Braves 9, Giants 6 (10 innings)
April 24, 2011 at 7:59 pm by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves
Happy birthday Chipper Jones.
I don’t mean to beat this theme into the ground, nor do I plan on turning CAC into the first ever blog dedicated exclusively to analyzing Atlanta’s game-by-game walk rates, but walks were again the difference in this game. The Giants had one more hit than the Braves (Giants: 6 singles, 2 doubles, 1 homer; Braves: 4 singles, 2 doubles, 2 homers), but the Braves walked 6 more times than the Giants did (7-to-1) and, again, not coincidentally scored three more runs. There are a lot of other narratives that this game provided, and I’ll get to them in a second, but the patience theme is worth discussing. This team is going to hit and hit for power, if they keep walking like they have the past few games they’re going to have enough offense to win the division.
Martin Prado was held hit-less in 3 at-bats, but walked twice and scored two runs. Chipper Jones went 2/3 with 2 walks. Dan Uggla went 1/3 with a homer and 2 walks. Brandon Hicks–starting at SS for Alex Gonzalez who had the day off–remained hit-less over his career but walked and scored.
Brandon Beachy was very good again, making only one mistake to Buster Posey that cost him a pair of runs. Beachy only allowed 3 baserunners (a double, single, and homer) in 6 innings while striking out 7. If he keeps striking out at least a batter an inning and not walking anyone he’s going to stick around for a long time.
The Braves got 2 runs in the first when Prado walked to leadoff the inning and Heyward hit a double to make it 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. Chipper Jones then punched an 0-2 slider down the LF line for a 2-run double. The Giants tied the game at two in the 4th when Aubrey Huff doubled and Buster Posey hit a hanging change-up out of the park and the score would stay the same until the 7th inning. After a Nate McLouth groundout to leadoff the inning, Brandon Hicks walked bringing up Beachy’s spot in the order. Alex Gonzalez pinch-hit for him against a lefty and struck out swinging and it looked like Beachy would again not be rewarded with a win for his great effort. Then Martin Prado walked to put runners at 1st and 2nd with 2 outs and Jason Heyward hit a homer to the deepest part of the ballpark to make it 5-2 Braves.
Unfortunately, the win Beachy was in line for would be snatched right out of his hand in the bottom of that inning. With Moylan on the DL and Kimbrel having pitched 3 days in a row, Jario Asencio was summoned to work the 7th. After getting Buster Posey to fly out to center, Pablo Sandoval singled to right to put a runner on 1st with 1 out. Then Pat Burrell hit a little tapper down the 3B line that Chipper charged but didn’t attempt to make a play on. Cody Ross then singled to load the bases with 1 out and Miguel Tejada walked to make it 5-3 Braves. Nate Schierholtz–whom Asencio probably shouldn’t have been allowed to face–grounded into a run-scoring FC to make it 5-4 Braves. Aaron Rowand, who is terrible, then stepped to the plate and doubled to make it 6-5 Giants. Linebrink relieved Asencio and got Freddy Sanchez to fly out to end the inning, but the damage was done. It’s easy to blame Asencio (who didn’t pitch well) or Fredi (who probably should have taken Asencio out earlier) for the lead disappearing, but don’t forget that if Chipper makes the play on the Burrell grounder and every other event in the inning happens (obviously something you can’t assume), the Braves leave the inning leading 5-2.
It wouldn’t matter, anyway, because Dan Uggla led off the 8th inning with a long homer to left to tie the game. Eric O’Flaherty pitched the 8th and the 9th allowing only a single. The Braves did nothing else after the Uggla homer until the 10th inning when a Jason Heyward single, Chipper Jones single, and Dan Uggla walk loaded the bases with nobody out against Brian Wilson. Freddie Freeman struck out and Eric Hinske, pinch-hitting for O’Flaherty, grounded into a 4-2 FC, but Nate McLouth worked a 3-2 count and lined a single through the middle to give the Braves a 8-6 lead. Brian McCann singled in an insurance run before Alex Gonzalez grounded out to end the threat. Jonny Venters came in for the 3-out save in the 10th and struck out two before Aubrey Huff reached on an infield single that Alex Gonzalez made one of the more fantastic plays I’ve ever seen on but Freeman dropped the throw. Didn’t matter because Buster Posey flew out thereafter to end the game. Suck it, Posey.
