The Chris Sale Experience and a Mini-Sweep Over Boston

00:00:22
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to episode four of the Hammer Territory podcast. I am your host, Brad Roland, come into you on a Wednesday evening here in early May, and I'm joined as always by my friend Scott Coleman. Scott, the vibe is much better today on this Wednesday than it was just a few days ago when you and I last spoke on Sunday.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: Hey, Brad, it is amazing what a couple of winds can do from morale. A nice bounce back for sure by the Braves, and you mentioned the vibes being much much better now than they were even forty eight hours ago. It's a long season, lots of ups and downs, and thankfully the Braves seem to come out of it a little bit tonight, which was great to see. Yes, absolutely, and we will dive in head first to a five nothing win on Wednesday, But first I should at least plug up the top of the podcast. This is our third episode this week since Sunday. We recorded you and I on Sunday. Our guys Sean Coleman and Stephen Tolbert recorded on Tuesday evening into Wednesday, so if you missed anything from that, it's still very well, Evan, at this point in time, listen to that show. Please go ahead and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you might find podcasts. We are still new and trying to grow and convert everybody from our old podcasts and all those things, So go ahead and subscribe and tell a friend about the show. With that out of the way, though, we can dive in because it was a it was a fun game. If anybody listened to the show yesterday on episode three, our guy Stephen asked very plainly at the at the end of the podcast for a four spot in the first inning on Wednesday, and quite frankly, Steven billick Is the Braves scored four runs that greeted Boston's Dick Poveda very warmly. In his first action off the il since April third. He was let's just say, Marcel z dona pretty quickly and that was most of the story of the night beyond Crassale. Yeah, very clearly, the players have taken to heart the brand new podcast and Hammer territory. They love us. I'm sure they listened to us Brad before every single game from motivation. Oh certainly, yeah, of course, naturally, what else would you be listening to before a Major League baseball game. But yes, it was just nice to score those four runs in the first inning because not only have the Braves been in this little bit of a funk, but even on the games that they've won lately, they've been high stress, low scoring fifty to fifty games, and over the course of the season, you just need a couple of games to just kind of take your foot off the gas and cruise to a victory. Of course, they only ended up winning by five on Wednesday. It didn't turn into a blowout by any means, but it just felt like it took the edge off a little bit getting out to that big four nothing lead early, especially with Chris Sale on the mound.

00:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, we joke about Stephen calling for the four spot, but the fact that they just had some breathing room. They haven't had anything breezy in recent days. Even when I've won, it has not been super easy the last couple of weeks.

00:03:00
Speaker 2: Not that it was.

00:03:01
Speaker 1: Tonight either, but just having a little bit of cushion was very much welcome. Ozuna hits two home runs, including a three run homer that was clearly the biggest swing of the night. Also of note, in the first inning, Austin Rolliy beats out a potential double play that might have ended the inning. And if he doesn't beat that out and he's not busting it on the line, none of that happens. So it's always, it's always, or often at least the little things. Matt Olsen beats out an infield single along the way there, So yes, it was the home runs. And look, Scott, it's much easier to live when you hit three home runs in a game. The Braves are usually are you used to doing that, and recently they have been doing that so much. But there was a little bit of the subplots along the way that kind of teed up Ozuna because, by the way, Ozuna has been out of his mind.

