Braves Split A Pair of 1-Run Games Against Reds

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Hemor Territory Podcast. This episode, I am your host, bradveryone coming to you on a Wednesday evening into Thursday, and I am joined after a bit of a hiatus. Scott Coleman is here almost Wally Pips on Sunday. I gotta say, Scott, how are you?

00:00:37
Speaker 2: My friend? Brad? You tried to replace me on my very own show with one of our own co hosts on Sunday. It was funny. I was flying back home, I put on the pod, I said, let's get some Brad and Steven Tolbert in my life for this flight, and within like two minutes you were trying to replace me and Wally Pitt me and I don't know. I mean, I was no, I'm I am in jazz. Honestly, the show would be better with more Brad and more Steven and more Sean and less me. But here I am. I am back, relaxed, refreshed, ready to go listen.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: That's not true, but I did. I think I even said to Stephen, either before or after the show, that I was going to try to see if you were listening. And I was waiting for the text you sent me you sent me a text and I laughed out loud to my literally out loud to myself when I read it, So that worked out beautiful. Up anyway, if you're a new listener, you might not to follow any of that. But we are part of the Falla Territory network. Here at HAMMERD Territory, we cover the Braves all year round. There are four of us, but generally speaking, me and Scott, Brad and Scott record you most of the time together and then Steven and Sean do. But we kind of switched it up last week. Look us at the end of last week earlier this week. Actually, if you missed it, Sean Stephen Diday's show on Monday evening kind of an emergency pseudo emergency fashion because the Braves almost through a no hitter two nights ago and just beshan or Florida with it all the way through. And we'll talk about that if we need to, but it was mostly said by these guys. But in the meantime we're recording two days later, and the Braves just split a pair of one run games, so a couple of coin flippy games, one of which they had to come back and win on Tuesday, which will dive into later on the podcast, and then tonight as we're recording this, they fell behind my four runs, they scratched a clawed, they.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: Never led in the game.

00:02:20
Speaker 1: We'll get into all that, but Scott, before we dive into the actual games and kind of we'll probably go with the loss first, just get it out of the way. The most recent game. How are you feeling? Because you have not spoken about the team and about a week at this point in time, the Braves have now had two chances to get back to five hundred, They've lost both of those chances. How are you feeling overall about the state of things right now?

00:02:39
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this earlier today. Actually, it's been a weird team in a weird baseball season. Yes, they were so bad to start, then they were really good, and now they've you know, they've been okay for the last ten days or so. Tonight's game, you're right, I mean the game on Wednesday night. I had kind of resigned myself to the fact they were going to lose. On paper, it was the toughest of the four game series. Hunter Green is awesome. The Red's bullpen is awesome, especially when they went down four nothing early. I'm like, okay, whatever, lose this one. You already won games one and two. But you know, we're coming up on twenty five percent of the season now the team continues to have around five hundred even if they have been better than that since the oh to seventh start. You know, I hope that when we get to the end of the road, whatever that is this season, we don't look back and go, Man, that five and thirteen start really sunk this team because I think, as we talked about on this podcast, when they started off so poorly, that there was still time to overcome. But they were going to have to be really good and really efficient and steal some games if they were going to come out of that eight games below five hundred hole. And they've done a pretty good job of it. But I still feel like every couple of days there's a game where we find ourselves banging our head against the wall. It was a winnable game that maybe they couldn't quite close out.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely right, And you know, if you don't want to go to five and thirteen, just the even though in seven, I mean that's the reality of it. Like five and thirteen almost sounds worse, but it's not like I don't know, it's a weird situation. I've been trying to be myself. And because there was some even tonight during the game, someone that follows me and talks we interact regularly, and they were like, when do we just decide as teams of five hundred team? And I'm like, well, I'm not there yet in early May, in part because of just how bad it was for literally one week, and then they've been pretty good since then, like a ninety five plus win pace since then. Like, so you can see what you want to see. That's not new to our podcast sentiment in the last couple of weeks. If you wanted to frame this super negatively, you certainly could like they've had injuries, they've had frustrating losses, all those things. If you wanted to be positive, you can lop off that first week and say, look, this is kind of what we expected from that point forward, and it's true, one hundred percent accurate, Like for five weeks now, basically they've been a good baseball team. Not a great baseball team, but a good one. So it's interesting. You can see what you want to see, but uh, you know, and.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: They've been managing to win more series than not. We'll see what happens with the Red Series, but they had won four in a row before the Dodgers lost a series to The Dodgers had a chance to win that first game, and hey, they're a great team. And then you've already won two games of this Red Series. Hopefully they can win on you.

00:05:25
Speaker 1: You can't lose the series. You can split it, but you can't lose it.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: There you go, and even then, they've been able to manage and weather the storm without Acuna, without Strider, without Profar, without Lopez. You know they're doing okay all considered. I just hope that once you do get Acuna back, and you do get Strider back, and there's actually a little bit of news positive news on Strider will get to a bit later in the show, then you can say, all right, as long as this team doesn't start suffering injuries as we saw last year, once they get Strider back, once they get a COONa back, there are enough pieces here, as they have shown two win enough games to get to the postseason, and then you'll see what happens. But again, man, they have to keep winning series because starting out five and thirteen is hardly you know, something that you can't overlook it right like that. Yes, it was a while ago at this point, and I think that's why it feels even though this team is played better, you look at the standings and they're still sub five hundred.