Unrelated update: I posted this over at BtB, a chart detailing how batters have fared on the action pitch of the 12 counts from 2002-2010. It’s a resource I’ll undoubtedly be linking to in the future, but I thought I’d go ahead and throw it out there for inquiring minds to review.
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The 7th inning will be tough with Moylan on the DL, he was a very versatile reliever. Got the win regardless though which is nice. Has Gearin pitched since being called up? Would he be a more viable option to be the bridge between the starter and the set-up man?
“Aaron Rowand–who is terrible..” LOL, best recap ever. Still don’t understand how he got that contract, but I’m glad the Braves finally got a sweep.
That play by Gonzalez was indeed pretty damn amazing. Thought Freddie would be used to scooping AGon’s throws out of the dirt by now. haha
Hey, you better watch the Posey slamming. He was the 2010 Rookie of the Year, you know.
Should be 4 wins in a row but the boys played some great baseball in SF, all the way around. With the light hitting Sad Diegos coming up, it would nice to finish a tough west coast road trip at .500.
Pardon me, .600
hopefully this is heyward heating for up for awhile (7 hits this series) we can ride him until may when uggla will heat up
Well leave Fredi alone this time around (he should’ve pulled Acensio sooner though), but props to Nate, from now on I shall call him McClutch, hope he keeps it up!
Everyday Johnny is out of this world. I is truly unfair!
*it
and is A-Gon’s defense has been fantastic!
Bad appearances will happen. Asencio hadn’t let up a run before this. He’s probably a good pitcher to have and to use in that situation. I just hope this appearance doesn’t sour his opportunities going forward.
I think that Fredi has the sense to know that Asencio pitched well despite the result. Even the first hit of the inning by Sandoval just happened to find the hole.
It is so nice to have an office that makes you feel as a fan that the team always has a chance.
Let me begin by saying, games like todays are why I have been through so many remote controls. Definitely the one thing that puts me over the edge is when the bullpen blows good leads late. And it doesn’t help when freakin Rowand, whom I agree is awful, is the reason behind it. Im fine when we lose a close one, or when we are down from the beginning, or when Pujols knocks one out to beat us. But this was my kryptonite.
Fortunately, I was able to restore my controller, and even better the Braves held on. It feels like its been forever since I have seen the Braves just long ball teams to death. But my gosh is it fun to watch. This team definitely has the capability of doing so all season long, and with moylan back we woulda never played extras tonight. I think CAC hit the nail on the head about the walks, keep preaching brother… With as many home runs as I hope we hit this year, walks are crucial.
We came into this game ranked 13th of 16 in the NL in runs scored but 6th in HRs. I think its a sign that this team has power, and when hot scary power.
Hit the nail on the head with the write up. I was cheering for every walk almost louder than each run scored because for the long term success of this offense going forward, they have got to get walks like they did in this whole series. Amazing how much more efficient this offense looks when they do that! Time to go to SD and at least walk away with 2 of 3, what I would call a VERY successful west coast swing, all things considered.
I tweeted this earlier, but the Braves only out-hit the Giants 23-21 this series. They out-walked them 16-2. That’s how they’re going to win series and eventually this division.
Looks like this team is starting to click, hopefully this good play continues through the Padres’ series.
I still can’t believe Aaron Rowand was leading off in every single game. Bochy Ball
Rowand horrible? From the 7th inning and later he is batting .349 coming into today’s game. That is horrible? Oh wait I forgot you are the people that think Freeman should be leading off for this team. It was plain and simple a great game and good series played between 2 really good teams that will be fighting hard for playoff spots/position in late September and early October. Both teams are dangerous, and by the way HIS DAMN NAME IS McLOUTH not McOut or McClouth.
John/16 is banned for being a fucking idiot, but his comment was quite hilarious so I approved it anyway.
@14 – One that bothers me is that Fredi claims to get modern day baseball number crunching, but then makes comments like this after Friday’s win:
http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2011/04/23/braves-quotes-after-fridays-win-against-giants/
“On taking advantage of two walks in the four-run third inning:
‘That’s the new thing we’re going to try to do is walk, so we can catch up to last year’s team at this time.’ [sarcasm]”
He’s basically taking a jab at you guys for saying “walks are important and the team’s lousy W/L record YTD is a reflection of their lousy walk rate YTD”. And in doing so, he comes across as an ass. At least that’s my take on it.