00:03:40
Speaker 2: I believe, as of recording this very moment, the major league leader in home runs, Marcelo Zuna. He surpassed sho Hee Otani tonight with his home run, his two home runs actually, and not only Ozuna, but then for Orlando Arcia to hit a back to back home run for the first time all year for the Braves. You know, Rcia, funny enough, you and I were going to talk about Orlando a little bit in tonight's podcast originally because frankly, he's been pretty bad for a couple of weeks now, so for him to get that home run that just barely scraped over the right field wall and encouraging sign we need to get Orlando going again. His numbers have been pretty ugly for the last couple of weeks and just again good vibes, just good to get the monkey off your back, Braves. We've talked about it for multiple podcasts. Now, this lineup just has too much talent in it to stay down for long. And sure, five runs tonight, it wasn't like they blew them away, but it just feels like they're inching in the right direction, hopefully a little bit of the bad luck that they have run into with all of the barreled outs, which is something that our co host Steven Tolbert has talked about and written about quite a bit. Let's hope the pendulum is going to swing and the Braves are not only going to get back to hitting home runs like we know they can, but just get a little bit of luck. You mentioned the infield single or the avoiding a double play by Riley, and then the infield single for Matt O said you need those in order to put together big rallies, and tonight it was all the Braves really needed.

00:05:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was funny. I people could see behind the scenes. Are our notes kind of are a running document and RCA was on the radar for us. And obviously his glove's been awesome this year. That goes about saying, just so, just in case we need to say it out loud, his glove is the most important thing at shortstop. You can sort of live with him not hitting a ton but he is hitting six in the line up most nights, and that's a little bit aggressive for what his skill set probably is. But obviously a little bit easier talk about that tonight, considering that he hits the home run one more Ozuna stat quickly. By the way, he's the second Brave ever with at least thirty eight RBI in the first thirty four games of the season. And the other guy you might you might have heard of him, Scott. His name is Hank Aaron. Pretty famous player, pretty good at baseball, so.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: Pretty well known baseball player.

00:05:48
Speaker 1: We talk We don't talk RBI a ton on this podcast, but and look there's reason for that. But still he's still have to be pretty good usually to have a ton of RBIs. So it's one of those things where not bad company to keep. And he has been out of his mind. And by the way, somebody troll I can't remember who it was, My apologies, somebody was trolling us in a kind way about how we mentioned on Sunday that Marcel had cooled off. Look, he had cooled off. He had one hit in six games. Now he's about now he's hot again.

00:06:12
Speaker 2: Though. It is what it is. This podcast serves as a great motivator. All the great ones do, all the great coaches, they are the masters at motivating and that is what we strive to do here on the Hammer Territory Podcast, Get the guys going. We will talk about quite literally anything if it means the Braves win and snap out of whatever funk they have. But yeah, I mean, you just could not say enough good things about what Marcelo Zuna has done the first month and a half of this season.

00:06:40
Speaker 1: That is pretty much all the offensive talk from Wednesday. They did kind of group their runs in a short period of time, all five of them in the first three innings. But Scott from there, the biggest story I would argue even beyond the offensive kind of mini breakout early in the game, was the play of and really the general performance all season Law, but especially tonight Chrisale. Chris Sale faced Boston for the first time after being there first seven years. That's of course where he was required from in the winter, and he's been really good all year. We've been phrasing him up and down, going back to our old podcast and writing and all these kind of things, but this was arguably his best performance of the season so far, as season high with ten strikeouts, six innings, six hits, no runs, one walk, and really he has been everything the Braves could have asked for. We all know the deal here, just knock on woods, stay healthy, Chrisale. But man, he has been cooking in a big way.

00:07:33
Speaker 2: He has genuinely been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball this year. And we said it when we did a podcast a week ago, but it feels like Sale is getting stronger and stronger every time he goes out there. I am sure that he was jacked up and ready to go against his former club, not that there was any hard feelings against the Red Sox, but I think just naturally the competitive juices get flowing whenever you see the organization that you were a part of for all those years and they opted to rage you away. Sale has been fantastic. His strikeouts per nine are basically as good as they have ever been in his career. He had ten strikeouts over six innings tonight. He just dude across the board. We cannot say enough good things about what Chris Sale has meant to the Atlanta Braves.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that goes about saying it's pretty easy to see that. I've been particularly impressed. Not that it's a huge surprise that it has a good slider, but his slider has been one of the best pitches in all of baseball so far through a month, five weeks, whatever it has been. He's throwing it more often than he ever has. By the stackcast numbers coming against tonight, it was like forty four and a half percent of his pitches were sliders. And I think it even improved tonight. But coming in to this evening, opponents were slugging one eighty eight against his slider this season, not batting slugging Scott. That's pretty good, especially when when you're growing up pitch that often and opponents are doing that against you. That means it is working. It is generating whips, it's gendering strikeouts, it's shattering off contact and yeah, right it all the ways as much as you can because it has basically been untouchable so far.

