Braves Report

There’s losing, and then there’s losing. Friday night’s opener against the Cardinals was definitely the latter. The Braves got absolutely pummeled, losing by their largest margin of the season, and suffering their sixth loss in a row. Change needs to happen, now, or football season needs to start very soon.

So, where to begin with this train wreck? Well, I’ll start with the pitching. To put it gently, the pitching staff has seen better days. As a whole, they were entirely ineffective, as they gave up 26 hits and 18 runs. Not a great day. Charlie Morton was given the ball to start, but he shortly gave it back to Bobby: 1.1 innings pitched, 5 hits, 4 runs, 5 walks (c’mon), and a strikeout. He threw 57 pitches, but only 25 of them landed as strikes. Nunez followed for 2.2 innings, and gave up two runs. Matt DeSalvo came in, threw some gasoline on the fire, and then proceeded to throw more gasoline on the fire. He lasted an inning, gave up 8 hits, and 6 runs.

[Image: Yahoo! Sports]

Bobby watches as the infield is set ablaze

Boyer and Tavarez each gave up three runs in their inning of work. The only highlight for the pitching came from Bennett, who pitched a perfect inning. Nice work, Jeff.

The offense proved to be it’s usual, too little, too late self, though not like it really mattered in this game. Three runs, coming from a homer by Norton, a single by KJ, and a double by Brandon Jones. Infante, Prado, and KJ each had two hits. If the team had been able to sextuple their amount of runs, they could’ve had a chance of winning. Unfortunately and realistically, they couldn’t, and lost big.

Please send help.

Braves lose a heartbreaker, 18 – 3.

Next game, 3:55 PM, on FOX, probably blacked out nationally and on MLB.tv. Do yourself a favor, and watch the LLWS kids instead.