00:06:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to kind of tee it up and just just knock it out.

00:06:25
Speaker 3: Now.

00:06:26
Speaker 1: You just brought it up. We just talked around it. Spencer Stryder threw a bullpen today. We'll talk about the games a second. Let's just talk about it right now for a second because we'll knock it out. He seems to be fine. They're waiting on like full word about how it went like there were no issues during the bullpensession, which is good. But Smith's talking right now to the media as we record of this podcast, and it seems like they want to wait a little tomorrow to kind of say aokay or not. With Strider, he's been on the il for about two two and a half weeks. He seems to be on track. He was never going to be back in two weeks. No one thought that. But that's that's a little bit of minor news on this show. Is like, that's kind of the latest there. But hope he's back is Look, they've weathered be stored pretty well. They've pitched pretty darn well in the last couple of you know, segments of this sea. They had the one ten run blow up the other day, but other than that, they've been in every game because they really have pitched pretty well. The bullpen's been great. We'll come back to later on, So Startter being back sometime soon would be massive, even as well as a Sean and Stephen covered very well Monday, the Braves keep winning these games other than tonight with their bottom three pitchers pitching like they've actually been successful in the last like three weeks with their back end protition guys pitching. But you still want special Stryer to be out there. We all know that.

00:07:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: I think you just have to hope that when Spencer wakes up on Thursday morning, the hamstring feels good, the elbow feels good. It's funny after this hamstring flare up, I think the elbow. You know that the elbow surgery that made a miss a full year kind of went to the back burner somehow because at least pre hamstring the elbow was feeling good and there was no issues. So let's hope that Strider's back on them in a real game, maybe within a week or so. I'm not sure if the Braves will have him do a rehab start or just maybe throw an intense bullpen session in a couple of days and then make a final decision, but it seems like Spencer Strider will be back in our lives sooner rather than later.

00:08:15
Speaker 1: That would be good news for all involved. So that's the state of things to some degree. We will get into a lot more specifics, including what we teased almost on social media that we will talk about the decision to hit Eddie Zsario with the last spatter of Wednesday's game, plus some genuine positivity from Tuesday, all that more in just a minute after a word from our partners.

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00:09:39
Speaker 1: Okay, Scott, let's get into the games. And after spitting the wheel with you before the podcast episode, we're gonna talk about Wednesday's loss before Tuesdays. We'll end a little bit more on a high note than starting. Look, the office was not particularly inspiring and what became a four to three loss tonight They got done for nothing in a hurry, and honestly, I never root for injury, but it felt like the Braves were almost drawing dead with Hunter Green pitching. Hunter Green was in cruise controlled kind of domination mode honestly through three innings, and he is their best picture. He's very, very good. There's a reason, as you already teased earlier in the show, that this was the game of the four in which the Braves were not big favorites to win in the betty market, in the pitching matchup, all that stuff. The Rerights have a better picture on the mount. Hunter Green is better than Grenholmes by a lot. So all that said, it helped the Braves, even if we don't want Hunter Red to get hurt when he went out. That helped the Braves have four of a chance and they chipped away, chipped away, chipped away, score three runs. Any thoughts on what happened until we get to the back end of the game. We'll talk about Greenholmes too, but offensively, what did you see for the balance of the game, more so than what happened at the game, which we'll come back to.

00:10:47
Speaker 2: You know, Hunter Green when he's on the mound is as electric of a pitcher as there is on the planet. You saw the first couple of innings he was dotting one hundred miles an hour on the corners, and then he has a slider that's like eighty seven eight, which is a lot of differential between that fastball. And you're right, the Braves had no chance tonight if Hunter Green was going to stay in. It seems like Green is gonna be okay. If folks missed it. It's a groin issue, so that's good. I was worried for that poor kid. If it was a shoulder or an elbow, that would have been catastrophic for him. Such a fun player to watch. But yes, in terms of the game itself, once Green left, you thought, okay, it's only four runs, maybe the Braves can mount something. Cincinnati's bullpen is very good. I swear every single pitcher that comes out of their bullpen has.

00:11:33
Speaker 1: An era in the twos.

00:11:34
Speaker 2: You know they have a good team, a good pitching staff. I don't know if the lineup is going to be good enough, but that pitching staff is really tough, and whenever you're down for nothing, it's kind of the worst way imaginable to face a team like the Reds, who are a pitching first team. Thankfully, the offense did chip away a little bit in the middle innings to make it interesting. But yeah, I mean before the ninth inning Shenanigans, I was kind of resigned to this being a loss. I was not super fired up. And then they decided to hit not they Then Brian Snitker decided to hit Eddie Rosario with the game on the line. Voluntarily hit Eddie Rosario with the game on the line.

00:12:11
Speaker 1: I don't know, Okay, so we you and I arend agreement. I know that every one will agree with this about this loss is not particularly enraging in a vacuum to me, nor is it to you, as you just said, like you're gonna lose some of these It was a quick fook game in the Betty market, all those things. You get down for nothing, you have a chance to win the game at the end or tie the game at the end. You didn't do it. They wasted his opportunities. They were eight up, eight down, after they got within one, they just did nothing for like almost the entire rest.

00:12:38
Speaker 2: Of the game.