00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he just across the board he has that's the slider working for the strikeouts. He's had great command all season as well, only one walk tonight and a sub two walks per nine. I believe this was his seventh or eighth start of the year and a two nine to five ERA, a two point six y three FIP, a two point four to six x FIP for the season. All of those are comfortably top ten or so in the league, if not top five. I mean, it's just been so far, it has been as good as it could possibly be. For Sale and what he has meant to this brave rotation as we know, Max Freed has been a little Jekyll and Hyde. Of course, no Spencer Strider, but Sale. I mean, it's it is early. It is the second week of May. No one is seriously talking MVP or Cy Young candidacies at this point, or at least if they are. It's all projection. But if Chris Sale can stay healthy, he is going to be there at the end of the year and have a real chance to get some votes, because this dude looks very much like prime Chris Sale, especially the last couple of times he's gone out there on the mound.

00:10:10
Speaker 1: Just a fantastic story to him throwing that way against this sole team. Just a full circle event, you know, shout out endings and all that stuff. A fun little storyline on this Wednesday, and he has been awesome to this point. Also got a little bit of defensive help in this game. Austin Riley has been playing extremely well. Like I will raise my hand. I've been skeptical of his defense in the past. This year he's grading out very well both eye test wise, also the numbers. I think he's like in the eightieth percentile or so in stockcast out Toma Bader so far at third base, I've made a great play tonight. Jared Kelnick robbed a home run or at least close arriving a home run in a sixth inning to preserve the shutout. Lots of kind of team based up there too. Sale was still awesome, but he got some couple on the way as well.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: I think maybe the most surprising or most impressive thing that Austin Riley has done as a big leaguer is how much he has improved defensively. Was a guy coming up in the minors where there were a lot of questions if he was going to be able to stick at third base right, was he going to be a first basement was he going to be a DH Maybe they put him out in left field. He did play left field for a hot minute because of Josh Donaldson at third base. There was a legitimate reason to have questions about his long term defensive ability in the majors, and Riley every single year has gotten better. He took a big step forward in the eyes of the defensive metrics last year, and even just the eye test. I know, the eye test is something that generates a lot of discussion and maybe argument because people can see things different ways, but he passes the eye test. It seems like he's getting better every year, and that's just a testament to the work that Austin has put in because I mean, he had a crazy bare handed play early in this game, where if he doesn't clean a pretty well hit bouncing ball, bare handed and make a perfect throat to first believe there would have been then two runners on and two outs, and who knows how that inning goes. Riley gets the out at first and the threats over. It's really just a testament to him. And then Jared Kelnick defensively has been really impressive. Offensively, I think gross still waiting for the power to keep going, but he robbed the home run in the sixth inning to keep a shoutout going. And he's been great in left field. He flies all over the place, a lot of range, has the cannon of an arm, So defensively, Kelnick has been really impressive.

00:12:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, I think coming into tonight I saw that he was ninety nine percentile in throwing value this year against falsely apple size. It's only a month, but he's had numerous impressive throws from left field and is doing his job there even if the power is still on the horizon. Will hope for the brave standpoint, but anyway, good defense, great run prevention on the whole, obviously with Sale in the middle of it all, and a really fun win on Wednesday. Before we move on to a little bit of a look ahead, to the weekend. A quick wrap up of Tuesday. Again, if you missed more of a deeper dive on Tuesday's game, I would recommend listening to episode three with Sean and Steven. And by the way, we're here a nice plug for the folks at the foul Territory Network. We are a part of foul Territory. Scott showed his face on video on foul Territory this week. People were really excited to see your mug on TV.

