A Braves Series Win That Didn't Feel Like One

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Hammer Territory Podcast. This is episode two one five. I am your host, Brad Rowland, coming to you on a Sunday evening here in mid June, and I'm joined as I always am, by Scott Coleman. Scott, I'm gonna throw things out at you right off the bat. Here. The Braves went four into this week and one both series. Can you possibly think of a less exciting or more underwhelming way to go four into and have two back to back winning series?

00:00:48
Speaker 2: Isn't it almost like poetic that usually most of the time, for people who have listened to the show for a long time, we would say, hey, two series wins, four and two weeks, I step in the right direct. A lot to talk about. But yeah, when you get embarrassed by the worst team and maybe the history of baseball on Father's Day and Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, you get embarrassed in your home park, there's an off day on Monday, you have a huge series on the horizon with the Mets, and then you just get beat down. It just it totally killed the vibe, and man, in some ways, it was fitting for this whole season.

00:01:26
Speaker 1: It absolutely was. And you and I talked a few days ago about that previous series, which actually was a good series win. It would have been nice to sweep, but going in on the road to beating Milwaukee two out of three is actually a good result. But also in I would say uncharacteristic fashion for us in particular, we kind of said they got to sweep this weekend. And when you win the first two games and you're a minus three hundred and something favorite and the Benny market on Sunday and you get a really really good, like stand out starting pitcher performance and you still lose by nine runs, It's like, how are we supposed to sell that? You know what I mean? There's not really a lot of upbeat to be sharing with people today.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: And series win be damned. The Braves really did not play that well this weekend against the Rockies.

00:02:08
Speaker 1: No, they had a nice sunny explosion for like three innings.

00:02:12
Speaker 2: Yes, they were dead in the water for six innings in game one. They I mean game Game two of the series was a normal game, scored early, no offense. After that, pitching was great, and then we know what happened on Sunday. It wasn't like the Braves just beat the beat the Rockies down, like quite literally everybody else has. The Colorado Rockies have fourteen wins fourteen. Two of them came against the Atlanta Braves, kind of both.

00:02:39
Speaker 1: In series finales. Both were of the Braves not being able to score against the Rockies. There's some synergy there, but you're right, it's it's maddening. As always, we'll get into the games. If you're a new listener, first of all, welcome or we appreciate you listening to the podcast or watching the podcast on YouTube. Please subscribe to the show. Just search Hamber Territory anywhere you find your podcast and listen to us a favor. If you like the show, support us and you're super angry, Hey, you don't want to listen one day, just download the podcast. It's just it's helpful for us to pay our pay our mortgages, so to speak. If you're someone like Scott who was living in a nice mansion there in Arizona, I'm kidding, but one more joke. It was half of the shif we have to throw out there because I a lot of time listeners will know this. The Braves are three and eight on Sundays this season. Is there anything more on brand than that? Even when they're good, they don't went on Sundays, especially, and this year it's even it's even worse.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: So even in the years where the Braves win one hundred games, they just have this thing on Sundays. It maybe it's a podcast curse, maybe it's just something weird we getaway day. I don't know, but yeah, for years now, the Braves have not been very good on Sundays, and they have been awful in twenty twenty five.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: We're going to dive into the games like we always or typically would. I want to ask you a big picture thing to kind of reset this at the top, because this is this is the seventieth seventieth game of a season. Nice round number. The Braves have played forty three percent of their games. Rough they're not halfway yet, but in a week and a half they'll be at the halfway point of a season. You pulled this today about how well the Brays have to play now to even get to ninety wins, and ninety win is not a guarantee of anything. As we're talking, there was a blockbuster trade the Giants, who are a team that Brace have to contend with in the wildcard race. Just added Raphael Devers for potentially a song. We don't know what the final package is, but not a huge price, but it's posting what he is. So obviously ninety wins no guarantee. But Scott, I'll ask you this because I know you know the answer. How well do the Brace have to play from this point forward to get to ninety wins, which again is not guaranteed anything.

00:04:38
Speaker 2: So from this moment moment on, the Atlanta Braves have to play at a one hundred and four win pace from now until the end of the season if they want to win ninety games, which as you just said, does not guarantee anything. I think ninety games is going to get you in with the Giants adding Devers, I think the Giants are looking good for it. They're tied with La in the West to the Phillies are right there, and then you know San Diego, Milwaukee, Saint Louis. I think that third wild card spot is probably open and maybe you could get in with like eighty eight or eighty nine wins as the Braves did a year ago. But let's not overlook the point here. The Braves have to go upwards of one hundred wins the rest of the way, a pace of more than one hundred wins the rest of the way if they want even a prayer of making the postseason that. I mean, have you seen anything from the Steam Brad that makes you think, all right, here comes one hundred plus win pace for the next three and a half months.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: The only framing of that is that they did it for a month. They went nineteen and ten over about four and a half five weeks. But that's not enough to say that's all because you asked me, have you seen have you seen anything? If there's one big a glom onto, it's that. But I'm not I don't really believe that right now. We've been showing on the podcast we were not picking the brace to make the playoffs at this point. I think you'd be silly to pick them to do it. It can every time they lose. I don't know about you. I got a deluge of people saying the season's over every time they lose, and that's fine, I get it. People or the vibes are awful. And I even joked this morning when I advertised to the podcast on Twitter, I said, the vibe will be much different winner lose today, even though they will have won both series. And guess what, Scott, the vibe is much different than would have been if they won the game. Yes, it just is. And it's one game, and I'm very analytical. It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't be that way where it's like one game on a Sunday changes the entire frame of mind for everybody. But when you play the Rockies number one and you lose to the Rockies and the game we're favored in and all these things that we've already kind of touched on, we'll touch on again, it does swing things a little bit. And I'm not even gonna do the bit that I would normally do about how winning series is great, Like we do believe. I do believe that, but it's such a hard sell when you are where they are to not especially if they lost the first game and won the next two, it probably would have felt a little better. But why, Like, that's kind of silly in itself. Obviously, it's just kind of the way that trajector these trajectory runs. But it's it is hard, and we're gonna do this every show but it is hard to be, like, you know, super optimistic despite the fact that objectively, they had a good week. If you win two thirds of your games over every week of the season, you're one hundred win baseball team. But when one of those series is at home against the Rockies and you don't sweep it when you need to sweep it, and everybody probably knows that the quotes after the game they all knew. I mean, it's also funnier in some respects that they lost by a million, Like if they lost two to one, it would have been maddening. It would have been synergy with with the previous Rockies loss, which which also was a two to one game on a day when the Braves had an awesome starting pitcher. But then you've got blown out in your home building on Sunday. So I check not great, and I stand by it like it's about the worst feeling I've ever had after a series win. I mean, it's hilarious, but like, given worth, giving where they are and the team they lost to, all those things, throw them in a recipe and say, here's the least exciting series win.

