Oh, you want me to write something about that?
Huascar Ynoa really struggled. Trevor Williams did not. Willson Contreras hit two home runs, as did Kris Bryant. The Cubs as a team hit six home runs, and Chicago evened the series with a 13-4 win.
Sean Kazmar Jr. also appeared in his first MLB game since 2008 with his pinch-hitting appearance in the fifth, so not all was lost on Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field.
But honestly? That’s pretty much it. Not all 162 games need a thick layer of nuance attached. The Braves got whacked, as will happen now and then in a 162-game grind.
Positives:
- Sean Kazmar Jr. is really the only one here. He pinch hit for Huascar Ynoa in the fifth for his first appearance in the majors in 4,589 days. That is not only clearly the best thing to come from today’s game, it will end up being one of the best moments of this season. That amount of perseverance and dedication is beyond admirable, and it was incredible to see him get to take an at-bat at Wrigley Field today as one shining light in the middle of a disastrous game.
Negative:
- Right, the disastrous parts. I guess we’ll start with Huascar Ynoa finally regressing to the mean today. His command was not nearly as sharp as it was on Monday against Miami or last Wednesday in Washington. He was missing his spots all afternoon, and missing with the fastball a lot especially. And when you’re a two-pitch pitcher who can’t establish one of his pitches, that’s big trouble the second time through the order. His day fell apart right there in the third inning, punctuated when Javier Baez sat on a first-pitch slider and blasted it out to left field for a three-run homer.
- The relievers in this game were very much the mop-up brigade, but they still didn’t inspire any confidence about bullpen depth. Jesse Biddle’s return to Atlanta was a grease fire in every way, and Jacob Webb didn’t fare much better.
- That lack of bullpen depth is even more important with the latest injury news that Sean Newcomb will be down for….a period of time. We don’t have any specifics on what is wrong or how long it will be wrong for, but he has been one of the better bullpen arms for Atlanta outside of a bad inning in Philadelphia.
- Another start without a hit for Austin Riley. He did pick up an RBI on a sacrifice fly in the seventh, but he still doesn’t exactly look close to busting out of this slump. All of the progress he made towards the end of last season seems to have eroded back into what the end of 2019 looked like.
- The streaks of four are dead. Long live the streaks of four.
- The Braves might have just breathed some life into a team they’re going to have to play five more teams before the end of the month. Baseball is weird and momentum can start from anywhere. That loss could end up being more than one loss if this offensive outburst ends up being the thing that gets the Cubs going.
Former Brave Of The Day:
Adam Duvall. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, he kept raking tonight in Miami with an RBI triple in the first inning.
Quote Of The Game:
“You know they’re not going to lose 162 consecutive games.â€
— Harry Caray
Tomorrow’s Goal:
Alright, this didn’t work yesterday when I said it with Newcomb going to the IL, so let’s try this again. Say it with me everybody. No. More. Injuries.
Thanks, Alan. I turned it off at 11-0, so the way I look at it, we’ve outscored them since then.
Thanks, Alan. Much better recap than the game.
But as per @1, momentum is on our side heading into tonight’s game.
FWIW, I’m at Fenway today and what a grand ‘ol yard.
Trevor Williams did not look all that great. In the first couple of innings, the Braves gave him several breaks and then the game was over. The Braves gave a struggling pitcher a way out of his struggles.
For the second time in four games the Braves took an offense that was struggling to the extreme and allowed them to score more than 10 runs. Unless something about the pitching turns around, I’m going to start agreeing with Chief that this may be no more than a .500 team.
I am really hoping Bryse shows out well this evening. Maybe, eventually, between Morton, Soroka, Fried, Wright, Wilson, Ynoa and maybe Smyly, we can extract 5 decent pitchers. Or at least 4. And we are not going anywhere without a decent shutdown reliever that’s right handed.
Just saw Charlie C starting for the Rangers against the O’s today. I miss Charlie C. He has a.533 slugging percentage so far.
Has Ozuna looked better the last couple days? He’s had a couple decent days at the office — 3-5 on Friday, 1-4 with a two-run single and a walk yesterday. I’d love to think he might be on the upswing.
The bottom half of the lineup tonight…oof.
And Kazmar’s GIDP didn’t even get him on the list of longest time between GIDPs for a position player since he didn’t hit into one in 2008. I expect his best bet to set a record is if he hits a double, since he did hit one of those in 2008.
Dingers!
