I’m not alone in my view that movie sequels are rarely very good. In fact, many film buffs/critics will tell you that The Godfather Part 2 is the only truly great sequel that’s ever been made. (FWIW, it’s the only one of two sequels to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture.)
I know, I know… fans of The Terminator, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings franchises, for example, would like a word. And OK, The Dark Night was, y’know, alright…
But when I think of sequels, I think of Jaws 2, where the shark eats a helicopter. Or Staying Alive, the Sly Stallone-directed Saturday Night Fever sequel, that has John Travolta dancing to music by Sly’s brother Frank, not The Bee Gees. Or Caddyshack 2 with a mumbling Jackie Mason, not the hysterically obnoxious Rodney Dangerfield. The list of sucky sequels is long.
Unfortunately for us, tonight was another sucky sequel. After Tuesday’s 7-1 drubbing, the Atlanta bats remained quiet with only 3 hits, as the AL-East leading Tampa Bay Rays again thumped our Bravos, 7-2, with Griffin Jax easily besting Reynaldo Lopéz. And… the Phils win over Houston sliced our NL-East division lead to 3 games.
The Game: For Lopéz, things got messy quickly. In the 2nd w/ one out, Rays RF Victor Mesa, Jr., deposited a belt-high heater into the last row of the Chop House. 1-0 TB.
Then, after a Chandler Simpson single, a disengagement infraction that sent him to 2nd, and a Richie Palacios walk, the two executed a double steal. Great idea by Tampa because SS Jorge Mateo immediately looped a 2-RBI single into shallow CF – 3-0 TB.
If the 2nd inning was a bit of a horror show, then the 4th was its sequel, as Lopéz found trouble again with the same cast of characters. A Mesa single, a Simpson walk and a Cedric Mullins single made it 4-0 Tampa. A Palacios single made it 5-0. A perfect sac bunt from Mateo and a deep sac fly from Yandy Díaz made it 6-0 – another three spot – and Braves fans started looking at the out-of-town scoreboard.
In the bottom of the 4th, Drake showed some life by whacking a 3-1 Jax sinker over the CF fence for his 23rd dinger of ’26. 6-1 TB. In the 6th, Drake again led the charge (relatively speaking) with a walk. RAJ then doubled him to 3rd & Olson scored him with a sac fly – 6-2 TB. But the Rays tightened their chokehold in the 7th by touching up Victor Mederos – a HBP & 2 singles producing another run – 7-2 TB. After that, Atlanta never seriously threatened.
Notes: After Lopéz’s rough start (4.2 IP, 6 ER, 7 H, 3 BB), the bullpen shock troops (Ray Kerr, Mederos & Bailey Falter) pitched just fine (4.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 0 BB). Ozzie, riding a 4-for-31 month so far, was dropped to 7th in the lineup – he went 0 for 3.
So, a bad night, a sucky sequel & a comeback win in Philly that leaves the evil cheesesteaks within lurking distance. Tune in tomorrow afternoon at 12:15 pm, as the Braves attempt to salvage a win in the series finale… Rays ace Nick Martinez (14-4, 3.04 ERA) vs. Braves lefty Martín Pérez (8-9, 3.25). Go Braves.
![Atlanta 5, [redacted] 1](https://i0.wp.com/bravesjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/current-2-scaled-e1775070007381.jpeg?resize=440%2C264&ssl=1)
Thanks, ububba.
Two observations:
(1) You are obviously correct that The Godfather II is the only truly great sequel, though I might put in a plug for The Wrath of Khan, which was a good movie that followed a pretty sucky original.
(2) If this is a preview of the World Series, it’s not going to be one of the great World Series, unless one of the two teams plays much better.
Terminator 2 was better than the original, but action movies are often ignored because they’re seen as low-brow.
I remember seeing “Wrath of Khan” in college & liking it — I don’t remember anything about the “original” at all. But that’s probably its own category — sequels better than the original. I’d imagine most of them would be either action or horror flicks. I mean, if you’re doing John Wick or Friday the 13th, it’s all about upping the body count anyway.
Right… scary experience if this is a WS preview. The Rays have the AL’s best record for a reason. The first night Tampa bludgeoned us w/ 4 HRs, last night they singled us to death…
Good thing Perez is on-point today. Maybe we’ll only need one run.
The Braves seem devoid of life and imagination. If they can’t hit home runs, they’re just gonna pack it in and head to the house.
We have a lot of bad hitters. I love Dubon, but he’s not supposed to be your 5-hole guy. But Riley, Albies, Murphy, and Yaz are all feeble offensively. Albies is the only one of those 5 with a .700 OPS but that was built during a hot start. And then if you include Kim hoo boy.
You’re just not going to score much when your lineup is 4-deep, and when Olson is slumping it’s 3-deep. Things look great when you get a big game from Murphy and Riley but they don’t come frequently enough to sustain offensive success.
The Rays are pretty remarkable at getting more out of guys who weren’t as good elsewhere. Maybe Mateo’s just got another hot hand, but they seem to know how to get value from him. They’ve clearly gotten more from Freddy Peralta than the Mets did. Victor Mesa Jr. certainly didn’t look like anything much with the Marlins!
