Tuesday, June 07, 2005 |
Blowing Smoltz: Angels 4, Braves 2
For the Braves, it's pretty simple: good pitching and bad hitting. Well, that and bad health. ... You might say Atlanta's 4.47 runs/game isn't terrible, but consider that the Braves have scored 255 runs with a .712 team OPS while allowing 215 runs on an opposing OPS of .727. Something tells me that if they continue to allow a higher OPS than they produce themselves, they won't keep outscoring teams by 0.70 runs per game.John Schuerholz, as close to Branch Rickey in his ability to assemble winning teams seeming two or five steps beyond the reach of the other guy, has finally met his match this season, or so says the early results. The Braves are barely over .500, unusual for a team that hasn't looked up at the rest of the division in thirteen years; is fourteen the charm for the Phillies? It's hard to say, given that the top and bottom are separated by only a game and a half, and every team has a winning record. Call it the kind of parity Selig has dreamed of for years.-- Ben Jacobs, Hardball Times
Smoltz was brilliant through four and then gave up the second-highest number of hits in a single game in his career. With the Braves lineup a thing of shreds and patches thanks to their extensive injury list (including the now-15-day-DL'd Chipper Jones), Erstad's home plate collision with Braves catcher Johnny Estrada added salt to an already very open wound. Some of the Braves players were rather vocal about the necessity of Erstad's tackle:
"I don't mind the hit, I mind the location of the hit," Julio Franco said. "Hitting a guy in the face like that could cause a lot of major damage."Erstad was quoted in that story to say "I just hope he's OK", but reviewing the video of the situation, it was clear that, in order to score, Erstad had to get the ball out of Estrada's hands, and the easiest way to do that was to just hit his glove shoulder as hard as possible. The Angels won, but it wasn't a moment to be proud of, and especially if Estrada ends up on the DL. Regardless of whether it means the Braves will have to hit without an ersatz cleanup man in the lineup (Estrada batted fourth today), Erstad's actions to me seemed excessive....
"It all depends what you call clean," Franco said. "I thought he could have slid clean. But I've played against Erstad and his mentality isn't my mentality. He plays the game like a football player. ... He had a clean plate. But that's the way he plays the game."
Otherwise: Anderson's heating up at a good time. Kennedy and Cabrera seem to be warming up, also, and McPherson, while not exactly tearing it up, isn't stinking it up too badly, either. Likewise for Finley, who at least is 1-4 in today's game.
How many times have we seen B Mo get killed? There was that collision with Dye and the play in Minnesota that broke his wrist. I didn't complain back then.
: 6/07/2005 07:31:00 AMBallplayers get paid the money they do to play that hard. Good hit.
: 6/07/2005 08:06:00 AM : 6/07/2005 08:52:00 AMNewer› ‹Older
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