Game 115: Padres 4, Braves 1
August 14, 2012 at 12:57 am by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Source: FanGraphs
Game MVP: Eric Stults, 68 game score
Least Valuable Padre: Nick Hundley, -.090
Most Valuable Brave: Jason Heyward, .014
Least Valuable Brave: Offense
Big plays:
2nd – (SD) Cameron Maybin sac fly RBI for 1-0 Padres lead, .031
5th – (SD) Chase Headley RBI single for 2-0 Padres lead, .023
6th – (SD) Yonder Alonso RBI single for 3-0 Padres lead, .025
7th – (SD) Headley solo homer for 4-0 Padres lead, .045
8th – (ATL) Martin Prado RBI triple for 4-1 Padres lead, .029
The Braves fell victim to the curse of the soft-tossing left-hander again, as Eric Stults allowed one run on five hits in seven-plus innings. While Stults pitched very well, he also benefited from a .192 BABIP as the Braves managed six line drives off him. Stults induced eight ground balls to 12 fly balls along with two infield fly balls – both from Dan Uggla, which is not a good sign.
Mike Minor, on the other hand, gave up a ton of hits and three runs as a result. He maintained good control, avoiding any walks and throwing 57 strikes, but he left a lot of pitches up and over the plate, especially his breaking stuff. I think Minor was fortunate he wasn’t facing a more potent offense tonight.
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For whatever luck he had in facing a “soft hitting” offense, at least 3 or 4 of the hits Minor gave up were just out of the reach of defenders or fielded poorly. Chipper fielded that first base hit poorly, Janish had at least 2 that barely squeaked by him that weren’t overly hard hit balls and Freeman had one that was just out of his reach while drawn in covering the bag.
Didn’t get to watch the game, but I know we play like 35 games in 20 days…Is there a reason that Reed Jnsn didn’t start ag the lefty?? I know it doesn’t seem smart to sit Brn, Heywrd, and Uggla has terr numbers ag lefties i thought I heard, but with all these games coming up people are going to have to sit sometime right?? When I saw we were facing a lefty, I just assumed R Jhnsn would start. Terrible sentence structure I know…havent slept in awhile.
I agree, it could have been worse.
Outs on first pitch of th AB…. Glad Fredi realized it to (per post game quotes). We just didn’t make adjustments offensively with the exception of Prado
Another reminder of just how terrible our offense is against a soft-throwing lefty. I’m really hoping the Pirates/Dodgers/Giants aren’t watching these games. If they are, we can almost bet on facing a softie in a potential Wild-card playoff…
A lot of the problem the Braves have is that Uggla just isn’t the lefty-killer that he was brought in to be. He was supposed to be the guy that would balance out the lineup. Even when he is hitting well, he doesn’t seem to be especially good against lefties.