Braves Journal, The House That Mac Built

Tim Hudson had another unfortunate inning, the Braves left 12 dudes on base, and Atlanta finished a road trip that ended 4-6 but felt about 4-60 for as long and futile as it was. Baseball back at Turner Field can’t come fast enough.

The Braves and Diamondbacks traded early runs and were deadlocked through four innings. In the top of the fifth, Atlanta appeared to seize the upper hand when Freddie Freeman knocked in Jordan Schafer, (who had reached base on a bunt single inelegantly fielded by Martin Prado), and Justin Upton (who had walked). The lead would not last long.

In the bottom of the inning, Arizona put a pair of runners on with one out. Didi Gregorius – and allow me to settle this question, he’s a Trappist Dubbel available at your neighborhood’s best beer bar in a special goblet for like $9 a pour – hit an RBI single to get the Diamondbacks back on the board. Paul Goldschmidt – who, if we’re playing this game, is a form of boilermaker popular with college kids looking to get hammered on cheap booze – struck out, but Eric Chavez doubled to score two and put the Diamondbacks ahead. Cody Ross drove in an insurance run, and that was all Arizona needed.

In each of the next three innings, the Braves put runners on first and second and could go no further. The best you can say about those situations are that twice they occurred with one out and Fredi successfully resisted the impulse to bunt, although the results don’t give us much ammunition to tell him not to next time. Heath Bell, who is the second-highest paid player on the Marlins this year, gave up just one baserunner in the ninth, and that was the end of that road trip.

The Braves get out of Arizona, which is good of itself because Arizona is just a font of stupidity. Their fans booed Justin Upton, who they had themselves helped run out of town for 50 cents on the dollar, and who reached base nine times during the series. Their sports media folk continued to pander to stupid by making arguments like this. And their uniform design people continued to act like putting “D-Backs” across the front of a jersey in a snakey-looking font is a valid way to dress grown men going out in public. I understand “Diamondbacks” is a long, awkward thing to try to fit across the front of a shirt, and I have to admit it’s at least better than what they did back in the day, but really the only logical move for that franchise is to forgo the word entirely and just put the club mark on one side of the shirt. Last time they did that, they won a World Series the same year. I’m just saying.

Though, if that were to happen this year, the internet might break from the weight of all the Justin Upton troll columns coming out of Phoenix, so maybe just forget I said that. Losing that series was annoying enough.

So, honestly, do you want a recap of that game? Really? Okay. Fine.

Julio Teheran pitched pretty damned well. His only rough patch was the third inning, which never should have happened at all. He gave up a single, then Gerado Parra popped out to the infield, but no one thought “huh, I should catch that.” So instead, it was a “double.” Then some person whose parents actually named him “Didi Gregorius,” intentionally I suppose, singled in two runs.

And that was it. Luis Avilan pitched a perfect seventh and Anthony Varvaro got through the eighth with only a single to Paul Goldschmidt, and that was all of it.

The problem being, of course, that some child named Patrick Corbin, who is two years younger than Guns ‘n Roses’ Appetite for Destruction by the way, did essentially the same thing for the D-Backs. Only he was gritty and determined and Kirk Gibson taught him to know how to win or something, so he didn’t have that “hey, let’s not catch the popup to the mound” moment, and so the Braves lost 2-0.

So that was the game, really. Feel good about Teheran putting up another really good start. Feel bad about getting shut down by whomever the hell “Patrick Corbin” is. Mull over, in your spare time, the fact that the Braves are now essentially even stevens recordwise with the “need more grit, less Upton” Diamondbacks we’ve been mocking all offseason.

Now, let’s talk about something important instead.

Who the hell names a child Didi Gregorious? Is he the older sister from Dexter’s Lab or a 15th century monk? How can he be both? Does he wear pink bows in his tonsure? Is he creepily stalked by Mandark, but in a weirdly homoerotic manner now? Why would you do that to a child? I mean, you might be stuck with Gregorious as a last name, and I get the whole “we’re from the Dutch Antilles, we have really goofy, not-normal names down here! We’re crazy Kingdom of the Dutch out the wazzoo!” thing. But seriously. Didi? Didi Gregorious?!