00:13:11
Speaker 2: Scott. Contrary to popular belief, this is not Tiger Woods and all of my Tiger Woods meming over the years, so I'm on there. I always say got the face for radio, face for a podcast, but hopefully I did the site proud. The foul Territory guys are great. Was on there with Aj Pierzinski, who of course was there for a couple of years, with the Braves, Eric Kratz, Todd Frazier, Scott Braun. Really a great group of guys who really do a nice job covering the game. So if you are so inclined, my face is out there. But yeah, no, the guys at foul Territory do a really nice job and we're happy to be part of the network.

00:13:48
Speaker 1: We sure are and that was a fun. It was fun to see all the reactions to you. I was hoping to be able to join you, but actually I'm very glad that I was not on there with you. I got to watch and observe and kick back and watch you are up next to my friend. Because the people need some bread in their lives. They really do not anyway, Moving back along, Tuesday was obviously a when they get this mini sweep over Boston. The office was not fantastic, which was discussed a little bit. It was okay for four runs, seven hits, four walks, it was fine. We mentioned the lack of power for Kellnick. He did a home run on Tuesday. That was good to see. You noted this Chipper was talking about wanted to get with Kellick about a swing. I don't know about you. That sounds pretty good to me. Have those guys talk a little bit.

00:14:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Chipper Jones has earned enough leeway to work with whatever hitter he thinks he can work with and get the most out of them. I'm not sure. Over the last what twenty five years, you probably count on one hand the number of hitters who are more qualified than Chipper Jones to give advice to a hitter who you know. With kell Nick, he's not been bad offensively, but he just hasn't had a ton of power so far, and that was something Chipper was talking about. But anytime the Chipper Jones shows up and he's around the team, I think it's only a good thing. That guy just has such a wealth of hitting knowledge and expertise, for.

00:15:03
Speaker 1: Sure, And Kelnick has been a little bit fortunate with his babbit lots of lots of singles, but he does have a one of five w RC plus And I know you and I in our former home at Battery Power discussed us a lot over the winner. If you could guarantee me Judd Kelnick has a one o five w RC plus no matter how it comes this year, I would have to take that. Obviously, you would like it to have a little bit more power along the way. But the way that he's been playing defense, if you could just be a league average bat in left field making very little money on control for a long time, that's a pretty good setup. And if Chipper can sort of sprinkle his dust on that, that'd be very helpful as well.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: And I think it's coming for Jared. He's had a really good couple of games against Boston, had the home run, had a couple more line drives that were hit really sharply. You can see when you watch this kid that he has all the tools, he has all the talent, just hasn't necessarily completely clicked for him yet. He had flashes in Seattle where it looked like he was about to be a next star for that organization, and then he would fall off, and then he had a couple of injuries and clearly it just hadn't all come together with his time in with the Mariners. I think there's still that upside for Jared. And you mentioned a one oh five WRC plus not going to blow anyone away, but perfectly fine. The defense has been great, he can really run the bases as well. Seems like a good dude guy who's fitting well with the clubhouse. I'm excited to see what keln Like can do the rest of the way for sure. And the rest of Tuesday was about pitching.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: Reynald A. Lopez was quite good again. He did kind of come out of it a little bit in the sixth command. Wise, you have four walks this season, high, but to no one's surprises, he's been paying attention. He's been excellent to this point. Obviously, his his peripherals are a little bit worse than his era, but that's to be expected when you're r raising the mid ones. Nobody has peripherles in the mid ones, so that's kind of the way the way things go. But Sean and seven talked about it a lot yesterday, but he was able to ramp it up as well, throwing as high as I think ninety eight ninety nine in the middle of that start when he kind of had to summon it.

00:16:58
Speaker 2: That was one of the questions that we had dating back.