00:12:39
Speaker 1: Harris gets a single to keep them alive with two outs in the ninth and then they make the decision, as you just said, to hit Eddie Rosario for you that way. Now, there's a lot going on here, number one, and I want to give this cabin that every time we talk about Dye Rosario, lifetime here, Eddie Rosario twenty twenty one hero, all the things we have always said about Eddie, never mind drinking again, all that stuff. But when the Braves signed him a couple of weeks ago. Now it's been a little while. He didn't played very much, but it was not that long ago. We said then, and I'll say it again now. I finally missed that he has literally been the worst position player by the numbers in Major League Baseball for about three and a half years now. I'm not exaggerating the numbers. Actually, that's just not my opinion. That's the number, fangrafts, war, WRC, plus all those things. He's been very bad for a while. Fast forward to now he pitches. It's right on the mound, and I'm sure if Snicker was asked, I'm sure it's what he said. I haven't, I haven't. We didn't watch it. We're recording the podcast. Eli White's right handed is right handed pitcher on the mount. It probably didn't go further than that. Snitt's mine other than Snitt just trusts Eddie more than you should. That's that's my interpretation. You already said this on social media, but you referred to and I believe as like taking the toy away from for Brian Snicker, and I agree with you. That was the thing I think a lot of us said when they signed Eddie. He was like, Alex, you've gotta know Brian Sicker is going to play at a Rosario more than he should play. Yeah, and he started that game over Dugo oddly last week. He hadn't played since then really at all. But you know there's multiple factors here. You got Eli White. I think right now, given the way he's hit this season, people believe he probably is a little bit better than he is if we're being one hundred percent honest. But Eli White is a lot better than a Rosario. I don't really care about about the platoons play either, Like Eli White is better. So you give me a choice between Eli White eating in that spot or Eddie Rosario. I'm choosing Eli White every single time. Do we agree so far?

00:14:41
Speaker 2: Yes? Wholeheartedly? Yes.

00:14:44
Speaker 1: Then if you wanted to shake it up or whatever. You don't like the match up with Eli White or whatever. You could have hit Sean Murphy they had Sean Murphy available. Now, maybe you don't want to do that because Nick Allen's up two matters later, and you might have been trying to quote unquote save Sean Murphy to hit for Nick Allen, but ball into the middle, Like I would have understood it more if Allen was up next and you wanted to have Murphy hit for Allen. But I still don't want to hit Razario. So if this is a playoff game, Scott, if this is October, this would be like a thirty minute discussion. I feel like you and I would go nuts about this, and we're not gonna do that. Now. It's a game in May. I don't we care, but we don't care that much. But like it really was like everyone and I was actually proud of people in our mentions that were like immediately outraged, like what is going on right now? Because I have the same thought I we share this reaction. I don't have much more to say other than that's baffling and honestly the best thing that the Braves could probably do is take the club out of the back, like you just don't want to have Eddie available.

00:15:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot to get too. Look, man, we will never know. If Eli White goes up there to hit. Eli could have taken three fast balls right down the plate, could have struck out.

00:15:58
Speaker 1: It's two outs, one on first base, Like they're still not going to win more often than that.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: Obviously, they could have sent Sean Murphy up there. He could have weakly grounded the first pitch he saw. Game over. Well, never know. But the process of sending Eddie Rosario up there, who is statistically the worst player in baseball for years now, as you just mentioned, is ridiculous. And you have to not give Brian Snicker even an inch of flexibility with a guy like Eddie Rosario, you know he's going to give him a chance. And Eddie played in that game in Colorado and he was bad. Had an opportunity late in that game to tie the game or even give the Braves lead, and he struck out. And tonight with the tying run on first base, he struck out. I don't know if Eddie saw a single pitch in the strike saw It kind of says it all. And there's no reason to take Eli White out of the game in that situation. Probably the best, most positive story of this season so far for the Braves. A guy who can run into a fastball, especially with the torpedo bat he's using. Also, if Eli White were to gap a ball, he's scoring on another hit, whereas Eddie probably is not. So if Eli gets on base, then you have a real chance to score again and try to win the game. Sean Murphy has as much raw power as probably anybody on the team not named Matt Olsen. I don't get it, and it's I do get it because we've watched Brian Sniker manage for almost a decade now. But yeah, you have to take the club out of the bag. That is the perfect, perfect way of saying it. You just can't give him the choice to go to Eddie because he's going to go to Eddie.

