5/25 News, Links, Discussion: Home Sweet Home
May 25, 2012 at 2:34 pm by Kevin Orris under Atlanta Braves
Back on Track
After dropping four straight in Cincinnati, the Braves look to get back on track tonight against the Washington Nationals. With a series win this weekend, Atlanta would reclaim first place in the NL East.
Ross Detwiler will oppose Tim Hudson in his fourth career start against Atlanta. In 19.1 career innings against the Braves, Detwiler has posted a 3.26 ERA and a 1.500 WHIP. The St. Louis, Mo. native relies predominantly on a low-90′s sinker mixed with a four-seam fastball, curveball and changeup.
Chipper Jones pinch hit in Wednesday’s game but did not appear yesterday. He remains day-to-day.
Brian McCann has been scratched from the lineup the past three days due to an illness. He remains day-to-day.
More Links
Update (5:30 p.m.): ESPN Stats and Info wrote about Tim Hudson’s dominance and the upcoming series today. Thanks to Harris K. for the heads up.
Update (4:30): Sam Fuld joined the FanGraphs Audio crew to talk about his experience working sabermetrics into the Tampa Bay Rays vs. Atlanta Braves broadcast last Sunday. We had a live chat during that game and many folks really seemed to enjoy the broadcast. Thanks to Harris K. for the heads up.
Update (4:00 p.m.): Jayson Stark writes for ESPN.com about Kris Medlen potentially moving to the starting rotation at some point this season. Here’s a quick excerpt: “We have a guy internally who’s probably better than any arm who will be available, and that’s Kris Medlen. He’s never thrown over 120 innings in a season, so we’ve got to be careful with his innings. But if we feel we need a guy late in the season, we wouldn’t be afraid to take him out of the bullpen and transition him into the rotation.” Thanks to reader Jacob Z. for the heads up.
Kevin Goheen of MLB.com wrote about the Cincinnati Reds tribute to Chipper Jones prior to yesterday’s game.
Mark Bowman of MLB.com wrote about the upcoming series with Washington, Jason Heyward’s struggles and Michael Bourn’s recent power surge.
I contributed to ESPN.com’s Triple Play preview for the upcoming weekend.
Ex-Brave Nate McLouth has been DFA’d by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Ben is in Vegas and David is at his brother’s wedding all weekend so the daily posts are my responsibility. I encourage you to send any links my way @kevinorris or at kevinorris@capitolavenueclub.com. I will do my best to update this post throughout the day.
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Lets hope some home cooking causes a breakout by the bats!
My comment is direct, clear and to the point. Do the Braves stay the course, ride out the slump(s) storm or make some moves to shake up the chemistry and outcome of games at this point in time? Given the financial constraints, perhaps there’s no other choice than the first option but getting creative with money issues is what good GMs find a way to do when it’s apparent to them that their current team, as constituted, is not one to get them to the post season. I believe Frank Wren is a good GM.
What would you do at this juncture? I’d sooner ride the tide with the current starters, and look around for options to put another reliable OF or 3B bat in the lineup. By reliable, I mean a 20-25 HR guy, decent fielder and with a real expectation of posting a .825+ OPS. I know. Those guys don’t exactly grow on trees but the current roster guys with some exceptions, don’t stir the blood of the faithful either.
I disagree. I think the team, as it sits, is good enough to get to the playoffs (which means they’re good enough to win the WS, since anything can happen once you get in). They have been playing a very tough stretch of the schedule, with substantially more road games than homes games under their belt, and long stretches without an off day. I feel confident that once Chipper and McCann return to the lineup, along with hopefully fixing whatever is wrong with Freeman’s vision, the offense will return to the form that had them second in the NL in runs scored. The only move I would consider is for a starting pitcher, although I would agree with Wren’s sentiments that we have a capable replacement sitting in the bullpen right now in Medlen. This team is probably unlikely to win 100 games, but apart from the Texas Rangers I don’t see any team doing that this year (although the Dodgers have certainly placed themselves in good position to make a run at it).
Oh the 100 win mark.. do you guys remember the days when the Braves were winning 100+ every year? Man that was fun!
It helped that the phillies, expos and marlins were awful for most of that run.
Don’t intend to nitpick here, but is anyone else just thoroughly as unimpressed with Juan Francisco as I am? I’m not very well-knowledged in the ways of hitting, but how can his approach (going from a closed stance to completely opening up and swinging his entire body at the ball) be profitable? Is this an issue that he’s always had (if so, why don’t hitting coaches address this first) or just a current slump-associated flaw?
I’m really hoping there isn’t a lot of truth to him being the 3rd baseman of the future.
Cool start to the game.
utter garbage to start the game, and what a terrible attempt to get at least a run on the board to begin a fightback. Could be a long night.
I’m not going fair weather fan or anything, but Frediot made some dumb comment in spring training about moving the lineup around continually all season to keep things fresh. Well, Freeman has had a pretty bad 2 weeks and an absolutely awful last 5 days hitting an even .100 / .100 / .100 . Where’s the liquid lineup, Fredi? HUH??
