Last night’s game was too late and it apparently involved Luke Jackson coughing up the lead after I went to bed. Whatever. The only thing that really mattered in the game is Ozzie fouled a ball off his kneecap and literally had to be lifted off the field in the air. He was carried off the field with his legs in the air, not touching the ground. It was genuinely horrifying. I wasn’t watching Ronald’s injury, but I was watching this one. He was writhing on the ground for longer than I have the stomach to describe, and then when he got up, he couldn’t put weight on his legs long enough to get off the field under his own steam.
X-rays were negative after the game, apparently, praise be. He’s “day to day,” a phrase whose enormity is boundless, but which probably means that he’ll be back in a couple days unless the doctors change their minds or his leg starts acting up, and I imagine that all of you are as aware as I am that neither of those things would be entirely unprecedented in this here America.
Anyway, Charlie danced out of trouble all night. He ran a super-high pitch count through the first four, but worked much more efficiently in the fifth and sixth and was able to escape with a very impressive line: six pitched, three hits, one run, eight strikeouts against two walks. The Braves got a Joc Pederson homer and a Travis d’Arnaud RBI double against Walker Buehler, which wasn’t bad, but then Blake Treinen and Kenley Jansen came in and faced six batters and struck out five of ’em and that was that, as Luke Jackson gave up one run and Matzek gave up another.
I can’t be too made at Luke and Tyler; they’ve been quite good lately. Our bullpen’s been okay, it’s just thin, especially given the relative unreliability of Smith. After two games against the Dodgers, what your lyin’ eyes are telling you is pretty much exactly right: we’re a good team, and they’re a slightly better team.
As long as the Wizard of Willemstad is okay, I like our odds. He’ll probably take the game off. But after playing nearly every inning of the year, I’d say he’s earned it.
Tonight is Max vs. Max, Fried v. Scherzer, and I like our chances — maybe they’re 55-45 against, but if we get any of the breaks, we could win a nailbiter or win in a walk, like we did in our getaway against the Giants.
By the way, there’s a pretty controversial new album that came out, that a lot of people are noting sounds quite different from the artist’s earlier material. But if you give it a listen, it’s really pretty lovely. You just have to have an open mind.
Not the album you are thinking of, madam! The one I mean is this:
Thanks, Alex, for sending me on a feckless quest to discern the differences between shoegaze, black metal, post-metal, screamo, and a half-dozen other terms. The music is much better than the terminology. I do like the Deafheaven motto, though: “The three rules of any successful band are to write good tunes, be excellent live, and to not be an asshole while doing that.” Change “write good tunes” to “hone your skills” and it works for baseball teams, too.
Particularly good recap today
Yeah, I think Deafheaven used to be blackgaze but at this point they’re essentially post-blackgaze. The terminology is absurd, but I love it tremendously. Here, for example, is a one-man project (like so much black metal!) that combines blackgaze and synthwave: https://abstractvoid.bandcamp.com/album/back-to-reality
It sounds like an ’80s soundtrack with occasional screaming.
Meanwhile, in an incredibly different corner of the universe, here’s a black metal/doom metal hybrid: https://mizmor.bandcamp.com/album/cairn
It is named for the Hebrew word for “song” or “psalm” because it started as a man chronicling his loss of faith in Christianity, but it now is more of an exploratory, extremely heavy metal project.
Thanks Fun Police! Any day I get to nerd out about metal subgenres is an extremely good day.
It’s a small subgenre, and yet there are those who love it.
It is interesting that Tomlin went on the IL for a neck strain. I wonder how invented that injury is and why they needed to invent it.
On another note, I’m not disappointed with the series with the Dodgers so far. I already knew they were better than Atlanta but it’s a lot closer than it was 6 weeks ago, even considering LAs deadline moves. Acuna, a maturing pitching staff that hopefully includes Soroka, and better bullpen pieces will hopefully close the gap even more.
That said, we need a win tonight.
The funny thing about Tomlin is they only backdated it to the 28th or 29th (don’t remember) but he hasn’t pitched since 8/18. They could have backdated his 10 day IL to the 19th and re-activated him at the same time, it’s been so long since we used that roster spot.
Hey, your neck would strain too if you had to turn your head 180 degrees every time someone hit a homer.
Bazinga!
@7 I’m sure they’re aware of that, so I wonder if the league is starting to crack down on certain forms of roster and IL manipulation.
A foreboding headline, but as long as the pubs are only running low on Carling and Coors, I think we’ll be okay. (As a happy attendee of numerous Wetherspoons’s locations — across England, Scotland, and Wales — I was relieved that there did not appear to be any shortages of Doom Bar.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/01/britain-beer-shortage-coronavirus-brexit/
(My love of metal subgenres is rivaled by my love of real ale.)
At least we picked up one more bat for the bench.
With Ozzie being day to day, I guess we had to call up an infielder, but Arcia hasn’t exactly torn it up since he was sent back to the minors. His line is .204/.264 /.347 with 2 homeruns over his last 30 games at Gwinnett.
@12: Theakston Old Peculier!
That’s a wonderful one. Coniston Bluebird Bitter, too!
Jason Kipnis would clearly make more sense for a week, but I guess that doesn’t work because he isn’t on the 40 man? (One day I’m going to have to learn this stuff.)
@11 – Can someone point me in the direction of the nearest ledge?
New thread.
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2021/09/01/braves-try-to-dodge-sweep/