00:17:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I just pulled the pitch by pitch because I think we agree. But the only pitch in the zone in the bat was the strike three that he missed. The first two strikes he swung at balls way out of the zone. He took one ball out of the zone. He fought it a pitch off but there was one pitch out of five that was in the zone. Even then it was like, really it was on the corn, So not a grant at bat obviously, and that doesn't even matter. It's the process of it all. We'll stop now, it doesn't it's not worth twenty minutes on May seventh. But it was a frustrating moment. But we do want to you said it. I said it. We're not saying it would have saved the day or that White would have doubled home the right like it. Probably the math there would tell you with a runner on first two outs, you're gonna lose probably like eighty percent of the time in the game. Oh yeah, so like you right, So it wouldn't have maybe changed anything, but it was just not what we wanted to see. Uh, this is this is actually not an example of this one thing, but I pulled a lot of numbers and actually added to it today. The Braves during this recent like last week or so, seven games since the loss, the last game in Colorado, but they lost. Uh they can't hit again with Burnin' sporting stition, Scott. And there's the debate that everyone always has about whether that's a skill or whether it's randomness, I'm not trying to have that today and when you want to on a Wednesday night. But here's the number in the last seven games. And by the way, the Brands are somehow three and four in these seven games, which is honestly amazing when you hear what I'm about to say. The Braves are four for forty three with runner and scoringscision. That is a sub one hundred batting average. It is by far the worst marke in baseball over the last eight days, seven games. You know they won three games because in those three games they allowed a total of four runs. Now, they've all been close games. Oh that there was one blowout loss. The other six games has been pretty close, and you it's hard to win close games if you don't get big hits, clutch hits. How do you want to frame that? It's been a problem a lot this year. Of course, early in the season when they weren't losing a bunch of games that couldn't they had really bad numbers in this area. It got better when they started winning games, and then you get back to where it is now and a lot of this is sequencing like it was in the season. Their overall numbers are better than this. Like if you're just stripping out and say, in a vacuum, what are they doing an offense? It looks better than this number does. But man, four for forty three over seven games, it's a wonder that they haven't lost five or six of these. Like to go three and four. IF's if that's the only number that you knew, Scott, If I said, all right, but simulates seven games and the team goes four, four to three from the right score position, you'd be like, what do they got one in six? No? Three to four?

00:20:27
Speaker 2: Probably? Yeah, it's a testament to how well the Braves have pitched, and they have done a pretty good job of executing in these close games. But three is shocking, Like I that is mathematically improbable at that point. Yeah, it kind of goes what I said earlier. It's just been a weird team, awful start. Then they were much better, and now they're back to just that they're allergic to getting hits with runners in scoring position. I don't get it. I don't know. Two different hitting coaches at this point, A couple of really good hitters in this lineup. I don't know, Brad, I'm really not sure. Like usually I have pretty strong convictions and opinions about things. If you ask me what is wrong with the Braves with runners in scoring position for the better part of this season and last year too, when this team really struggled at times with runners in scoring position? I don't know. Is it random variance, is it mental, is it coaching? Is it the makeup of the players? I don't know. It's probably some mix of that, with a lean towards just baseball is random and you have hot streaks and cold streaks at good and bad times. But yeah, four for forty three, that is a show. I couldn't believe that. I hadn't seen that on the dock. And when you said it, I said, there's no way that's crazy.

00:21:47
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I kind of teased it earlier on social media. I was like, this will be a topic today on the podcast. There were three for thirty nine before tonight, and they were one for four tonight. They didn't have a lot of opportunities, like they had a solo home run from Baldwin, and even in the night that Rosario played appearance, did not have a guy at second base. That doesn't count, So there were one for four, But man, it's that's a Yeah, it is statistically improbable. As you said, it's been kind of a flashback to last year where they pitched really well actually recently other than the one blow up game we allowed ten runs. But speaking of pitching, Grant Holmes today not his best, not the worst either, five and a third, four runs, one wall, five strikeouts. He had really one bad inning, the first inning was pretty rough. After that he was perfectly fine. And even then they had a chance. Like you wouldn't go into the start saying I hope Grant allows four runs and five and the third innings, but he didn't get them absolutely obliterated. What did you think of what you saw from Holmes after he was admittedly awesome at his last outing against the Doughters.

00:22:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was seemingly par for the course. I think for Grant Holmes at this point, every now and then he'll sprinkle in an awesome game like the one he had Friday night, and then every now and then he'll sprinkle in a total dud like the one he had to get the Diamondbacks a few weeks ago, where he gave up like nine homers. It was kind of what we expect from grand Holmes at this point four runs over five and a third. I guess you take that and you're right not to, you know, repeat everything you just said, Brad. But the first inning was disastrous. It looked like it was going to be a whole lot worse than two runs.

00:23:20
Speaker 1: And then our text day and the first inning was not the prettiest thing you've ever seen. Just to say that, yeah, I was.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: Like, maybe we start recording the podcast in the sixth inning because.

00:23:29
Speaker 1: They're about to get might be a lot one everybody strapped in.

00:23:33
Speaker 2: But Holmes only one walk, that's a good sign. And his last two starts, I think combined, Holmes has issued only three walks in his last two starts, which is a good sign because he was walking too many hitters early in the year. The one big, big, big problem that grand Holmes has right now is the home run ball. He is giving up homers at an unsustainable rate. After tonight's start, grand Holmes is fourth qualified pitchers in Major League Baseball in home run rate. It's bad. And I think if he has one more.

00:24:06
Speaker 1: Bad bad side, by which just to say that loud forth of the bad side, it's like, uh, he's allowed eight home runs in third innings like that's you can't live there. No, Yeah, maybe maybe he's getting a little bit unlucky with that. Like I think the his home run to flyball right right now is twenty one point six percent, which I believe is the yes, actually the second highest in all of baseball. So it's even worse in some respects. That will come down and almost has to. But uh, that's why he has not been that BEA's with the gap between Gretholmes being legitimately good this year and what he has been, which is like a four or five, like a four point five yard guy. Is is the home runs?

