Braves Report

Everything was working tonight, Chuck James had his best outing of the year, the bats were hitting for power, and the pen did their job. The Braves have put together a nice little streak, winning the last 4 in a row, sweeping this series. How long has it been since we’ve swept someone? Better late than never. The only bad news, most of the teams ahead of us in the Wild Card hunt have nice win streaks going too.

Chuck James was impressive tonight. He went seven innings, matching his longest outing since July 20th. In his 7, he only allowed 2 hits, striking out 5. If I were Bobby, I would have been tempted to let him go out for the 8th, that’s how dominating he was, but I guess it’s best to give him something positive to build on. A third pitch still wouldn’t hurt. Moylan came in to pitch the 8th, a perfect inning, striking out 2. He is one of the 2 Braves I just don’t understand why they don’t have any rookie of the year buzz around them. Moylan has a 1.77 ERA in 85 innings, that deserves some accolades? Soriano pitched the ninth, gave up a long ball and struck out 2. A good night for Braves pitchers.

This was more of a typical night for the Braves bats. The top of the order got on base, the heart of the order drove them in. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to work? Renty and Chipper are locked in a fight for the batting title, both had great nights. Renty went 3 for 4 with a home run. Chipper went 2 for 3 with a walk, a run scored and an RBI. As it stands now, Holliday .340, Chipper .338, Renty .337. Tex, still earning his keep, launched a 2-run shot in the first and Andruw chipped in with a home run of his own in the 8th, not that it was needed.

I’m still keeping an eye on the wild card, but there are just so many teams in front of us. Gotta keep winning, that’s all we can do.

Tomorrow’s game, 7:35 PM, not nationally televised.

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A good night for the Braves, the team wins, Jo-Jo got his first win, plenty of offense and despite their best effort, the bullpen held the lead. One oddity of this game, all the Braves runs came on 2-out singles. A good sign our clutch hitting is coming back.

Jo-Jo had his best outing yet tonight, and that makes three (one injury shortened) good outings in a row. He wasn’t exactly overpowering, he threw almost as many balls as strikes and walked a few, but what mattered, he only allowed 1 run in 5 innings. In his 5 innings, he gave up only 3 hits, walked 3 and struck out a career high 7. After 5 the pen took over. Moylan pitched 1 inning, giving up 2 hits but didn’t allow a run to score. Yates came in for the 7th, not so good. He gave up 2 runs on 1 hit and 1 walk. Ring came in to bail Yates out, he gave up a hit to the one batter faced, loading the bases. Acosta also failed to a single batter out, allowing 2 runs to score, charged to Yates. Mahay had to come in to end the madness. He went 1.1 innings, allowing only 1 hit, striking out one. Soriano pitched the ninth and thanks to a little help from Diaz, he was perfect.

The bats pounded out 12 hits, all singles. Escobar, back in the lead off spot had an outstanding night. He went 3 for 5, scoring 1 and driving in one. Renty, in the thick of the batting race lifted his average with 2 hits driving in 1. Tex also had 2 hits. McCann 2 singles, driving in one. Lastly, Diaz, who has been mired in a slump continued his Marlin killing ways with 2 hits and two runs.

With a little help, the Braves can climb back into the Wild Card race, but there are still quite a few teams ahead of them.

Tomorrow’s game, 7:35 PM, not nationally televised.

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Like the radio announcers said tonight, to have a chance we pretty much need to sweep this series and the next. The bats saw to it and got this series off to a good start, they pounded 14 hits to crush the Marlins.

Smoltz was pretty much on his game. Sure he didn’t have his “no hit” type stuff, but that only happens a few nights per season. He kept the Marlins off balance and made the pitches when he needed to. He went 6 innings, only allowing 4 hits, one was a home run and that was the only run he allowed. He struck out 4 and lowered his ERA to under 3 (2.97). After Smoltz, our pitching wasn’t quite so good. In fact, it was pretty poor. Ascanio was horrible. He couldn’t even finish an inning, allowing 4 hits and three runs. The hits were all hard and he wasn’t fooling anyone. Acosta was called in to bail him out, which he did. But, when he started the next inning, he wasn’t so good either. He walked one, allowed a hit and 2 runs in the process. Moylan was called in with a runner on third, he immediately allowed that run to score (charged to Acosta). Moylan then settled down and closed out the inning. Soriano pitched the 9th. He could have done it perfectly, but he decided to take a little revenge for the three Braves hit batsmen and the throw behind Andruw. He still got out of the inning without giving up a run.