00:16:59
Speaker 1: To the winner about his arsenal as a reliever compared to being a starter, and he has kind of shown the vote to do both, and that's one of the huge questions. Obviously he had been a starter in the past, but he really started to play up as a reliever with the White Sox and it was like, all right, can he kind of kind of find that line that you can walk where you still have the stuff you need but can also summon it at times that kind of lengthen yourself out, And he has certainly done that so far. Again, not just keep saying this over and over again. It's only a month, but he looks the part. To me, the peripherals tell of the story. He's avoiding barrel, he's generating whiffs like. It's all looking good for Ronaldo, even if he kind of had, you know, half of a bad ending basically in the sixth but he's probably tired by then. But the first five innings were lights out. Again.

00:17:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, very impressive for Ronaldo. He has admittedly surpassed all of my expectations and I would imagine most listeners too, me too. Yeah, yeah, what a great sign from the front office. Of course, we'll see how he holds up over a full year. I'm very curious to see if the Braves have already begun discussions internally about how they're going to handle Lopez's workload. Of course, he's been a reliever for multiple years. You would assume that he probably doesn't have one hundred and sixty one hundred and seventy innings in the tank. I mean, I would say almost definitively he does not. So we'll see what they do to manage his workload. And on Tuesday night, maybe the MVP of the game was Aaron Bummer. Bumber came in bases loaded situation, gave up one very unlucky run, which is like on par for Aaron Bummer because he has this terrible luck at grounder off of him by the way, Yes hit him in the butt. If the ball was a couple of inches the other direction, it would have gone right to Ozzie Alby standing at second base. It would have been an inning, inning double play, no run scored. Boston gets one run, but then Bummer comes up and strikes out Duran and Rafael Devers, which is no small feet on back to back played appearances, to keep the score tied at two to two. You know, if Bumber doesn't come in and get the job done the Braves, who knows. Maybe they win, maybe they lose. But he deserves a lot of credit for whatever reason. I think anytime a new guy comes in and doesn't have immediate success become a lightning rod, whether it's fair or not. I think Bummer has kind of that reputation right now. But I'm a fan of Aaron Bummer. I think he has wicked stuff from the left side, has great strikeout numbers, and if his luck can just kind of balance out a little bit. I think he's going to be a real weapon from the left side for this bullpen all summer long. Also, his name is Bummer, so the puns and the headlines right themselves, So I just want maybe that adds to it as well. Scott, I'm not sure that works, but yeah, lots lots of jokes being made. No, I'm with you one hundred percent. My favorite way, my favorite way to describe how unlucky he has been in a short way is that he's a ground ball pitcher in a lot of ways. He has a career sixty six percent ground ball right and by the way, that is absurd. That's like top three in baseball absurd. That's also very good. But this year he has a four forty four babit blout. If you have if you're a grub ball pitcher and that's your repit bloud, you're getting unlucky and you're not going to have that much success. It is what it is.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: But he has been generating not great contact, which is what you want, striking out guys like I like what I see. We like the trade. When it happened, people are we're skeptical dating back to that because not to do the entire thing again. And by the way, if you're a listener to this podcast, you will hear this ran at some point, not today, about how Era does not always tell the story about pitching.

00:20:26
Speaker 2: But he's a fir example of that so far. Yeah, and I think just with time, if you continue to strike out batters at a high rate and you continue to get ground balls, it's going to balance out in the end. You're going to see the results. Anyone's going to run into some bad luck here and there, but we like Aaron Bummer. It's also worth giving a quick shout out to Adam Duvall, who had maybe a game saving catch in the eighth inning. Yeah, that great play and he was cold off the bench too. Duvall had just come in as a pinch hitter for Kalnick against the left handed reliever. Duvall goes into the gap, running, catches the ball on a mini dive. If that ball gets past Duvall, two runs score pretty easily. Who knows how the game goes. The Braves may not win, but you know, props to Adam Duvall, who has really just not played a ton. The Braves have not seen a ton of left handed starters lately, but whenever he's been called upon, it feels like he's done his job in one way or another, whether it's offensively or in the field.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: Quickly, we can kind of pivot away from this two game at mini sweep of a series and do a little bit of news and then we'll get out of here, looking ahead to the weekend in New York against the Mets. It was nice that the Phillies did us a favor and happened to lose a baseball game on Wednesday. I don't know if it was following this, but the Phillies have been absolutely scalding. They had won eleven of the last twelve, including seven in a row coming into Wednesday's game, which maybe put a little bit more of the heat on the Braves. Look, it's too early to worry that much about this, but the Phillies are playing extremely well and they finally lost the game, so always wanted.

