5/4 News, Links, Discussion: Braves-Rockies, NL East Briefs
May 4, 2012 at 12:30 pm by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Back on the Road
The Braves finished a close series with a disappointing 4-0 loss to the Phillies on Thursday. They turned around and hit the road for Colorado to begin a three-game series against the Rockies tonight at 8:40 on Peachtree TV and Fox Sports South. Tim Hudson faces Guillermo Moscoso.
More Links
Eric Karabell gives us his latest bits featuring Bryce Harper and Joe Blanton (Insider required).
Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer asks whether there is concern over Roy Halladay’s drop in velocity. I touched on this a little on the news thread for the day he pitched, saying he’s using his cutter and off-speed more, which could be a sign of an attempt to offset the lack of velocity. Velocity drops are something I don’t speculate on, though, because only the pitcher knows, and sometimes even he doesn’t.
Tim Brown of Yahoo posts his power rankings and has the Braves at No. 7.
And, of course, the big news from Thursday was Mariano Rivera’s torn ACL while shagging fly balls during batting practice. My one thought while reading reactions to this horrible news is that those who question pitchers shagging fly balls during BP should stop and think how often it is done every day and how often an injury actually occurs. Questioning the practice is the ultimate knee-jerk reaction. I wrote on Twitter that preventing pitchers from shagging balls is the equivalent of preventing a pitcher from riding a bicycle. Rivera’s injury is just terrible luck.
With it being a day game on Thursday, I updated the previous news thread to include all news from yesterday. So if you’re looking for the usual links that are found from the previous day, check out that link.
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Check back throughout the day for the latest news and discussion updated on this post.
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Yankees fans are going berzerk up here in NYC. Mo shagging fly balls is not equivalent of, say, Rapelisberger riding his motorcycle with no helmet. Nor does it have the mild comedic angle of Joba nearly dying from falling off a trampoline. I think Mo will be back.
Can you guys see any potential downfall to having a leading 3 batters of Bourn, Prado, Heyward and moving Freddie down in the order?
Bourn should be moved down. His speed is wasted at the top. I’d think about Heyward as lead off as long as he keeps his OBP up.
This may be the only time I’ve ever heard the phrase “His speed is wasted at the top”.
Also why drop a guy that has a 380 obp? Maybe vs lefties, but I doubt Fredi thinks through that much.
Read the required reading section of this blog and you will find out why you don’t waste speed at the top. You load your 3-5 batters with high slugging/OPS batters, which leads to lots of extra base hits. Why do you want a really fast guy in front of someone who hits lots of doubles? Instead, move the fast guys down a little bit and bat them in front of your singles hitters.
Woohoo! Chipper is batting 2nd tonight. That’s a decent development (and temporary since Prado is out of the lineup).
Looks like another frustrating night after that disaster in the first, cannot believe we are losing to this Mojito guy, he couldn’t hit a barn door at 6 paces yet holds a 3 run lead in the 4th. Is Prado just rested or has he a injury?
And if we are down by 3 in the 6th or 7th, I guarantee I will get the call to seal the deal. Just call me Scotty Linedrives apprentice.
Freeman is an enigma to me…somebody do one of those fancy analysis’ of what’s going on. Avg the same, OBP down, power up. Im not complaining, but its weird to me.
Oh happy days!! I can take the night off, barring a stroke of genius from Einstein. This muppet really is the worst pitcher we have seen yet this year. Wish he could pitch to the 8th!
Hopefully someone can tell me why in any baseball world it is a good idea to leave the starting pitcher in for an at-bat in the top of the 7th with the game tied at 7, with a runner on base, bunt three times, and put in a relief pitcher. That is some idiocy of Frediot proportions. Someone please convince me why this is not asinine.
The only possible way this would have made since is there were not outs in the inning, but as I recall there was already one out, so I too did not think this was a wise move.
To the guy talking about Bourn;
Scoring is the main goal. High OBP people get on base more. The fact that Bourn is fast is irrelevant. You want him as a high OBP guy ahead of good hitters as that is more likely to score more runs. The issue in The Book about fast guys ahead of singles hitters is in the issue of multiple terrible hitters. If you have a couple guys who are bad, then put speed ahead of non speed as then you will be able to maximize your return through multiple hits. Putting speed ahead of bad hitters is a bad idea when the speed you are moving down the lineup is the highest OBP on the team.
Tie game in extras on the road – bring on Durbin because bad pitchers make your own offense better, giving your good pitchers a chance to get important things like saves. Wait…
So was Durbin just fooling us for the first month of the season? or is he actually good?