00:24:43
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And there is some flukiness in variance with Homer's obviously, if you hang a bellpie curveball, which he did in the first batter of the game, yep, good chance it goes out. Other Times you throw a well placed ninety eight fastball and the batter just goes and beats you, and that's gonna happen. Sometimes Mookie Betts got him for a homer on Friday Night. Stuff happens, yep. Yeah, So I think we I think it's seemingly the overall thought with Grand Holmes. Every time we talk about his start. He is currently having to pitch like a third starter on this team, and right now the second starter, Spencer Swallenbach, is not exactly throwing the ball great when in reality Grand Holmes is like a fifth starter and it feels tighter than it probably should because the Braves offense is not scoring a ton right now either, But overall five and a third four runs, that's perfectly acceptable, I think from grand Holmes at this point.

00:25:39
Speaker 1: It's not great, but it's fine most of the time. They this is the team that should regularly score more than four runs, and they a lot of four runs of the game. As we'll get to more in a second. The bullpen's been really good recently. They just didn't have enough offense to overcome it in this particular spot. We'll come back in a second with more on the more positive game of the two. A memorable win, honestly one victor on Tuesday. After a word from our partners, Okay, Scott, the game on Tuesday was more fun, even if it wasn't gonna be for a long time. It was actually shit. We got to be kind of a frustrating loss. It was low scoring, and it was the all the offensive stuff. It was our third right win ultimately, and it felt like they stole one, I think almost all of a sudden version of like, wow, they stole that one. That was another fun win. Let's begin with Chris Sale, who was you know, awesome, like just generally Chris Sale, like twenty twenty four n LS a young winner, like six and two thirds, five hits, scoreless, two walk test strikeouts. Is he raising like the ones in the last three starts? Like he's just looking like Chris Sale again, and a big exhale from everybody. Obviously after a little bit of a rocky start. We did maintain some positivity about Chris Sale even when he was getting shelled. And this is kind of why it's like, oh, oh there's Chris Sale again. I know he's old, but he looks awesome.

00:26:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's really encouraging that Sale has been his usual self the last couple of starts. It's seem like that start out in Arizona, even if it was ugly early on that he started to figure some things out in the fourth and fifth innings. Then he was great at course field, with a caveat being that the Rockies are very bad, but I mean he was dominant. He looked great. His slider has been one of the most valuable pitches in baseball this season. It leads all of baseball in wiff rate, so a single pitch. He has more swing and misses on his slider than any other pitcher has with any other pitch. And he looks like Chris Saale from a year ago. He's gotten also some fortune, maybe not even fortune, but just we talked about how unlucky Sale was in the early going of the year, with a batting average on balls and play that was like four p forty at one point. Even if he still isn't getting lucky in that regard, his batting average on balls and play in the last three starts is down to three to eleven. That's more more average. Yeah, normal ish. So let's hope the ball keeps bouncing the Braves's way because continues to rack up the strikeouts and is not walking people, is not giving up heart contact. And if we know how good this guy can be when he's going right, the Braves are gonna need Sale to do this every fifth day, especially with the rotation. Even though the rotation has pitched better as of late. This rotation is pretty thin at the moment.

00:28:20
Speaker 1: He had that run last year. I think it was like seventeen or eighteen starts in a row allowing two runs or less. Like it was this ridiculous run, and you can't expect that necessarily, And we did say in the off season he probably isn't going to be quite as good as he was last year, but he's looked like that guy recently. The batman for the season is still like three seventy, which is crazy high. His career numbers like three hundred or two ninety eight or something like that, so it should keep coming down, regression in a positive direction, all those things. But he looked awesome and gave them a chance when they were not scoring any runs. On Tuesday, speaking of, the only run of the game for a long time was allowed by Daisball Hernandez, who wants to did even pitch bad in the eighth. He started out the side in the inning, he allowed an infield single, a stolen bay, and then a single to give up the only run of the game for a long time. So like he was pretty fine, and honestly, we'll come back to the places in a second before I forget to say this. The bullpen's been really good for a while now, and we've expressed a lot of skepticis about the bullpen dating back to the winter basically, and I'm not saying it's all fixed. I'm not saying they're great, but they are very quietly up to thirteenth in baseball and era with the bullpen. Now, that's not the only sist of the matters. Some of the underlying stuff is not as good as that. So maybe they're not actually that good. That's totally fair. But part of the mild success recently has been that they had been pretty good in the bullpen. Between these two games. They were basically perfect. On tonight's game, it didn't matter, but they held them right there at four. They were awesome. And then they allowed one run last night. Ricell it's been great. So just a little bit of a shout out to the bullpen after they had been much maligned, and they might be maligned again, that might happen at some point, but recently they've been pretty good.

00:30:01
Speaker 2: Two big takeaways from the bullpen. On Tuesday Night days Bell gave up the run but got three strikeouts, and that was something I was looking at Dazebell's page, and his strikeouts are actually down a bit from a guy with the stuff that he has. Days Ball needs to ramp up the strikeouts because so far his batting average on balls and play against is in the like one fifties or so. And as relievers, the name of the game is strikeouts. You do not want to let the opposing team put the ball in play in close games because then weird stuff can happen. So really good to see Daze bo get those strikeouts. And then also Rice el Iglacias man boom. That was vintage Rice el Iglasias. After we saw vintage Rice e Iglasias on Sunday Night Baseball where he was awesome, so really encouraging. I think everybody was at least somewhat nervous about Rice cell after the start he had, But these last two appearances in particular have been prime Rice Iglasias. Really good. Seven pitches, two strikeouts and a pop fly. I mean, he was locked in and looked very much like the guy that we have come to enjoy so much since the trade.