, it might more about enjoying tewrmoak, comradership in the face of an ultimate challenge.However, I’m really precautious when it comes to films that are just like anime . I just don’t think this kind of aesthetics and drama patterns work in a movie. I’ve tried watching some live shows made after famous anime series and found myself disgusted by the melodramatic scenes, by the ridiculousness of actually voicing the characters’ thoughts, by the bluntness of the dialogue, features which otherwise would not seem out of place in an anime.
Frediot needs to go. He has to be one of the worst managers I have ever seen. He never takes his starter before the meltdown inning.
Except when he does, which he was criticized for doing too much last year.
We can’t play in a small park, we can’t play in a regular park. We can’t hit bad pitchers, we can’t hit good pitchers. We can’t get bad hitters out, we can’t get good hitters out.
Other than that, excellent showing this week!
At least Diaz is proving us wrong so far! As for the rest, they appear to want to remind us of last years late season struggles, this combined with the fact that anything that could go wrong will go wrong is making this 5 days very hard to watch.We can’t blame injuries against the Nats as they are missing more than we are. And who would you want up today to end the slump? Mike Minor against their ace! It would appear to most that we are going to extend this slump to 6 but Minor could not have a better time to boost himself and the whole team. Go Braves!! Please! And if Freeman can’t see properly as they keep rolling out every awful at bat then rest him and sort it out ffs.
Yeah, its almost funny between Prado and Diaz playing above what any of us thought and Livan has been a beast innings eater and would be a top 5 starter for us if we started him.
WTF happened to this team?
(I know I know, the sky is falling since we lost 5 in a row)
Hey guys — not sure if we’re going to have a Daily News / Notes post today. My mouse is broken and won’t let me click on anything. My apologies if we aren’t able to get one up.
Perhaps that is a sign Kevin? Don’t do it and see what response the braves have later?
I don’t believe my eyes, how many more times do we have to see this? The kid is going to be mentally scarred for life if they keep rolling him out.
Another night of kicking the dog, that was just poor, Minor falls adrift again but to his credit stopped the tide at 4, hard work to get to level pegging against a top quality pitcher but then Medlen and Jonny screw up again accompanied by the recent trend of bad karma with most plays and its all thrown away. If you are putting Strasburg out of the game in the 5th with 4 runs against his name and yet you still get nailed then something is not right. A lot of things are suddenly looking very suspect and the majority are based on the pitching, both front end and back end. I hope the regression to the norm on some of these figures comes soon or we are going to have thrown away a lot of early hard work.
I’m not worried. Every team goes through stretches like this where everything ends up going wrong. Better to get this over with now than to have to deal with it in August and September like last season. Today was only the Braves 48th game of the season. They are only 3 games behind with 114 games left. Things will be fine!
To my mind, what this losing streak demonstrates just how lacking in depth the talent base is when it comes to offensive players. Freeman is having vision problems and Eric Hinske comes in at first. Chipper is hurt and that means either he is replaced by Francisco, or Prado moves to third and Diaz takes over in left field. Neither inspires confidence. Ross is hurt and they have to bring up a guy from AAA who wasn’t even hitting .200 there. That’s pretty weak.
Anyone else think that Bryce Harper is everything we hopped Heyward would be? That “double” due to Heyward’s lack of hustle on Saturday was just pathetic.
See directions to DOB Blog: http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/
here’s a fire fredi petition
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-atlanta-braves-fire-fredi-gonzalez#
Braves are a fucking dumpster fire right now.
Jason Heyward sucks.
You are a human garbage can. Get fucked, you fucking fair weather shitbag.
Only 1.4 WAR so far this season, you rancid AJC turd.
This is a team that can drive you crazy if you let them, but it’s still just a 7 game stretch.
I don’t see a lot to be worried about that cannot be worked out.
sometimes there are so many jackasses around that even AJC blog isn’t able to fulfill all of them.
Talking seriously, my concerns are not on pitching or batting but are on managing.
NL East is a very close race this year that small mistakes will make big differences. And FW and Frediot are keeping on doing the same errors (just see how they build up and manage the BP for example) as last year.
It doesn’t help that the bullpen has regressed from last year. It’s almost like Venters needs to pitch more often.
At the game last night, not sure why everyone was booing so much. I hate losing too, but I’m not really the kind of guy that boo’s his own team. I know a lot of that was directed at Livan, but he’s actually had a decent year for us (except last night).
And what was up with booing Harper? I know he’s a cocky beeotch, but did I miss something? Everybody really hates that kid, yet he plays harder than anyone out there. I thought fans appreciated hustle.
Anyway, it can’t get much worse than this past week. Here’s to us turning it around.
I think a lot of the booing with him has to be jealousy based. I suspect that he is a bit personality-impaired (iow, a bit of a jerk), but he’s done nothing on the field except play the game hard and play it the right way. People booing him are just showing their own ignorance (under other Harper-related ignorant jerks, see also Hamels, Cole)
And yes, to the person who mentioned it above, Harper is what I thought we were getting with Jason Heyward. The league will adjust to him, of course, the 2nd time through, but I’m guessing Harper will adjust and be just fine. I’m beginning to wonder if Jason ever will, sad to say.
Does that mean Trout is what the Nats thought they were getting with Harper?
Trout is great, too. Hmmm…I’m not sure I’d take him over Harper, though. Be a nice choice for a team to have to make, though.