Just amazing to see how they manage to keep doing it, year after year.
(to Stampton) Consecutive hits by Albies, Riley, Yaz, and Kim scored 3 runs from 4 of the bad hitters on your bingo card (Murphy wasn’t playing). Not that it’s a good bet to happen very often, though.
https://x.com/punchoutpitch/status/2098053345936085270?s=46&t=WSNPrB2JyUoeKSn2PZsXZg
Quite an admission of guilt. I wonder if this is leaked to motivate Strider somehow
I don’t think he needs motivation. His body can’t stay healthy. It’s just a confirmation of how low his stock has sunk. That’s a contract extension that AA would like to push Ctrl+Z on.
For what it’s worth, Peanut wrote about that Strider-for-deGrom deal a month ago, right after the deadline, so it’s not like it’s just being leaked now.
https://www.mlb.com/braves/news/braves-2026-trade-deadline-recap
The Braves have scored 24 runs in 10 postseason games since winning the World Series.
The pitching depth is a problem, but the offense has been the prevailing issue for
several years now.
The Rays play like the Braves did the first two months of the season, but they’ve been doing it much more consistently. I guess we all just have to hope that Atlanta recaptures their early form sometime during the next four weeks. But considering how they’ve looked the last three games, and the gauntlet of good teams they still have to play to close out the regular season, I would not be at all surprised if they’re trying to find that form as a Wild Card, rather than as a division winner. And believe it or not, I’m going to miss Bryce Elder. He’s had some real stinker performances–like the third game in the Brewers series that I was lucky enough to attend–but he’s also capable of turning in gems. Not sure I feel the same way about Reynaldo Lopez. Man, the fact that I’m sort of pining for elder shows how shitty this starting pitching staff is right now after Sale (and maybe Mahle, though I suspect he’s due for a regression to his mean). But yeah, it’s the offense that’s the real problem. Every time we think Ronald is about to go on a tear and put the whole team on his back, it fizzles out.
With the way the offense is going, it’s hard to envision much of a postseason run. But it sure would be nice to hold on to this division lead and hang a banner, especially since we’ve been leading literally all season.
Yeah, I imagine it would be pretty devastating to the team, psychologically, if they lost the division after leading it from day one of the season.
Some of these at-bats in getaway-day games lately are a cry for help. And Kim, my goodness. You’re not a useful enough player to be getting thrown out on the basepath like that.
Hallelujah… a run.
EDIT: A crooked number, even better…
Finally a run. I like Brandon Gaudin but he is really not great at calling balls in play that go foul or noticing things like ground rule doubles (“They are sending Riley home” when he clearly had to stop at 3rd). Gives me a heart attack every time. Not as bad as Chip but not much better on these calls.
Clutch Kim!
Well, holy moly and a-woo-hoo! Iggy, let’s make the 9th very un-dramatic please.
I almost commented earlier to agree with stampton that we have too many poor hitters. Riley, Ozzie, Yaz, and especially Kim. Stampton, the evidence supported your assertion when you made it (as it usually does). But I’m delighted this 8th inning is a counter argument.
Will Fuentes take over as closer next year already?
I prefer to think of it as Raisel reminding me of 2021 regular season Will Smith.
Looks like we’re missing Wheeler and Sanchez this weekend. Time to make hay and win 2 out of 3 (at least!).
Edit to add – Astros score a late run and hang on to beat the Phillies. Lead back to 4, magic number at 11 (though I guess really, the magic number is 10, since we own the tiebreak)
And the Astros topped the Phils, 2-1.
So, the 2 NL East contenders both dropped 2 of 3 at home to 2 AL division leaders, and we’re back to a 4-game lead.
The good news: No matter what happens this wknd vs. Philly, we’ll still be in 1st place.
Fri: Sale vs. Nola
Sat: Mahle vs. Luzardo
Sun: Holmes vs. Painter
Good for Ha-Seong. He and Austin have contributed more at the plate the last few weeks than in the previous few months, and it’s a good thing, too, since Matt and Ozzie have been ice cold since the break.
Edit to what I said earlier – I think the magic number to clinch the division truly is 11. Looks like the MLB app already took the tiebreaker into account. If my math is right.
It looks like we have 15 games left. Realistically, I think Phillie’s only chance is to sweep us. If we sweep them, magic number drops to 5 with 12 games left. Whatever the case, I like our chances even if we only win one game. Going 9 and 6 over the last 15 will give us 95 wins. I would have taken that at the start of the year with no questions asked.
I think more to the point – the Braves are not “bad” hitters and the Rays are not getting something that’s not already there. It’s just a matter of approach. A long time ago I read that the combination of fly ball pitchers and ground ball hitters is a line drive. The Braves hit a lot of balls to the warning track. If they strategically reduced launch angles against some pitchers then we may see more hits. I think the game has changed since 2021 and 2023. The Arraez’s of the world are more in vogue. Better OBP (walks and singles) vs. extreme power has come back into style.
The Braves in particular do not walk much and have a lot of swing-and-miss. That is really the key. Swing at strikes and don’t swing at balls. Pitch recognition may be why the Braves are so bad at challenges too. If you watch the games you’ll see the Braves letting a lot of strikes go by.
Farm report and recap