deck completely empty. It’s Camden Yards – they should be packing every single Sunday day game! We were in the upper deck right behind the catcher with a view out to the entire field, and boy, it’s still just a jewel.
Southisene promoted to AA. This also opens the door for Lodise potentially to move up to A+ ball.
I can’t find the tweet, but there’s that other shortstop that is also being promoted that’s a pretty good one. Say what you want about how we got there, but I do think they’ve gone out and fixed SS long-term. I like Southisene, obviously, out of all of them. I guess Southisene will get around 90 PAs to end the year and then be prime for a second half conversation next year.
RAJ activated — expected to play tonight.
Hicklen optioned to Triple-A.
Tea leaves time: Article in the Athletic says that there were scouts from the Tigers, Athletics, and Padres in attendance at Rome Emperors games this weekend.
For what it’s worth, the author believes the likely targets are Ritchie, John Gil, and Southisene.
Seems like we should be working with the Giants. I’d sure be willing to give a lot if we could get Ray and Ramos even if Ray is only a rental….. Might solve all of our problems with one trade.
I’m mainly thinking about Ronald’s return tonight. But JonathanF got me thinking also about overall #1 draft picks. The Falcons nabbed a future HoFer with their first (Nobis) but had mixed results at best with the other three. The two QBs (Bartkowski and Vick) each led the team to some success but neither was ever MVP caliber (two pro bowls for bart and theee for Vick). And the team’s success under each was short lived. Aundray Bruce was a huge bust—never even holding a starting position.
The Braves have just had two, Chipper and Horner (as bad as they were in the 70s and 80s I would have thought it would be more). I’d say they succeeded. A first ballot hall of famer and a very productive hitter is not bad at all. There tend to be more busts with MLB overall number ones.
The Hawks have also had just two. Most of you remember the French guy from 2024 (I barely do). The only other was David Thompson in 1974. He was the greatest college player I ever saw? Remember his career with the Hawks. That’s right, you don’t. They never signed him.
The hawks and Falcons help us appreciate the Braves.
David Thompson almost got knocked out of the ’74 NCAA tournament because he tripped over a guy’s shoulder. The guy was standing up.
https://x.com/NBACobwebs/status/2033578741893329058
The Hawks were, unfortunately, stiffed by Alex Sarr who wouldn’t work out for them, so they went with the consensus #2 option in a historically weak draft. I don’t fault them for that. I do fault them for drafting two european future hall of famers at #3 (Gasol and Doncic) and trading them on draft night for worse players. The only thing you need to know about the NBA is you need superstars, and they’re incredibly difficult to obtain. If you’re a bad team, and you’re in position to draft one and you trade down, you’re saying you know something nobody else does and the consensus best player is actually way overrated.
I don’t think Connor Thomas will be a major leaguer tomorrow.
He shouldn’t have been a major leaguer tonight
Launch him into the sun.
Kinda makes you miss Cookie.
Man, I hate off days.
Wasn’t really able to follow tonight, but in a tie game in the 6th inning, nobody else was available besides a guy I’d literally never heard of, and who shouldn’t even be in the majors? I mean, look at that guy’s stats. 2 appearances last year, 2 appearances this year. ERA over 20 in EACH year. Good lord.
Was at the game tonight. Not a lotta fun, as you might imagine. If you’re gonna get your ass kicked on the road, better that it’s a club that’s 18.5 games behind you & their beaten-down fans aren’t really that wound up.
Tomorrow is a flood watch in NYC & Wednesday afternoon may not be much better, so not sure if we’ll get 2 more games in here.
WW sacrificed Connor Thomas tonight & saved the bullpen, perhaps until Thursday.
I can’t imagine a lonelier feeling than Connor Thomas on the mound tonight.
He made an incredible athletic put-out at first base and I’m glad he wasn’t injured.
Yeah. Poor guy.
recapped.