Cruise Control
I’m not really a car guy. I had a midlife crisis car briefly, back when I was in midlife. Through a series of events not really worth retelling, I have just leased a car nicer than any car I have ever owned by several orders of magnitude. I have started to think of it as my “end-of-driving crisis” car. I know plenty of people ten years older than me who still drive, but I confess to trepidation when I ride somewhere with them. In addition, fully self-driving cars are probably only about 5 years away, so this was my last chance to be a car person.
I have had cars with cruise control for at least 30 years, even though I rarely use it. But this car has hands-free cruise control which I find simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying…. though I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually.
I bring this all up because Braves Journal, like the Braves, will be going into cruise control for the next week. If you worry too much about the results, or the strategy, or obsess over how the Phillies or Dodgers are doing, you’ll wear yourself out. Watch a little college football (Yale’s season starts tomorrow) and clear your mind for the postseason.
The Game
The last week begins with a return to the site of Jorge Soler’s shot on November 2, 2021. Since that day, they have only gone to Enron Minute Maid Daikin Park once, in 2024, when they swept the Stros, with scores that I’m sure warmed Roger’s heart: 6-1, 6-2 and 5-4. (If you didn’t know, and I didn’t until about five minutes ago, Daikin makes HVAC systems.)
According to kindergarten multiplication, three two-run homers are one way to score 6 runs. That’s what we did tonight and that was enough to win. Also, Tyler Mahle.
The Braves last 8 homers have been two run homers. That is a Braves record: they had several streaks of 6 two-run homers in the past. They are getting close to the MLB record, which is 11 straight 2-run homers, set by the Oakland A’s from 9/30/82-4/14/83. Go for it… why not?
A whole lot to like. Mahle doing his Gausman lite thing. Mike had a great night, and Matt looked good at the plate. Ronald hit one, too. Really good work from top to bottom.
Hard not to love another trio of 2-run HRs… And Mahle has really been something.
Moving forward & maintaining the automotive theme, I’ll assume that Sale will get one brief tuneup vs. Cincy before he pitches Game 1 vs. SD on 9/30.
He hasn’t pitched since 9/11.
1) If I’m counting BRef’s list correctly, there have been 79 MLB players with first name Tyler (not counting a guy who got one AB in one of the Negro Leagues in 1933 who is just listed as “Tyler,” as I assume that’s his last name). Only 3 of them played before 2000, Tyler Green (started in 1993), Ty(ler) Van Burkleo (1993) and our own Tyler Houston (1996).
2) I assume this is the result of increases in the frequency of baby boys being named Tyler starting in the mid-1970s rather than a change in the relative baseball-playing ability of boys named Tyler. Was there a movie or TV character named Tyler that could have increased the popularity of the name?
3) Ty Cobb’s first name was Tyrus.
I took my first ride in my buddies self driving mode Tesla the other day, was honestly blown away.
Oh yeah, fun win last night too!
Matt Olson crushed the ball to the opposite field last night. I’ll take that as a sign he is about to go on a tear. Things could get interesting.
The Crawford Boxes were quite welcoming last night — all 3 HRs ended up there.
Go Dogs… 11 a.m. local-time start today.
You don’t need me to tell you that 3 2-run HRs is good. What bugged me was the top of the 6th when the Braves were leading 2-1 and had bases loaded with one out. Yaz K’d and Riley lined out. The Braves are designed for 2-run HRs and Harris, Olson, and Acuna are the main purveyers. But Yaz has to put the bat on the ball in that situation. And the Braves only scored 2 before the 7th. They continue to hit RPs better than SPs but they don’t make SPs use enough pitches to get them out of the game. Still a white-knuckle bunch.
But I’d rather be a Braves fan than an Astros fan (from a guy who spent some time in the Astrodome).
I attended a game in the Astrodome once as a kid. Between it being the first time I had seen a game in an (air-conditioned) dome and the nothing-special seats being padded like movie theater seats, it felt very strange.