I do not approve. Though, given that his full name is Mariekson Julius Gregorius… Why, parents? Why?!

So: maybe you’ve never heard of The Cleaners from Venus. They were an obscure lo-fi jangle pop band in Britain in the ’80s and never really had anything approaching a hit. They were essentially the brainchild of a guy named Martin Newell, who swapped out bandmates while making cassette recordings of songs he wrote; in the ’80s, there was a bit of a cassette-swapping underground in the UK, of whom the best-known band by far is Chumbawumba. Newell went solo with an album called The Greatest Living Englishman that received some attention because it was produced by XTC’s Andy Partridge; other than that, Newell has retreated to being musically obscure but moderately well known in his native land as a poet.

Anyhoo, he has been making solo albums pretty regularly for the last two decades, but he recently brushed off the Cleaners moniker, made a new album as The Cleaners from Venus, and started rereleasing the old cassette albums. Volume 1 came out last year; Vol. 2 came out today. I’m not plugging you to buy it; hell, I don’t even remember my old Amazon Associates link. But you at least ought to know about them. Here’s one of my favorite songs from the collection released today:

Associated Braves Journal Press

–Phoenix

Phoenix Police arrested Atlanta Braves General Manager Frank Wren on theft charges.  The charges stem from an incident this past winter when Wren allegedly stole Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton.

Wren is being represented by Dewey, Cheatham and Howe,  who gave  Associated Braves Journal Press the following statement:

The charges against our client are categorically false.  (Giggle, Giggle) He left Martin Prado and Randall Delgado in Upton’s place! (more muffled giggling)

In a related manner, police have also called in Prado and Delgado for questioning. At this time a PPD is maintaining the stance that Prado and Delgado are not being charged at this time, but are potential accomplices of Wren’s.

 Upton was seen last night in the Phoenix area. Eyewitnesses claim they saw Upton have four hits, including a massive homerun.

The witnesses claim Upton was not acting alone. An alleged gang of individuals, identifiable by their blue shirts, also ran wild in the Phoenix  area last night. The a few of the suspects identified include a Brian McCann and a Mike Minor. McCann is alleged to have also hit a home run while Minor ran interference for six and two-thirds innings.

There were also witnesses who claimed Chris Johnson, who went missing around the same time Upton was allegedly stolen, had three hits with a home run.

Wren is scheduled to have a bond hearing this morning. Experts believe that his bond will be three hotdogs and a Hank Aaron baseball in return for the Grand Canyon.  

ESPN BOX

There really isn’t a lot to add to this, so you should just watch this.

ESPN Box Score

You could’ve written the recap for this game before it was over.

In fact, I did. By the end of five innings, the Braves had shown nothing but futility at the plate, and Kris Medlen has managed to give up three homeruns, including a water shot from Juan Francisco Mk. 1. (The new version was not an upgrade.)

The Braves had baserunners (two on in the first and third each) but did nothing, Justin Upton not managing to get anything done. Medlen gave up solo home runs and had you thinking, “If he’d just stop making mistakes, he’d probably be fine.” But then he started giving up lots of hits, too, and it all added up to 5 runs in 5+ innings.

At this point, you could basically write the script in your head. The Giants eventually add something between 0 and three runs while the Braves do nothing while the game is in anything vaguely resembling doubt.

And this was basically the case with the exception of a horrible blown call by the umpires. On a long fly ball to left, Upton neared the wall and reached up to attempt to catch the ball. Whether he’d he was going to catch it we’ll never know, because a fan reached out and tried (and failed) to make the catch over the railing. It was ruled a double with fan interference, but they went in to review the play. Presumably, the only thing they were looking for was whether it was a HR or not, because any cursory glance would’ve concluded that Upton maybe had a play on the ball, and therefore the batter should’ve been ruled out. But nope. Runner stays on second.

In the scheme of things, this was irrelevant because (1) no one scored as a result and (2) as I’ve noted above, I was already sold on the result of the game. For completeness, the Braves got a run on the 9th on a double by Evan Gattis, and while they allowed plenty of base runners, the Braves’ bullpen threw 2.2 shutout innings.