00:21:48
Speaker 2: To note that.

00:21:49
Speaker 1: Now.

00:21:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Toronto Blue Jays get a shout out on this episode of the podcast. Well done, gentlemen. A couple of those weird midweek series I think for the nationally yeast. Of course, you had the two games for the Braves in Red Sox only two games for the Phillies and Blue Jays, which is just one of those scheduling quirks. But you know, the Phillies and the Braves, man, it feels like they're going to be locked all summer long. Both are really good teams. I mean, for my money, these are two of the four best rosters in baseball. These two, the Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles, and maybe the Yankees round out the top five. Yeah, it'd be a fun podcast discussion for a slower news day, But yeah, I mean, the Phillies are a good team. If that pitching staff holds up, it's as good as anybody's. The lineup has been mashing lately, but nice to gain a game, even if it's early May. And again, it just feels like when we get to mid and late September, these two teams are going to be neck and neck.

00:22:45
Speaker 1: Also, the Braves played four fewer games in the Phillies as of May eighth. That's a lot of games to be playing fewer than your closest divisional rival in a month.

00:22:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a.

00:22:55
Speaker 1: Little bit weird scheduling wise. Obviously, it's gonna it'll all even out. It's just one of those weird was I was like, Oh, they're tied in the lost column and the Brands are two games back, and it's like, wait, you've played four fewer games.

00:23:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, what if we had so far to rain outs for the Braves?

00:23:08
Speaker 1: I think I think, yeah, at least one. I think yeah, I think it might be too.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: I think there was a Mets game. I think there was a White Sox game that was like snowed out, which is always fun. Yeah, who could have seen snow in Chicago in late March? And uh and then yeah, a lot a lot of off days too, lots of scheduled off days for the Braves, which is not a bad thing. But they of course have another one on Thursday, when a lot of people will be listening. They have another one the following week on Thursday. So hopefully it's keeping guys fresh and they're coming out of this little bit of a slumber that they had the past couple of weeks.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: Yes, And the only sort of transactional or news and no kind of thing is that, unfortunately, as we speculate.

00:23:46
Speaker 2: It could happen on Sunday nights.

00:23:48
Speaker 1: Tyler Matzk hit the il on Tuesday before the game, and they called up ray KERR to replace him. We don't know anything more on Mats that I have seen. It's it's elbow. We don't know how hurt he is. It might be one of those I won't say manipulation things, but it might be one of those where he just needs a break, or he might be hurt, or it might be both. I don't really know, and we don't really know at this point in time. But that did happen. If you want more on that, we talked about it on Sunday, but Rayker actually made his Braves debut on Wednesday through a scroll saying look pretty good to me. People were wondering why it wasn't Ken Giles as our good power. Chris Willis pointed out, many the Braves have a full forty man right now, and they don't actually have a super super obvious way to create a spot. I'm sure they could if they needed one, but if all things were relatively equal, maybe it would have been Ken Giles. But John's not on the forty men and ray KERR is, and ray KERR is up with the Braves.