Aww man. I was looking forward to a Steven Marek rant.
@18
That was a joke because of their hacking ways the first couple weeks. I’m sure he’s not too much of an idiot to understand the value of a walk.
Is it true that posters who disagree get banned from this site? Heard buddy at work say everytime he tries to come here it says “access forbidden.”
Disagreeing is fine. Trolling, insulting me, being racist/sexist/homophobic, generally showing a lack of respect, or being a total dumb ass will get you banned. Your buddy did one of those.
With his baseball I.Q it was probably the last of that list- but that hardly seems like a legitimate reason to get banned. If anything, taking chatting privileges away after saying dumb things? I dunno. . .
I set the policies because I’m the one that has to deal with all the comments. It works, we’ve got an awesome community here. More tolerance for idiocy/jackassery just means more work for me, and it’s not the type of work I enjoy or have the time to do, so I’m not changing the policy or execution.
Great win. Nice to see them get on a bit of a roll.
Do wins always result in fewer posts/recap, or is Easter to blame?
CAC,
Anything to keep this from turning into the AJC blog is ok by me.
Fredi being sarcastic about things is also a good thing in my most humble of opinions. The guy is going to get ripped at every turn no matter hoe things go this year. Whether he’s right of wrong, having a sense of humor is good for him, and the team.
It has been my experience on this blog that people only get banned for “being a total dumbass” when they either repeatedly argue points that are just plain wrong (not matters of opinion i.e. Chipper sucks because he’s a lazy jackass who is hurt too much) or making arguments that are fine, but doing so in a hateful and unproductive way
@Owl Hunter-amen the AJC blog is where intelligent discourse goes to die. I generally avoid any blog where people post “first” for the first 6 comments every time
Yeah, Grant, that’s accurate. I usually try to invoke discussion with people who say wrong things in a civil manner. It’s the ‘aggressively dumb’ posters that get banned. John/16 is a classic example.
I think that makes sense. Just seems like banning chatting privileges is all that is required to remedy the situation. Them having access to read the material does no harm. But then again it may not be possible to do that from your end.
I did a search for McOut and McClouth but didn’t find it, where did that come from
Oh, I see what you’re saying. I am not aware of a way to ban someone from commenting without banning them from accessing the site. I would employ that rather than the total ban if I could.
This is my first full year reading CAC (I think I started August last year?), are there gonna be farm reports say once a month or so?
CAC @22: Thank you for your work! Your policy helps promote a lively conversation and makes it a good read.
It’s odd that the Braves’ offense would start to hum in SF of all places … but as Andy Dufresne said in Shawshank Prison, “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”
I enjoyed watching us play smarter baseball this weekend. Thats for sure. Fredi pulled some wrong strings, but the guys one the field, mentally and physically, played the best three game stretch thus far this year.
I’m stoked to see McLouth and Freeman getting these big hits for us.
Game notes and random thoughts:
-Beachy looked fantastic, any time you have a 7/0 K-to-walk ratio, good things are bound to happen. He has a 14/2 ratio in his last 2 games.
-Speaking of walks, the one Asencio issued Tejada was the key to their big inning in my eye. When facing an over-the-hill scrub such as Tejada, go right after him!! That walk was similar in horridness to Kimbrel walking 1 of the 7 dwarfs (Carroll) and damn near walking another (Miles) in the the last game of the Dodgers series.
-It was nice for Heyward to show the Giants fan base what he is capable of. It’s funny how the results differ when he isn’t getting rung up on balls well off the outside corner (See NLDS).
-The walks are great to see, especially from Prado who despite going 0/3, walked twice and scored 2 runs.
-Big props to McLouth, as it was looking like we were going to fuck up that bases-loaded no outs situation. McLouth does not Fear-the-Beard apparently.
-It’s a black eye for the MLB that this scrub-ass team somehow won the World Series. The Giants getting by Atlanta can be attributed to injures and Bobby Cox but what the fuck is your excuse Philly?
mclouth is looking pretty solid. with a good year – assuming a lot right now – i wonder if they will pick up his option this off season?
@Mustache hater: I agree with everything you said except for your last point.