The most enjoyable part of the game was when they threw up an old scouting report on Hunter Pence that stated, among other things that he “runs like a rotary telephone thrown into a running clothes dryer”.

There isn’t a whole lot about the last couple of days that I’d like to talk about, so instead I’d like to talk about a man who’s turning 37 today, a fellow from Gastonia, NC by the name of Wes Helms. Sure, you probably remember that Mac called him “Smelms,” and there’s a reasonable chance that he frustrated you. He was really very bad in a Braves uniform, hitting .234/.287/.423 with approximately -0.5 WAR in 488 plate appearances scattered over parts of four different seasons.

Then, as he came back to Atlanta rather often over the course of the next decade, he had a frustrating knack for killing us. Somehow, he hit .284/.369/.496 in 160 PA against us, which you’ll note is rather higher than his career .256/.318/.405 mark.

I come not to bury Wes Helms, but to praise him. He was a barrel-chested right-handed third baseman who couldn’t really field and couldn’t really hit, and he managed a 13-year career in the majors as a platoon infielder with pop. His -1.5 career WAR testify to the fact that the Braves fans got it right all along, but his years of service testify to something else entirely — his persistence. He played in three different decades, for Pete’s sake, the ’90s, the ’00s, and the ’10s.

He was a 10th round pick out of a high school in North Carolina whose chief claim to fame is having produced James Worthy; before Wes came along, the only other professional baseball player picked from the school was Wade Frye, a 20th-round pick in 1971 who never made it out of A-ball. If he hadn’t come up with the Braves, I doubt that I’d ever remember him. But he was ours, and I’m proud of the guy.

Have a piece of cake, Wesley Ray.

So this weekend has pretty quickly turned to crap.

Today’s game featured the biggest mismatch of the series in terms of pitching matchups – Paul Maholm v. Madison Bumgarner – and it basically played out exactly as one would assume: not well for the Braves.

In order for the Braves to have had a real chance, Maholm needed his best stuff today. He didn’t have it. He gave up a solo shot to Pablo Sandoval in the 1st, and another run off a Brandon Crawford double in the 4th. Yet that was all prelude for the 5th inning, when the Giants blew the game open. Maholm, with one out, surrendered a “triple” to Marco Scutaro – it really should have been a single and two-base error on Justin Upton, but scorekeeping in baseball is still stuck in the last century – hit Sandoval, served up a double to Buster Posey, and intentionally walked Hunter Pence to load the bases. Cory Gearrin then entered the game and promptly gave up a triple Grybo – to Gregor Blanco, of all people. That was all she wrote, though San Francisco added 4 more runs off the Braves’ rapidly-deteriorating bullpen in the 8th. I mean, why not?

On the other side of the ledger, Madison Bumgarner was dealing. With the exception of a lone 5th inning run, the San Francisco southpaw stifled the Braves’ attack with his nasty 4-pitch array. For the game, Bumgarner struck out 11 in 7 innings while walking 2 and surrendering only 4 hits. Of the offense’s woefulness, Dan Uggla stands out especially: the supposedly-revitalized second baseman reverted to form with a golden sombrero. Chris Johnson meanwhile earns an honorable mention with three strikeouts in three plate appearances. I’d say the honeymoon with that guy is over.

There isn’t much good to say after a game like today’s. I guess Evan Gattis had a pretty decent day? He got a couple hits and made no errors in LF. So that’s something. Otherwise, I’m stumped. Hopefully the Braves can manage a win tomorrow and escape this series with a split. I’m not holding my breath, though. They’ve been on the road since around the Nixon administration, and they look like it.

ESPN Box Score

So… last night the Braves did not lose with dignity. That’s okay, as far as I’m concerned. A loss is a loss, and even though 17-0 is a lot uglier to watch than 2-1, it all looks the same in the record books. Brian McCann hit a two-run homer, which was about the only good thing that happened on the Braves’ end, and Tim Hudson had an Episode, coughing up six runs in the fourth, and that was about it.