00:24:39
Speaker 2: I think the move to put Mattsick on the il and bring up Ray Kerr is probably a win win for all parties involved. It's tough to watch Matsik right now. He clearly is not right. He's not the guy that we grew to love so much in twenty twenty one. So hopefully couple of weeks away, let him rest, let him do some sides. Maybe his mechanics are off, maybe he is feeling some of the effects of coming back from Tommy john He of course, is in his mid thirties, so he's not a young man necessarily in baseball terms anymore. And with Kerr we saw tonight a live arm, a fastball in the mid nineties, has a wipeout breaking ball as well, you know, another power arm. Especially without Pierce Johnson available for the next couple of weeks, I feel like Kerr is going to quickly get a chance to prove that he's an option for Brian Snicker in close games. He was impressive tonight, And I think when that trade happened it was kind of a no lose proposition for Atlanta. They took on a little bit of money for Matt Carpenter's deal and in return got a left handed reliever with some real upside and those aren't always available. And we've talked for longtime. Listeners know we have talked for many years that bullpen depth is very, very important. In the fact that they have now Kerr up and they also have Ken Giles waiting in the wings at some point, it is really valuable. One note on Giles not being I do wonder if the Braves are intentionally trying to limit his innings a little bit early in the year. He is not really pitched regularly in four seasons at this point, So with Giles, of course it's a very long season. If it means you kind of have to hold off and lower his workload in April and May and even June to hopefully have him fresh and ready to go in the second half of the year, that's a move. I think you have to be all four for a team. That's what twenty two to twelve as of recording feels like a no brainer to me.

00:26:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you're playing podcast bingo, you will probably check us a space right now. But the Braves did proactively go in and get Ray Kerr. Like you can debate how impactful that was, but they obviously saw something that they actually liked with ray Kerr. So there was like there was a guy on the scrap that they just signed, like they traded for him. Yes, they took on Carpenter. That wasn't why they did that deal. They wanted ray Kerr and that's what happened in the end. Okay, Well look ahead now briefly to the weekend you mentioned before. The Braves are off again on Thursdays. People are listening to this podcast probably at some point one between Thursday and Friday, but it's a weekend series in New York against the Mets. The Mets are okay, They're not fantastic. This is not the one hundred win Mets from a few years ago, but they are a competitive team. They actually won a series in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Their offense is not anything special, but the pitch has been really good so far, and the Braves are scheduled to face three fairly intriguing arms over the weekend. That's probably the number one storyline is like who's going to pitch better in this little weekend series?

00:27:26
Speaker 2: But what are you looking for? Scott? Yeah, yeah, I think the Mets. I mean literally everything went wrong a year ago and they've done a nice job of bouncing back, as you mentioned, hovering around five hundred, but they got off to a really bad start. I think they were one and six at one point, so they've been playing well above five hundred the last couple of weeks, a lot of depth in the lineup. The lineup's been fine, and you mentioned the rotation has been really strong. And anytime the Braves travel up to City Field, seems like we get fireworks of some kind. Should be a good series anytime you get an NL East fo ahead of you. Course, with the new schedule, you only see them four times a year, four series a year instead of the old six, which just felt like a million, But should be a fun series, an opportunity for the Braves to go in and try to get a little bit of payback. The Mets came to Truest a couple of weeks ago and won two out of three, and really, I mean they played well against the Braves, so there should be a lot of fun in City and and uh yeah, it's just the New York Mets. Man. I just kind of wonder when the other shoe is going to drop because they there's been no drama with the Mets this year, and it feels like it is only a matter of time before something happens. Yeah, that's a fair point, and they are exactly a teen to eighteen right now. They should change their pitching probables today for the weekend. That's kind of one of the storylines that I'm following in the next couple of days. Like right now, the Braves did proactively put out their probables for the weekend, and they are at this moment not skipping Bryce Elver. We talked about that as a possibility with only a five game week, but they are. The Braves are listening. Uh Morton on Friday, Free on Saturday, and Elder on Sunday. The Mets pushed some guys back, so it's gonna be uh Jose Quintana, Christian Scott making his second ever start on Saturday. He's actually a pretty interesting prospect. And then Luis Savarino, who actually has been good this year, kind of back from the dead, so to speak with the Mets.

