Braves Report

Tonight the Braves are officially, mathematically eliminated from the playoff hunt. I guess that mean we’ll be seeing season recaps, what when wrong and all the like. Well, I don’t really want to go down that road, but I will say, while we didn’t make the playoffs, the team was markedly improved from last year. Which is really all you can ask for.

Smoltz both didn’t have it and had bad luck. The Braves committed 3 errors behind him, without those errors we would have probably won this game, but we will never know. He only managed 4 innings, don’t know why, he seemed to have settled down at that point. In those 4, he allowed 6 runs (5 ERs), 7 hits, 2 BBs, 2 Ks and 2 long balls. That won’t go down as one of his best. The pen was outstanding today. It took 5 pitchers to finish the game, none gave up a run. Mahay pitched an inning, perfectly striking out all three he faced. Can’t get much better. Devine had some control problems, walking 2, but a 1 out double play ended the inning. Acosta came next, no hits, no walks, 1 strikeout, amazing. Ring did his job as a specialist, retiring the only batter he faced. Moylan had the most trouble, he gave up 2 hits, but none scored.

It took some time, but we did eventually score some runs. Diaz, how did ANY team ever let him go, had 3 hits lifting his average to .340. Frenchy had 2 hits, one a home run. The other 2 big his of the night were Chipper and Tex, back-to-back home runs. Chipper needs to finish strong if he wants the batting title.

We close out the season at Houston. Tomorrow’s game, 8:05 PM, not nationally televised.

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