The lineup really did nothing. Matt Cain has sucked this year, but the results he got were pretty vintage: he threw a lot of pitches around the strike zone, and the Braves bailed him out by flailing early in counts. Andrelton Simmons grounded out to the left side of the infield four times, two of them on the first pitch. Freddie Freeman flied out once and grounded out three times, two of them on the first pitch. So, you know, guys… don’t do that.

After Tim Hudson got knocked out in the fourth inning, a career journeyman named David Carpenter came in and got the final out of that inning and had a 1-2-3 fifth. But Fredi stayed with him too long, and he gave up a two-run jack in the sixth, which was really the nail in the coffin, despite scoreless mop-up work from Anthony Varvaro and Cory Gearrin. I’m worried that Fredi’s been leaning too heavily on Eric O’Flaherty and Craig Kimbrel, and not giving Varvaro, Gearrin, and Luis Avilan enough to do. Carpenter’s clearly the last man out of the bullpen, but he’s not a longman by trade, and I don’t understand why Fredi wouldn’t bring in Avilan, unless Avilan wasn’t available due to another injury.

Fredi’s bullpen management has always been one of the more worrisome aspects of his managerial style. I’m not really complaining about last night per se; he stayed with Carpenter too long, but most of the time when the other team opens up a 6-0 deficit you lose the game. It’s more that I worry that he’s not spreading the innings around evenly enough, and if he won’t bring in Avilan in a blowout, then when would he bring him in?

One more thing: B.J. Upton obviously isn’t comfortable at the plate. The TV guys were talking about changes that Greg Walker was trying to get him to make to his stance. First, to hold the bat deeper in his hand, more toward the palm than resting it in his fingers, in the hope that that would quiet some of his bat waggle and help him with bat control. Second, to plant his foot firmly on his stride, rather than first bringing down the toes and then the heel; the two-part plant appears to be making his timing late. You could tell that he was trying to do some of these things but he just isn’t feeling it instinctively, and he’s really uncomfortable at the plate. Only way to solve that is time, and time is the one thing that B.J. and the Braves have an awful lot of.

Anyhoo… that’s just one of the 60 games that every team loses. Brush it off. Hopefully the hitters will remember to bring their plate approach to the ballpark this time.

The Bravos combined an effective start from an increasingly honed-in Julio Teheran with some timely and controlled swings throughout the lineup to prevail 6-3 over the San Francisco Giants Thursday night to open their four-game series at AT&T Park.

The Giants got on the board first via a run-scoring single by Buster Posey off a Teheran curveball, scoring Marco Scutaro. The Braves quickly assumed the lead in the top of the second when Brian McCann lined a two-run HR off Ryan Vogelsong just short of McCovey Cove, scoring Uggla ahead of him. Forgive BMac if he’s a little behind the team-wide trend of cutting down on swings – this is his April, after all.

Posey struck again in the bottom of the third, taking a Teheran belt-high spinner over the left field fence to make the score 3-2 Giants. The good guys then went through the batting order in the fifth, featuring two triples (yes, Chip, dad was a drinker, har har) and some seriously iffy Giants defense to score four times for a 6-3 lead that held up. Teheran ended up going seven innings, giving up the three runs on seven hits and no walks, striking out three. He had much better command of his fastball – his two-seamer in particular showed some nice movement, and that curveball is looking like a quality pitch (as long as it, you know, curves). The newly lesser version of O’Flambrel finished up without much incident. Good game all around. Hudson vs. Cain tonight at 10:15.

Random notes:

The Braves have found out in the last few years what the Giants have long known – cream-colored uniforms are a damned good look.

Except on Pablo Sandoval. If anyone on the Braves was disappointed with his day, it was probably Juan Francisco, who surely wanted to get to third base at least once just so he could stand next to Sandoval for a minute.

Speaking of Sandoval, he sported an odd-looking fingerless foam sliding glove. Maybe we should ask him about it, if we can’t get some of our guys to stop sliding headfirst.

The patrons of AT&T Park clearly believe themselves entitled to any ball they can reach. I went to a game there a few years ago, and while the ballpark is a real beauty the fans there don’t get enough credit for obnoxiousness.

Joe Simpson really enjoys talking about fat people. He just lights up.