What happens when the back half of the roster goes ape? We win by a forfeit.
Just about anything you could have wanted, you got: Austin Riley had a couple of hits including a two-run single; Ha-Seong Kim made a couple nice plays and went 1-3 with a walk at the bottom of the lineup; Sean Murphy and Ronald Acuña each hit three-run blasts.
The last four hitters in the lineup, Murphy-Yaz-Riley-Kim, went 7-16 with two walks and six ribbies, and that’s a pretty good prescription for a pretty good day. Oh, and Ronald had three hits and became the fastest player to join the 200-200 club.
Not as many people stuck around the ol’ ballyard to see the boys get trounced, as the rains came for an hour and a half and cleared away the offense that was scoreless for the first third of the game; the clubhouse hot tubs must have worked, as they scored their nine runs starting in the sixth.
Grant Holmes started the game with three perfect innings before the heavens opened, but the most impressive performance came from Eliezer Hernandez, who followed up with three scoreless innings from the fifth through the seventh. It’s the kind of performance that makes a manager shuffle his mental pecking order.
Unfortunately, Matt Olson got a golden sombero and went 0-5, but he does that sometimes. He’s fine. And as bad as this lineup has looked for the past couple weeks, a .593 winning percentage, a +118 run differential, and the results of this afternoon’s game tell you that maybe you CAN believe your lyin’ eyes: this team is pretty alright.
No baseball tomorrow, sadly, but then on Friday we get Chris Sale against Cristopher Sanchez, as (arguably) two of the top three pitchers in baseball go up against each other with the division up for grabs.
Every single player in both clubhouses is going to be licking their chops for the next 48 hours and so will I. Take care of business on a day like today, and you get to look forward to that with a clean appetite. What a matchup!
Where is the Phillies’ Roger to bemoan their 1-0 loss and explain how they can’t compete?
Easy on Roger. He stayed after this team so long and hard that even the corpses of Kim and Murphy started hitting the ball with authority.
Very good point. I continue to believe that ONIO’s kvetching is the only reason we’re in first place.
If we’re giving credit to posters for player performance, the most credit should go to Rob for MHII’s turnaround. The very next game after Rob lamented (with good reason) MHII’s performance to date and listed MHII’s cratering OPS by year (.853, .808, .722, .678, and a Belliardian .543 after the April 8 game), MHII went 2 for 4 with a HR (April 10) and started a tear. His OPS is now .825, though it’s been over .900 at times. Of course it could also be that the April 10 game was just a fluke and the real cause of the turnaround was the birth of MHIII after that game.
Interesting mound matchups in Philly… of course, Sale vs. Sanchez is the standout in the opener.
Game 2 features a hot Martin Perez (1.76 ERA in last 6 starts) vs. a cold Zack Wheeler (6.27 ERA in last 7 starts).
Game 3 is fairly intriguing with Tyler Mahle (1.48 in 5 ATL starts) vs. a rejuvenated Aaron Nola (2.51 in last 7 starts, but still giving up lotsa HRs).
The only relative mismatch at the moment would seem to be Monday’s series closer, Elder vs. The Jesus Lizard. While we’ve seen Elder get touched up recently (5.22 in August), Luzardo has actually been hotter than Sanchez of late (1.32 in his last 6 starts).
Buckle Up: It’s Phils-Rays-Phils-Cubs-Astros for the next 16 games — 10 on the road.
3-run HR’s will do it every time. I have stayed off the Murphy-beating bandwagon hoping he would turn it around and I hope this week is the beginning. Kim was horrible until the end of the season last year. That’s how we got him to begin with. I hope the $20M at least partially pays off.
We’ll see how the offense does in Philly. I hope today is just the beginning but the Braves have been awful on the road on offense. The Braves SHOULD be better. Here’s to Citizens Bank turning some of our warning track flies into HRs. I keep hoping some of the K’s will go away.
September is quite the schedule for the Braves. As upbeat as I usually am, I just don’t see the Braves winning a short series against the best pitchers. Hope I’m wrong. I usually am. Go Braves!
On a personal note, I just finished my move to West Palm Beach. Biggest benefit: It’s a short flight to Atlanta!
Wilkommen, Timo! Ah, for the days when the Braves’ Spring training was in West Palm.
Herzlichen gluckwunsch, man! Welcome to Florida. Congratulations on being on the other side of moving – now I hope you fully enjoy your new home!
Thank you, JonathanF and AAR. Happy to be stateside. Took me long enough…