Please ignore @6
OMG!!!! 4 HRs in the FIRST inning. Glad to see Heredia get involved….. lol
Braves turn for a big hitting game.
This is awesome to see all the 1st inning homers and the 6 runs but we better not let up. With homers by Adrianza and Heredia, I get the feeling that this could be one of those extremely high scoring Wrigley field games.
So Sandoval, Adrianza, and Heredia have as many homers as Ozuna, D’Arnaud, Albies, and Swanson. Just what I predicted.
This will be a 7 hour game.
Riley is not a MLB player. Move on.
Okay look. The fact that Freddie has negative dWAR value is just outrageous. An absolute injustice.
That’s Acuña’s only weakness… similarly to Mantle. Always going to be nicked.
Doooooomed
This is one of “those years.”
I really hope Acuna’s injury is not the dreaded sports hernia.
I would have had abdominal muscle soreness my entire life if I only had something resembling abdominal muscles.
Feels like Ozuna is coming out of it.
Classic take by me @6.
Heredia is set to win comeback player of the century if he keeps up this pace
Recent events have persuaded me that I ought to find out who the hell he is.
Have a night, Guillermo!
I like A-Rod as an announcer much more than I did as a player.
Prayers for Ron.
@22 Probably the best 6-7-8 performance we’ll get all year. 🙂
The Luke Jackson Experience
@25 It’s almost like he’s going out of his way to be likeable as an announcer, which makes you wonder why he even cares.
What a stupid move to take Wilson out after 69 pitches and a 10 run lead. Why can’t he at least go 6?
It’s hard for me to believe that a 5 inning, 3 run, 1K performance looks so good to me right now.
I missed it. Can someone describe what happened to Ronny?
Ah, the Luke Jackson experience. Only appropriate in a 10-run game, but still too much.
I’m with you Roger, I don’t understand pulling Wilson after 69 pitches. Unless he was feeling tired, now was the perfect time to give the bullpen a bit of a rest.
Luke Jackson wants to become the first pitcher with both an ERA below 2 and a WHIP above 2.
@ #30
Acuña appeared to have strained an abdominal muscle while diving back to first base. His injury was probably aggravated a short while thereafter when he dove headfirst into home to score.
With the tight-rope act he puts himself through, Luke is going to look 60 before he turns 30. I joked the other day about it, but it’s true: his pitching philosophy is he’ll throw enough sliders until he gets 3 outs or dies trying. I don’t know if Kranitz has in-depth conversations with the way pitchers attack hitters, but I’d think it goes a little like this:
Kranitz: Hey, you’re really stressing us all out unnecessarily. Walt can’t handle it. He has to go to the clubhouse when you come in the game. Wash basically spends the entire inning cursing at you. Do you think you could attack the strike zone a little better and avoid all of this?
Luke: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/aecfb4d0-7b0e-49f0-b724-e2cc67136f43
@32: 263 pitchers have had seasons with ERA’s below 2 and WHIPs above 2. However, none of them pitched more than 9 innings in their whole season. https://stathead.com/tiny/AYOP5
Glancing at the list, many are position players: Charlie Culberson and Terry Blocker, for example.
But Preston Hanna did it for the Braves in 1975, his rookie season.
Also, I know Yarns haven’t quite taken off as an internet thing, but I think they’re better than GIFs, and we can’t even use GIFs on this site. So sue me.
@33 Thanks Remy.
From what I saw with Acuna it looked like he hurt his side diving back to 1st base. He seemed to be in pain and the trainer came to check on him sliding into 2nd base but he stayed in the game. He was slow getting up after sliding into home and they pulled him after that.
Rob, you’re the only guy I know who posts Yarns — what do you like about them, and why are they better than GIFs?
@38 I feel like GIFs don’t always capture the non-verbal parts of a TV or movie quote that usually add to the humor of the moment. Now that they embed into iMessage, I use Yarns constantly. If someone can’t listen, you at least have an image from the Yarn and the quote in the headline, which is basically a GIF anyway. We are way past due to have a Yarn keyboard on messaging apps.
I could tell you that Yarns are the way of the future, but it’s probably going to sound like how Dippin’ Dots were supposed to be the way of the future and weren’t. We’re going to be here 5 years from now, and I’ll still be trying to make fetch happen.
Having 2 days off in the next 4 days feels like divine providence with the amount of injuries we have.
@40
Still, should Matzek be in the 9th in a 13-4 game? What the heck?
Recapped.