The Braves bats scored early and often. Kim had no control and the bats took advantage. Chipper had the biggest night behind the plate going 3 for 4 with a double, stretching his lead for the batting title. He scored twice and drove 2 in. KJ was once again better in the lead-off spot, going 2 for 4 and scoring 3 times. Andruw also had a good game. He was also 2 for 4 with a home run, driving in 3. Frenchy had himself a 3 RBI night on 2 hits. The third Jones on the team got his first major league RBI with a sac fly. Father time had a pinch hit single in the 8th, just as the Marlins were closing the gap.

Tomorrow’s game, 7:35 PM not nationally televised.

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It had to happen at some point, but the Braves finally have a complete game and it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Over the last 2 games, the pen pitched more innings than the starters, a lot more, leaving them exhausted. With the R Braves success, they didn’t want to bring Devine back up. It didn’t matter, Huddy saw to that.

Huddy threw a 100 pitch, 72 strike complete game shut out, by far his best outing of the year, by far. He only allowed 7 hits, walking 1 and striking out six along the way. Only 1 Nat had more than one hit. Huddy kept his pitch count low, for a change, by getting ahead and getting ground balls early in the count. Huddy absolutely dominated the day.

The bats did enough, which was easy with Huddy’s performance. Kelly Johnson was better today, 2 hits, one a home run. Chipper had 2 hits of his own, jumping over Renty for the league lead in hitting. They are now #1 and #2 in the league. Tex also had 2 hits, driving in 2. It must be mentioned Brandon Jones (3 Joneses in the line up today) had his major league debut, going 0 for 4.

As enjoyable as this game was, it was brief to recap.

Tomorrow’s game, 7:05 PM, not nationally televised.

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This was not a game the Braves had to lose. This is not a game the Braves should have lost. The Braves lost this game for one reason, Terry Pendleton. Early on in the game the batters were smart, they worked the count, they were patient and they hit the mistakes. After Cormier gave up the lead, the bats lost it and none of the coaches cared to put a stop to it. Batter after batter after batter after batter walked up to the plate, swung at the first pitch and walked back to the dugout. At one point 5 Braves in a row were retired on 1 pitch each, and 9 were retied on 13. It’s a hitting coaches job to put a stop to STUPID at-bats like that and when it goes on for half a game, no excuse. Especially when what they were doing early on was working so well.

None of the pitchers really had anything tonight. Cormier only managed 2 innings, giving up 4 runs and 2 home runs. Not an impressive outing. Carlyle was called in after that. He seemed to be doing just fine, when he “tweaked” his pitching arm while batting, ending his day shortly after. Moylan got the job done. He went 2 innings, gave up only 1 hit striking out 2. Mahay got through 1 inning OK, but then starting giving up runs. Two were charged to him, but only one crossed the plate while he was pitching. Ring pitched the remainder of the ninth, giving up 1 hit and a run that was not charged to him. Not really what you want your pitchers to do when your team is in their last throws of a playoff race.

Like I said at the beginning the bats were good, then bad, inexcusably bad. We had some good individual performance, Chipper went 2 for 4 with a home run driving in 3. Renty now is atop all NL hitters with his 3 for 4 night, his average is up to .337. Kelly Johnson should not be allowed to lead off, he had another 0 for 4 day. His average is dropping to near season lows. The Braves left a total of 16 runners on base, so it’s not like they didn’t have chances. I hope TP reads the team the riot act after this performance, our batters need to be smarter, learn from their mistakes, and pay attention to what is happening around them.

The Nats didn’t win this game, our stupidity lost it.

Tomorrow’s game, 1:35 PM on TBS.

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