The pitching that the Braves went through this series and through last year’s NLDS was top of the line good. The Braves matched the pitching and, while they did get robbed on quite a few plays (here’s looking at you Buster Posey), just failed to get the same timely hits that the Giants did. Their batting lineup may leave much to be desired, but it’s not like they needed much more than Cody ‘fucking’ Ross playing 50x over his head for a two to three week period.
You see teams like that all the time. Look at any number of Marlins teams, the ’06 Cardinals and the ’07 Rockies (who swept their way to the WS, getting swept there). The playoffs, unlike the regular season, key in to getting hot at the right time. If it was all about being the regular season champs, the Braves of the 90s would have won many more WS titles than they did.
ultimately, we could probably do a whole thread on things, but as a whole, there are clusters of comments and decisions that Fredi has made that really are concerning. Yes chipper could have made a play that would have made ascencio’s inning different…however, it was obvious that his pitches were NOT missing bats or hitting their spots on the corners. I ABSOLUTELY respect the need to preserve Venters and Kimbrel, and I get the need to see “what you have” in acencio in a relatively lower leverage situation. That said, he walked Miguel Tejada……i think at that point that was all we needed to know.
As I said, this is probably a different topic, but my guess is that more often than not, we are going to be frustrated by Fredi as time progresses. Yes, I respect the way Cox’s stewardship of players and the clubhouse and leadership made a difference over 162 games and that apparently, fredi has many of the same positive attributes…..
The Padres are just the team the Braves want to see after two tough series against SF and LAD. The Pads only scored 3 runs in 4 games against the Phillies and sport the lowest batting average, runs scored, and slugging percentage.
I look forward to it.
I’m looking to forward to the Padres as well. Hooefully Jair can contain them, and doesn’t have a repeat of his early season start against them from last year.
Best game of the year to watch I think. Beyond frustrating that Ascencio was out there that long. And you’re INSANE if you think Chipper should have/could have made a play on Burrell’s dribbler. But all such nitpicks aside, it’s just nice to see the guys put good at bats together again. Especially Heyward, who has been the biggest offensive hole so far this season.
You get the feeling we’ll be fighting the Giants/Rockies for the wildcard at this point.
@36 John
Oh I understand that the MLB playoffs can be a crap shoot when it’s all said and done. It’s just that you would hope the team that wins the World Series would have some semblance of a Major League quality lineup, and that your best offensive player wouldn’t be a dough-faced rookie you called up 2 months into the season.
In my 28 years of living the Giants are the worst team that I can remember winning it all. The ’06 Cardinals while not great, at least had Carpenter leading the staff and Pujols, who by himself, practically makes an offense.
Mustache Hater,
I think you’re forgetting the real leader of the ’06 Cardinals: David “Gritheart” Eckstein.
That pitching staff was pretty goddamn solid top to bottom, and the offense was just enough to score a few runs more a game than the opposition, however meek it was. Too bad the 90s Braves couldn’t string together those hits.
I think CAC noted this in an earlier post, but yikes, the bullpen is shallow with Moylan out and Kimbrel unavailable. Asencio has no business pitching in a high-leverage situation in the 7th, but what were the alternatives?
I would have let Sherrill face Schierholtz and followed up with Linebrink. I’m not sure what Fredi was saving Sherrill for. Having EOF go 2 innings (with 4 righties, including Posey, in a row) was also playing with fire.
@39 Chopaholic
I have to be honest, I still see us fighting for the NL East title. This season is just starting and some bats are just coming around. It is way to early to think we will be fighting for the wild card, this team can win the division.
Asencio really does have business pitching in that situation. If Burrell hits that ball *harder* it’s an easy double play and the inning is over. As I mentioned previously, bad appearances will happen, especially against solid hitters early in a pitcher’s career. Just as Fredi should not use this start to sour his opinion on Asencio, I do not think the fans should either.
I can’t think of a good reason to let Asencio stay in the game after he walked in a run. I get that the first couple of hits were unlucky, but the kid completely imploded after that. It was pretty clear that he got rattled, and it may well end up doing more harm than good not to give him a short leash early on.
Ultimately, though, I hope he gets another shot or two in high leverage situations. I just think Fredi should have yanked him after walking in a run.
I agree completely. He should have been removed, there’s not much of an argument to be made against that.
No chance Chipper couldve made a play on that slow grounder. Zimmerman on his best day couldnt have done anything with that one.
Great comeback, huge AB by McLouth there in the 10th