00:31:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I asked you was a week and a half ago. Like on this podcast, hey are we sure, he's getting the ball the next outing, and we thought he was going to to be fair Yeah, but people were asking us like is he still the closer? And I'm like, well, yes, we think he is, but it was it was a question we talked about, which is all you need to know about the way he started the season. But you look up now and like her, it's not a good spot here for the season still, but he has seventies strikeouts and two walks this year and the underlying stuff that's not the best, but like he's looked great recently and looks like himself and that's hopefully in another ex sale like Chris Sale, sales more important than Ry sale because it just starts, more important than relievers. But those two were very important, and they both looked to be going in the right direction in opposition to what we talked about earlier on the podcast about the one run like chances to come back to tonight and tonight's game on Wednesday, they pulled it off on Tuesday, so they go into the night down one. It's one nothing. It's in one of those nights I can't get anything going. You're gonna lead off walk from Sean Murphy who's been good this year. Our guy Stuart Fairchild pitch runs for Sean Murphy and uh, then it gets interesting. So we talked about Ylow White earlier. They pitch up really White. Uh, we should have brought this stuff earlier, honestly, and I forgot too. What did you make of Eli White trying to bunt last night?

00:32:30
Speaker 2: I did not like it?

00:32:31
Speaker 1: Well does that?

00:32:32
Speaker 2: So?

00:32:32
Speaker 1: I guess maybe this is I thought this still right now alive on the air. Are these things kind of related? Like I feel like it kind of says something about Snicker's faith in the isle of white that he was asking him to bunt on Tuesday and then they pitch hit for him the next day with Eddie Rosario. Maybe just Sni doesn't believe in the white very much. I don't know, I'm not I'm not saying that like in a negative boy, because you know, look as the guy who would I got people people. People are mad at me this week about Nick Allen on Twitter. We'll say that for later, but I just kind of pointed out Nick Alla's on a very good hitter. People come mad at me. Maybe maybe Smith's looking at the history of Bill White versus like the recent stuff of the white. But all of the analytically inclined people were like, why is he bunting? Like what's going on? And he struck out, so it didn't Actually I guess it mattered a little bit, but it was weird, just odd.

00:33:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think your hypothesis might be onto something, Brad. I don't know. I'd never like to bunt. I mean, it's rare that I'm in favor of bunting. I think the only time is if it's like a ghost Runner situation, the braves are batting in the bottom half and maybe it's a not good hitter and then it's Austin Riley and Matt Olsen or something like it, if it's.

00:33:40
Speaker 1: Nick Allen that Honestly, I can't remember who said it's on Twitter, but it was basically like, Okay, let's figure out a situation where it would be good to bunt or are we decent the butt? And if that's if that's the ninth spot up right there, and it's Nick Allen, who actually is as bad of a hitter as people don't want to believe that he is, but he is, uh, and then you have to stop the order coming up after that, I would have hated it less. I still wouldn't by the way, I still wouldn't have butt it even Nick Allen in that spot down and Run, but I would have thought about it. Yeah, Eli White has As much as you might be skeptical with Eli White's history, he's a real hitter. He's not He might not be this. He probably isn't this, but he's at least like a guy who could run into something like, has some power, has some pop, he could run. I don't know why you're bunting there. I hated that he strikes out, and look, it would have mattered more if they had lost. We might have led with that earlier in the show, but I just people wanted to bring it up because it's kind of our brand, you know.

00:34:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Eli White has had pretty good stat cast data too. This is not completely smoking mirrors. Even if he is not a proven entity at this point. He hits the ball hard, makes good contact, barrels a decent number of balls. See. I don't know. Maybe it's something Brian Snitker has in the back of his mind. Maybe on Wednesday's game they had some data that said, you know, Eli White's not going to hit this guy who knows, but it's weird, and and the fact that they bunted and and pinched hit for Eli twenty four hours later, I don't get it. Thankfully, Tuesday night, it didn't end up costing them because Michael Harris is an avid listener, active follower on Twitter. For all the haters out there, Thankfully, Michael Harris hit the ball really hard. And then there was an all time send at third base, and thank god Stuart Fairchild's pretty fast, because that was going to be disastrous if the Reds didn't goof up the relay throw.

00:35:28
Speaker 1: So I had two tweets this week this is this is bad podcast podcast but whatever that kind of broke contein and I think it was like they got in the for you tab and people that don't know me were weighing in and all these things. One was the Nick Allen tweet I referenced earlier about how I just kind of laid out like, hey, I'm and I've literally said I'm loving the Nick Oule experience, but the man can't hit was basically the framing. The other one was kind of making fun of the Stuart Fairchild's sind because I think anyone with Honestly, anyone with eyes could tell you that was not a good send. It worked out for the Brapes, but it just go back to process. We like process on the show, he should have been out, I mean it was not. I mean he can run, he's very fast. And by the way, our guy Justin Discano of the ADOC wrote like a whole piece about this send. Basically I recommend people reading if they're subscribe to the agency on Tuesday night. But it only ended up ended up working because red second basement. Matt McLain just held the ball for some reason, he hesitated and didn't throw the ball home. And even when he did that, it was still a bang bang play. So if he turns and throws it in reasonable fashion, I think we could be fair and say he would have been out. But hey, fair chalk can fly. That's worth noting. And Matt two s Sopo is the third base coach for the Braves, basically just said on the record that like he set him in part because the reds through the ball is second and not first. It's a process play. Like I get why he did it, but it was also like people were doing the Row Washington gift, which I definitely appreciate Ron, which is mister green Light. But uh, I have to just be true to myself. It was a bad said. It was hilarious and it worked out, so we were already happy about it. It was very funny to me.

