Game 136: Rockies 6, Braves 0
September 4, 2012 at 10:50 pm by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Source: FanGraphs
Game MVP: Carlos Gonzalez, .150
Least Valuable Rockie: Josh Rutledge, -.071
Most Valuable Brave: Jason Heyward, .095
Least Valuable Brave: Martin Prado, -.109
Big plays:
4th – (COL) Carlos Gonzalez solo homer for a 1-0 Rockies lead, .149
5th – (COL) Jordan Pacheco solo homer for a 2-0 Rockies lead, .121
Tommy Hanson didn’t pitch poorly, allowing just two solo home runs while walking two and striking out eight over 5.2 innings. The downsides of Hanson’s start were those two home run pitches were flat and ugly, he still managed to give up a lot of hard hit fly balls and line drives, and he couldn’t finish strong. But if you’re looking for seven strong innings from Hanson these days, you’re going to be disappointed.
Drew Pomeranz had a .455 BABIP allowed over three innings, including two infield hits and a bunt hit. He managed to pitch three scoreless frames with 72 pitches, as the Braves left runners in scoring position in every inning he pitched. The Braves also put runners in scoring position in the fourth and sixth with nothing to show for it.
Jason Heyward, Chipper Jones and David Ross each had two hits. Ross had the lone extra base hit for the Braves, a double in the fourth.
The Nationals beat the Cubs 11-5, giving them a 7.5 game lead over the Braves.
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Is there any good reason to keep Hanson in the rotation, or in the bullpen for that matter?
The real question to me, isn’t Hanson, it’s our inability to drive in runs sometimes. It’s become almost pathological . They either score 6 or more, or damn near get shut out.
They never seem to just have a day where they go 3-9 with RISP, it’s either 6-8 or 0-13
They hit a ton of line drives right at people in this game though. It’s not like they aren’t hitting the ball well.
As a west-coaster who never gets to see the games, I can’t help thinking, based on the stat lines, that Hanson is part of the problem, not part of the solution….maybe I’m wrong, but the few games that I have seen, Hanson’s delivery has looked…what’s the right word…oh, yes…”anguished”….that’s the word I was looking for…
Right now Hanson is by no means a great pitcher, but his past couple of starts have been winnable. The rest of the team just forgets how to go.around the bases when he pitches.
These guys are so streaky that it’s driving me crazy, and I don’t think the offense is there to do anything beyond September with Uggla and McCann providing nothing. Johnson and Cantstandza are replacement level at best. Maybe Andrelton will produce like he had been, but who knows. I wonder which soft, shit tossin lefty is going to beat us in the tie breaker.
The lefty comment made me laugh!
Even yesterday’s win was on absolitely horrid offense, yeah we scored 6 runs but it was on only two hits, which were thankfully the RISP variety, after that we had no offense.
Not sure what you can do when you can’t score and can’t find a formula that can score. Not sure what it is about our guys that they fall flat in September. I kinda wish Tommy would go ahead now and have surgery just to shorten the recovery time.
Anyone notice that Fredi is playing sir mix a lot with the lineup? Granted Heyward had a rough patch, but to pull Prado and him out of the top of the order in all this crazy shuffling he is doing, does not give me confidence. He is trying to keep his job. Last year he did nothing, so this year he is going to do everything he can to mix things up? We got to this point of the season for a reason and the leaders of the club have made themselves known. Why once September comes does he throw all that out the window and play the ‘hot hand’, but only look the past couple of days for that hot hand. The way this is going Constanza will be an MLB’er the rest of his career and our key players will lost time for minor slumps.
Completely agree. The man is so obtuse that he goes with the polar opposite yet equally ridiculous strategy from the year before.
I’ve gained a lot of respect for Wren this year, so I can only hope that he is taking note of this to build his case to can him if things go south and actually have a managerial search this time.