00:29:17
Speaker 1: So we'll see if that all holds on both sides. But I look, I can already hear the existential dread from Braves fans about his Sunday night ESPN Game with Bryce with Bryce Ldter on the Mount on Sunday. I'm sure people were gonna be excited to hear us talk about that on Sunday.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: Night'sgo Yeah, Mother's Day no less, Oh yeah, the Braves are gifting all of our mom listeners out there. Shout out to you, all the real MVPs of life. They're getting them all the moms or Bryce Elder start. Let's hope that Bryce is better. I mean, he cannot be worse. I don't want to pick on Bryce, but he cannot be worse than what he was against a very good Dodger lineup last weekend. But you have Chuck Morton, who's been really solid all year long.

00:29:57
Speaker 1: Just yes he has, he's got the old man, still.

00:30:00
Speaker 2: Got it, your man. And then Max Freed, who wasn't bad in his last start, but maybe not as good as we were hoping for. I'm free to get a chance against New York. And then we talked about Elder, So a chance for the Braves to go in. It'd be great if they could pick up two out of three against a solid Mets team. I do not love Sunday Night Baseball, Brad. It just it throws me off. It makes for a late night of podcast recording. I don't love the broadcast. I like the afternoon with Brandon and with CJ in the booth, But what are you gonna do national telegap telecast? Excuse me? I guess with the ongoing Comcast Exfinity issues, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world. So people can actually see their team play.

00:30:45
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I'm sure there's a segment of fan base right now that's kind of just holding out hope that something gets fixed there, and the ESPN's at least on their cable dial. I'm with you, though, that's going to be a very long d No one cares about our plights individually. Between Mother's Day, the NBA Draft Lottery is on Sunday afternoon, which matters to me and not you, but it matters to me quite a bit. I have to cover that and then a night game and a probably ten thirty or eleven o'clock podcast recording and Mother's Day. Happy Mosay everybody. Well, we'll have more on that later on. Anyway, we've reached the end of our midweek podcast. I got a question or two today, like hey you and Scott, are do it? Yes, Scott and I are usually with in our old home. We usually recorded mostly once a week until the playoffs. At with us we had several episodes per week on the feed, but it was mostly Scott and I only on the Sundays. We are endeavoring to talk twice a week for the most part during the season in addition to all of the great work from Sewn and Steven, so we are planning to deliver everybody three or four episodes per week on this feed. Go ahead and subscribe to the podcast right now, Scott, anything to plug before we get out here.

00:31:48
Speaker 2: Not too much, Brad. Nice to do a midweek show with you. As you said, this will be the norm for us moving forward. Might change a little bit based on the schedule for the Braves each week and how the games fall, but with just the two games this midweek, a little odd to have the off day on Thursday. But hope everybody out there is doing well. We do one more time. Just want to thank everybody for their support and getting the show off the ground. Incredible feedback, viewership and listening has been fantastic and so many people have reached out saying they're happy to have the showback, which means the world to us. So very happy to be with you in this midweek spot. It'll be a little different from what Brad and I are used to, but we'll do two shows a week instead of one, which is always a pleasure to talk with Brad and talk a little Braves baseball. But we'll be back with you soon, and so will Sean and Steven in a couple of days.

00:32:36
Speaker 1: Yes, and you will see by the life of this episode that will be a little bit shorter than our usual hour long Sunday episodes because we're doing two a week, so you'll probably still get more out of us in general, but it might be a little bit more of a bite sized every once in a while with the mid week episode. But anyway, thanks for listening. Everybody, leave a five star reading and review. Smash the subscribe button on your podcast platform choice. If you want to follow the show across platforms, go ahead.

00:32:58
Speaker 2: And do that.

00:32:59
Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube, we're on Spotify, we're on Apple, we're on overcast, all of those places. We really appreciate everybody's supports and see you all next time.