00:37:05
Speaker 2: All help is appreciated in these games. Yeah, And I mean McClain didn't just hold on to the ball for a millisecond. It was in his glove for probably two seconds.

00:37:16
Speaker 1: What was he doing? Money he was doing? It helped the Braves. Again, we're happy about it, But I did not understand anything of what happened on the plate. It's like, throw the ball, what are you doing?

00:37:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a great moment. Fairchild was actually dfaed by the Reds YEP a couple of weeks ago, so I'm sure it felt good for him to beat the throw home. Also a nice moment for Michael Harris to tie the game with a double. We have been critical of Michael Harris. His batted ball and pitch selection at the plate is terrifying. I think Michael has now walked one time in his last eighty four plate appearances. If my math is right, he has the third lowest walk rate of any regular in baseball right now cannot survive. He is on page to walk something absurd like fifteen times this entire season.

00:38:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bad.

00:38:05
Speaker 2: So we don't want to dump on Michael Harris. He was in some ways the hero on Tuesday night. That can be another podcast, but yeah, man, Michael Harris, please, love of God, draw walk gotta you gotta figure it out. Brother. You're you're a talented player, five tool you can do it all, but you have to improve. And hey, credit to Michael lining the ball to right field. Thank you Matt McClain for holding onto the baseball. Otherwise it would have been not even close at home played, I don't think.

00:38:32
Speaker 1: And a brutal way to lose like that of a brutal way to lose that game. It worked out. We can celebrate it a little bit. They end up that was the tying run. The glass comes into the tenth, slams the door, and then Ozuna just ropes one home to left field, like just does what he does? Is the ball really hard? And going back to the runners proposition, that was actually one of the four hits in the last seven days with runs reposition was the Ozuna walk off on Tuesday. So yeah, I mean, I just pulled it up SOD, so I'll just share it to be true to myself. Michael Harris, there are three numbers that I will pass along. One of them is good, two of them are bad. You just gave him the walk stat He is fourth percentile in Major League Baseball and walk rate this year according to that cast. That's not good. He is third percentile in chase rate, which means you swing and everything'. Those are the two bad numbers, chase rate and walk right. The one encouraging number to some degree is that Michael Harris is hitting. I believe it's like two to ten batting average this year. No better. It's not the only thing in the world. We don't do that a lot. But his expected batting average at stack Gas is like two seventy. So he's been a little bit unlucky. Now he still wouldn't be what he should be at the plate when you bounce off the luck. There's a little bit of himism in there if you want to find it about Michael Harrison. The talent's there. Like you said, maybe he gets a spring board from the big hit on Tuesday, But yeah, I a fun one that maybe wasn't going to be so fun, but game that, uh, you know, steal some of them every once in a while. If they if they win the series on Thursday, we'll prove that game in a second. You look back and like say, the game that swung the series from maybe a split to a win was maybe the game on Tuesday. Would you steal one because you were down one of the knifth like you were down to what two outs left? They went out in the knife.

00:40:17
Speaker 2: There you go, and nice to get a win too when Chris Sale was awesome because they lost that start when Sale was awesome out in Colorado, YEP, that would have been back to back Chris Sale losses. And honestly, I think it was maybe the second or third time all year the Braves have won a Chris Sales start. So thankfully, you're right, they stole it. You take those anyway you can get them, especially when you get off to the slow start the Braves had, and because of that they have a real chance to win a four game series on Thursday night.

00:40:47
Speaker 1: I totally reverse jinks that. Actually on Twitter people were caught on to me. I said, and I think it was the seventh inning or eighth inning. The Chris Sale had thrown two absolute gems in a row. The Braves might lose both games. They didn't lose the second game, but yeah, they tried to lose it for a large portion of the game. All right. Before we get out of here, they look ahead quickly to Thursday. This will have this had a short shelf life, so we'll be brief here. It is Schwollenbach against Nick Lodolo of the Reds in the finale of the four game series on Thursday evening in Atlanta.

00:41:19
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:41:20
Speaker 1: The big story obviously is shamen Bach because he has been as we discussed multiple times down on the show between us and Steven and Sewan not himself the last handful of starts era over seven in his last four outings for your guy s Bench, Swellenbach say on the award winner, the numbers still look good for the season even with that, which is how good he was early on. The underlying numbers are still pretty solid for the season, but he gave up some home runs. Like he's not been sharp. You'd probably agree on that. Back at home here the Reds around a team that are like built to like totally tee off on him. It'd be nice to see three weeks ago schwollen Bach in this start on Thursday.

00:42:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, big game for Schwambach. Let's get him back on track. That Dodgers game was bad.

00:42:07
Speaker 1: Ye.