I don’t understand dropping Prado in the order, but I think dropping Heyward in the order against a lefty starter is a good idea. Heyward’s lefty/righty splits:
AVG/OBP/SLG
.224/.279/.361 vs. lefties
.308/.386/.587 vs. righties
wOBA
.280 vs. lefties
.411 vs righties
wRC+
73 vs. lefties
162 vs. righties
As you can see, Heyward’s been much more effective this year against righties. Now, I don’t want him out of the lineup against lefties because he’s young and it’s too soon to say he can’t hit lefties (heck, in his rookie season just 2 years ago he put up a .341/111 wOBA/wRC+ season against lefties), but I’m fine with dropping him in the order against lefties.
I agree. I don’t see why there is all this commotion when Heyward is dropped down against lefties. He’s a completely different player against lefties.
My problem was doing it yesterday against the Rockies lefty starter. The Rockies only let their starters go for 75 pitches and given the quality of those starters (they are using a 4 man rotation) they go about 4 innings (Pomerantz went 3 yesterday). Moving Heyward down because of a pitcher who would go less than half the game was not a strategically sound move.
Extremely frustrating game. That pitch Pacheco sent out was horrendous. It looked like Ross was setting up high, but it was a breaking ball, so I’m not sure why you’d want to throw that high, ever. That’s just a bad call to make behind the plate when Hanson is on the mound.
But, we didn’t score a run so it didn’t matter anyways! It’s really difficult watching all the automatic outs in the Braves’ lineup. Janish, Constanza, Johnson against righties. I don’t see Baker as a guy that will regularly come through. It’s just too hard to score runs when rally killers are turning run scoring situations into easy outs. Still, if they can hit the ball on the ground or into the outfield, it will be better than the infield fly machine, Dan Uggla.
Toyota Keys to Success vs Braves
– Be left-handed
I’d go so far to say that’s a Coors Light Cold Hard Fact. Which is unfortunate, because I hate Coors Light.
Say it ain’t so!
More lefties=More Reed Johnson and less George. Almost worth seeing lots of lefties. Maybe we’ll figure them out along the way, too. Who knows.
It may be against general opinion but I would still rather see uggla and big Mac out there in the run in despite the terrible recent form, George Lopez is a joke and should never be near a MLB field. I am masons biggest critic as well but show me anyone who can win when the offense is so lackluster? It’s going to be close if we hang on to the wild card and even then it’s a lottery, let’s hope the fat controller is feeling lucky with his feel for the game!
@Zerg539
Actually, Hanson has gotten huge run support on several occasions this season – the first Chioper miracle comeback game against the Phillies that we won 15-13, as well as the miracle comeback win against Strasburg and the Nats where we won after trailing 9-0, were both games that Hanson started in which he got shelled early. There was also a slugfest win against the Yankees that Hanson won something like 8-6. Hanson has gotten a ton of run support this season. Mike Minor is the Braves’ starter with a legitimate beef about run support.
Don’t forget about the time he walked 7 Marlins in 5 innings and somehow only gave up one run. We won the game 7-1, but I’m surprised 7 runs ended up being enough.
It was his uncanny ability to hold those runners at first base once he walked them in that game……………. #sarcasm
The thought process behind Dropping Martin in the line up is that he crushes lefties at least for avg and could potentially bat in the Chippers and Fredi’s that get on base all the time and never seem to touch home. I’m not as concerned about not hitting in RISP situations as I think most of you are. We are gettin the hits we are just not getting lucky which is exactly what happened in late May when we had our worst slide of the season. I think the addition of Simmons back into the lineup adds one more contact bat, especially against lefties, and really we will start to see those big offensive outings that we were having through the summer.
I never knew posting on ESPN message boards using all caps could be so much fun. I feel slightly dumber now, though.
Nothing for last night’s game yet, but… have to give Frediot some credit for finally doing this.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all year,” Kimbrel said of his four-out appearance. “It’s definitely a little different. It’s definitely something I want to do again.”