Game 131: Padres 8, Braves 2
August 30, 2012 at 12:59 am by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Source: FanGraphs
Game MVP: Eric Stults, 63 game score
Least Valuable Padre: Everth Cabrera, -.045
Most Valuable Brave: Dan Uggla, .069
Least Valuable Brave: Tommy Hanson, 35 game score
Big plays:
4th – (SD) Logan Forsythe RBI double for 1-0 Padres lead, .144
5th – (ATL) Error put two in scoring position with no outs, .159
5th – (ATL) Tommy Hanson struck out with two in scoring position and no outs, -.083
6th – (ATL) Paul Janish infield popout with bases loaded and two outs, -.078
Tommy Hanson suffered from bad defense and bad luck. He also suffered from the lack of a pitch that can get him out of trouble. Hanson threw almost exclusively fastball/slider, and he received four whiffs on the slider, but he also left several up and over the plate. He lacked fastball command, missing a large chunk of his heaters up and arm side. The result was five line drives allowed and a .444 BABIP with just one infield hit.
The Braves offense suffered from leftyitis again, managing one sac fly run off Eric Stults over six innings.
Loading ...
Tommy Hanson suffered from being Tommy Hanson.
Is Tommy still trying to throw a 2-seamer and is that partly why his velocity is so low? Why not go back to a 4-seamer? He might regain some velocity that way. He’s got to do something, because this isn’t working!
Man Tommy looks terrible. Its too bad, because a few years ago, he was borderline my favorite player. I just hope he doesn’t become this years version of D Lowe, because he looks like an auto-loss every time he pitches right now, and I hope Fredi doesn’t run him out there just because he’s Tommy Hanson.
Tommy was obviously not great, but 2 runs just isn’t going to cut it 9 out of 10 times, no matter who you have on the mound. The padres have a good staff, but 4 runs in 3 games is just unacceptable against a sub 500 team.
They may be a sub .500 team, but they are 27-18 since the All-Star break, only a 1/2 game behind the Braves, who are 28-18 post-All-Star Break. We ran into them when they have been hot. We beat them 3 out of 4 games at home, but they were 6-1 in the seven games preceding the series. In this series, they came in having won 7 straight. Tip yer cap.
Why doesn’t Pastornickey bat for Janish in situations where his bat would be useful?
The Braves had the bases loaded and sent Janish up. Why not PH w/ The Rev? At least give yourself a chance!
Or pinch hit with someone good and replace with pastornicky at the end of the inning. Wastes two players but pinch bitters aren’t any good in the ninth of a 6 run game.
it was a bit of a tricky situation because all the good potential right handed pinch hitters were already in the game because of matchups (Reed & Ross). It would have been nice if Janish didn’t swing at the first pitch, but I wouldn’t expect Pastornicky to be significantly better in that half ininng.
Not pinch-hitting for Janish with the bases loaded was stupid (you had Freddie Freeman on the bench), but allowing Hanson to hit in the top of the fifth was even stupider. He killed the rally in the top half of the inning, and then went out and put the game out of reach in the bottom of the fifth.
You can say that Hanson was unlucky, but I say he was lucky to get to the fourth inning without having been shelled. He has gone down the same path as Derek Lowe and Jair Jurrjens – he has no command and no out pitch, and, every time he starts, it’s just a question of how long he lasts before the inevitable implosion occurs. In the AJC quotes last night, Fredi was taking about “running him out there next time” and hoping he does better. Much the same strategy we employed with Lowe during last season’s collapse. Randall Delgado has had his ups and downs this season, but he would give the Braves a better chance to win down the stretch than Hanson. But that won’t happen, because Hanson has the name and the bigger contract, and Fredi and Frank won’t give up on him.
We were distinctly average – again, combined with it being the worst time to play them as they on their first hot streak of the season. Going to be a long run in, thankfully everyone keeps beating each other in the wild card race but the sooner we seal the deal the better, even if its just for a one game lottery.
Janish missed a nothing pitch right down the middle from Stults. That a cap tip, in my opinion. At some point, these guys have to quit trying to hit it 500 feet against soft-tossing lefties. Someone, please, go up there and just foul stuff off until you walk. Clog up dem bases, as Dusty Baker says.
Janish missed a nothing pitch right down the middle from Stults. That ain’t a cap tip, in my opinion. At some point, these guys have to quit trying to hit it 500 feet against soft-tossing lefties. Someone, please, go up there and just foul stuff off until you walk. Clog up dem bases, as Dusty Baker says.
Delgado > Hanson.
We are currently playing with 2/3 of a team at the plate. Uggs, Janus and the pitcher mean that we lose 3 innings of at bats per game. Another 4-6 out of the next 10 and kiss the playoffs goodbye. Notice how the good teams play better in August and September while we backup.
Braves’ pitchers seem to do a really poor job of getting the bunt down. I’ve been frustrated by this often this year. A quick check of the stats show that the Braves, as a team, are 2nd from the bottom in sacrifice bunts (with 40) this year in the NL. The median number in the NL is 52.
This low number is not a result of Fredi being too smart to give away an out, either. Or at least that’s my perception, having watched almost all of the games this year. In fact, 12 of those 40 were by position players, meaning our pitchers have only 28 sacrifice bunts in 131 games, or one every 4.7 games. Last year, Braves’ pitchers had 41 in 162 games, or 1 every 3.95 games. With a .323 team OBP for 2012 vs a .308 in 2011, you would think the opportunities for pitchers getting a sac bunt would have increased in 2012.
Is there a quick way to check how often the sacrifice bunt gets put down, compared to how many times it’s attempted? I doubt it, but I’m just wondering.