00:42:07
Speaker 2: They were launching everything against him. They had like a dozen balls over one hundred miles an hour of exit velocity. And that's not Schwallenbach and he's this is a crazy stat. In the first twenty one innings, Spencer Schwellenbach gave up one earned run this season twenty one innings over three starts, and then I think the first start, first inning of his four start one run twenty one innings. Since then, he has given up something like eighteen runs over the last twenty one innings. Pretty crazy. One run to eighteen runs over the same timespan. It's crazy to say this. I think Spencer Schwenbach throws too many strikes.

00:42:50
Speaker 1: That's what Steve It said too. It was funny.

00:42:51
Speaker 2: Or at least he throws too many things in the middle of the zone, which is obviously a problem. He doesn't walk anybody. He's pretty efficient out there. But I don't know, It's like he needs to learn how to nibble on the corners. And I think it's important to remind ourselves from Swallenbach that this is going to be like the twenty seventh big league start of his career. He was in the minor league for a reason this time a year ago. He was actually just about to debut this time a year ago, and now he's basically made it a full calendar year in the majors. Hopefully Thursday Night's game gets him back on track. As we have seen in the series, the Reds lineup is not exactly the Yankees right now, and at home a chance to win the series three out of four, the vibes should be great, especially going into the weekend where you're gonna play a Pirates team that is just downright awful. It's it feels like kind of in the ViBe's mode of vibes. Win on Thursday Night.

00:43:44
Speaker 1: Would go a long way, it would. You know, Lodolo's hittable. He's not bad, but he's a hit able pitcher. It was Baldwin today, by the way, so I expect it to be Murphy in the finale. That was a perhaps a handed this issue ball when facing alrighty if it gets lefty. That made total sense. All that stuff it'll be play Murphy on Thursday. And we said it earlier and I said, I think on Sunday with Stephen, like if there was a game to lose on paper in the series, it was tonight. It was Wednesday, and they could have won the game anyway. But the other three games the Braves are pretty solidly favored in. That was the case in the betty market in the first two games. I just, I just I just looked the case again. On Thursday, the Braves were pre solid favorites of the many. They're not massive favorites, but they are favored at home. It's a game you should win more often. It's still baseball. It's like sixty forty, like you know nothing. It's like ninety ten about tomorrow's game. But it would be good to win that one and get one more chance again if they win tomorrow, to get back to five hundred the day but then the next day, like we were all ready to celebrate kind of tongue in cheek to some degree, getting back to five hundred in May. That'd be great that they got there. Eventually, They're gonna have to get there. Scott breaking news if they want to have a good season. They have to at least get there at some point or get up of it.

00:44:52
Speaker 2: So it is going to happen this weekend. Oh, five hundred ceiling old shot, there it is. How's that call my shot? Babru style?

00:45:00
Speaker 1: Hey, foul territory, guys, clip this, clip this? Please?

00:45:03
Speaker 2: Oh god no, because then when they get swept by the Pirates, I will have nine million people yelling at me for jinxing it. That's right. Yeah, yeah, Hey, win the game Thursday, three out of four against a pretty good Reds team. Yeah, and then try to take care of business at home against the Pirates and get to five hundred, get above five hundred, and keep on winning games. Because we're not going to do a deep dive on the NL East at this point in the pod. But the Mets have cooled significantly. The Phillies are just, you know, playing decent ball, not bad by any means, but it's not like they're looking up in the division. And they are eleven games back, And as long as they keep winning series as they have done for the better part of a few weeks, they're going to be right into this thing. As Memorial Day gets here.

00:45:45
Speaker 1: Stack wins, stack series wins, as we've been saying repeatedly because it's really just practical, it's what you want to do. And I think when this year's the Thursday of go a long way, all right, Scott, we've done it. Put a bowl on this two game mini stretch. The plan is that we'll have a show on the feed after the game on Thursday and advance of the series on Friday, So stay tuned for that. Please subscribe to this podcast, Scott. Now that you're back from your hiatus when you were willy pipped again breathing full circle, what's going on in your life? And if people are new, where can they find you?

00:46:14
Speaker 2: On Twitter?

00:46:15
Speaker 1: I haven't actually aout the Blues at all. I waited forty five minutes at about the Blues just saying I waited all this.

00:46:20
Speaker 2: For the fifteen percent of the podcast listeners who follow up hockey.

00:46:24
Speaker 1: Under I can promlish that right now less than that, Yeah, there you go.

00:46:29
Speaker 2: I grew up in Missouri. I grew up going to Blues games. They lost an all timer in painful game seven fashion. I was sad for about twenty four hours, but most listeners have no idea what I'm talking about. So I will wrap up if you are a hockey follower, please send me a thoughts and prayers. But I am at Scott Coleman fifty five on socials. Brad and I will be back this weekend. I think I'm not going to say who, but I think we're going to have a cool guest on Sunday night. That's the play our usual in our usual spot. And as Brad just said a moment ago, lots of shows on the feed myself, Brad Steven Sean, a lot of good stuff. We're in the full swing of the season and hopefully the Braves keep winning baseball games.

00:47:11
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you Scott for being here as always. Thank you to everyone listening to the show or watching it on YouTube, so please subscribe YouTube, Apple, Spotify, overcast, ratings, reviews, follow us social media, and this is very important. All joking aside. If you like the show, tell somebody about it. You probably have Braise fan friends in your life or family members. Pass it along to them, send them a link or whatever. If they hate it, but let's have up give me a chance. That'd be great. Thanks for everybody for listening. As always, I will see everybody. Thanks time.