I haven’t watched too many games recently, so apologies if the broadcasters have covered this, but here’s a table showing Fuentes’ appearances in different parts of the season, IP per appearance (1 or less/1.1 or 1.2/2+) number of appearances over 30 pitches, and full-season ERA at the end of the period:
3/29-5/12: 2/0/5 and 4, including outings of 36, 47, 56, and 74 pitches, ERA 3.45
5/15-7/18: 22/3/0 and 0, ERA 2.58
7/19-8/9: 1/5/2 and 2, ERA 2.49
(counting the July 29 DH as one appearance with 1-2/3 IP and 27 pitches)
8/11-20: 5/0/0, never more than 21 pitches, ERA 2.60
8/23-9/18: 4/0/6 and 3 incl. 36 & 40 in his last 2 appearances, ERA 2.27
So he started the year in long relief, then had a couple of months pitching almost exclusively 1 inning or less, then three weeks of going a bit longer, then 10 days of only short stints, and in the last month has been stretched out for the postseason. Just eyeballing the days-rest numbers, it looks like he has had less rest between appearances when pitching shorter stints and more when going longer. Seems to be working so far.
I’ll feel a lot more comfortable in the postseason with a #3 or #4 starter going 5, another reliever 1, Fuentes 2 if we’re ahead, and Iglesias 1 (or Mahle 6, Fuentes 2, and Iglesias 1, or Sale 7, Fuentes 1, Iglesias 1) than I would having to get an inning out of another reliever. If the team wins a series or two, avoiding burnout will mean not pitching him unless the team is leading or tied – like Snitker did most of the time in the 2021 postseason.
The Padres have gone on a winning streak and the Dbacks have struggled essentially ending the race for the last playoff spot.
The Cubs, Padres, and Phillies are all tied with 85 wins and the Dbacks are 5 GB. The Braves are 5 games ahead of the Phillies for the division but 4 GB of the Dodgers for the first round bye.
It’s very possible that we end up playing the Phillies again in the NLWCS as they are trending the worst of the 3 teams tied for the Wild Card.
So of the 3 teams tied for wild card spots, the one that finishes first gets all 3 wild card games at home, which seems like an advantage worth fighting for. But between second & third, if you assume that our hot start isn’t all that relevant in evaluating the current team, it might be better to rest some players, finish third and have to play Atlanta rather than finishing second, playing the hottest of the three wild card teams, and not having rested players. Particularly if it’s a question of pitching your ace on the last day of the season or saving him for the first game of the wild card round. Of course rested players can sometimes be flat players, so who knows.
Remember 2023, when it seemed the Braves scored in the first inning in every game and always took an early lead?
I’ve enjoyed the recent run of two run homers but a four run homer is just about twice as good.
Lee still isn’t right.
I wanted to try to check & quantify what Roger said above about the team not scoring much until late in games. He’s right – in innings 1-3 of games through last night, the team averaged 4.29 runs/27 outs; in innings 4-6, they averaged 4.52; and in innings 7-9, they averaged slightly more than 5.22. The OPS figures were .694, .712, and .759, respectively.
This was even more interesting when I looked at the corresponding numbers for MLB as a whole. In innings 1-3, 4.44 runs/27; in innings 4-6, 4.60 (pretty similar to the Braves so far); but in innings 7-9, only slightly more than 4.38. The OPS figures were similar – .722, .727, and .706, respectively. So not only have the Braves scored a good bit more in the late innings than earlier, but MLB as a whole has scored somewhat less.
For what it’s worth, while I was typing this, the team put up 4 in the 7th.
(Stats notes: I adjusted for the many games in which home teams didn’t bat in the bottom of the 9th if they were ahead and the very few games that were stopped after fewer than 9 innings, but I couldn’t easily adjust for 0-2 outs rather than 3 in the bottom of the 9th in the relatively few 9th-inning walkoff wins. That means the actual 7th-9th inning runs/27 outs figures should be very slightly higher, for both the Braves and MLB. Shouldn’t matter much. Also, I didn’t consider extra innings because of the Manfred Man.)
Apologies JamesD, for writing on the same topic that you did. Recapped.