00:08:10
Speaker 2: Of all time. Yeah, maybe that's the title of this podcast. The least, it might be the least exciting series win, maybe the most frustrating series win of all time. Yeah, just just more the same for this baseball team. We're here, they're they're what nine games below five hundred still and you know what's been so frustrating this year is so many of the losses have been those one run, skinny your teeth losses and then to lose ten to one to Colorado and he had Grant Holmes almost set a franchise record for strikeouts. On the same day, I know, our parent company, foul Territory tweeted, They're like, they posted Grant Holmes stat line against Rockies and they said, you'll never guess who won the game ten to one. If I would have told you this morning Granted Home struck out fifteen hitters, I mean we would have pre recorded the show and said, all right, brave one. I mean, it's just again, it's somehow fitting with all the just horrible losses, truly horrible losses this team has had over the last few weeks. This one was a little unique, but it was also very on brand.

00:09:18
Speaker 1: It absolutely was, and we will dive in in our I would say trademark fashion to these games without maybe the every inning chronicling that we might do. Sometimes. We'll get into all of that, plus Profar coming back pretty soon the Mets series and more after a word from our sponsors on the show.

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00:10:32
Speaker 1: Bottled All right, Scott, Let's discuss the two wins because they were the first things that happened over the weekend. So if you missed anything before the the for of the Rocky series, we discussed it on our podcast in numerous episodes with Book with Us and Sean and Stephen. Friday's game was the blowout win ends up being a blowout win, but it did not feel that way like in the slightest The Brains were down four to one on Friday night in the sixth inning, and if anything, they were probably lucky to be down only three runs. Bryce Olver got rocked. He did not look good after his awesome start last week, and fast forward to say they won this it was It was the inverse of today's game, where they win a game comfortably that they probably shouldn't have won comfortably. Today they lose comfortably the other direction. But how about this a pair of three run homers, A pair of three run homers in the same game. In fact, They hadn't had a three run home run as a team since April. It was June thirteenth when they hit. When they hit the three runs home run, they hit back and back to back innings. They hadn't had one since April. That's insane, but hey, it's easier to win baseball games. But when you hit three un hummers, that was like the twenty twenty three teen coming back for a minute.

00:11:42
Speaker 2: It was. And for the first six innings of that game, I mean, it was just lifeless. And it was more the same for the offense. Braves had opportunities, could not capitalize. And in the moment I tweeted, was Michael Harris's three run homer like the biggest swing of the season so far, or maybe the biggest home run swing short of maybe a couple of the walkoffs and like extra innings, because of course those are game winners and this one just tied it. But man, it's just good on the Braves for winning that game. I tell you what, man, Twitter was a dark place for the first few innings of that baseball game.

00:12:19
Speaker 1: At four to one, it was gonna be I guess it would have been like it was today in some respects. Yeah, but without but without the two wins. You know, that's the first game of the series, and it's like, man, they're really gonna do this, Like you're gonna lose the Rockies in the first game of the series at home after an off day, and they had advantages up and down the roster and all these things. But yeah, Harris, great home run. We might have led with that if they had swept the series. There was a big swing for him. He's had a rough season, we all know that, but an awesome swing. And then Ozua hits one. The next thing, they score eleven unanswered runs Like that hasn't happened to this team many times, if any this year, Like they just exploded for three innings. Also had a big game. Akunya has been incredible. Murphy had a big game. We joked a lot about it. We did, Shaun did, Steven did about alex Erdugo hitting second in the light up on Friday. I hated that decision. I think everyone that sixth the way we do hated that decision. But it quote unquote worked. He had a good game. I used John if you're listening on the podcast, I'm using gi Eric quotes I don't want I don't believe this, but it did kind of work. I don't know how you describe that, Scott, but I was wanted to mention I we could not mention it because it was that was like the story of the day until the game started on Friday.

00:13:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, man, Brian Sticker has won a lot of baseball games with the Atlanta Braves. He has a World Series ring, all of those things, but batting Dugo second because he had a three hit game against Herman Marquez in twenty nineteen.

00:13:42
Speaker 1: Six years ago. He has eight career played appearances. No, I think it's nine, eight at bats, one walk, nine and I believe seven of them, maybe six of them were six or six years ago. That was the basis, and like we were joking about that as the explanation, and then Snid confirm that was the reason why he had second based on.

00:14:02
Speaker 2: That if what if I could bet my life savings before it came out, it had to be and it did technically work. The Braves scored twelve runs. We're not gonna you know, hey, I don't care if you want to beat Nick, Yeah, if you want to bat Nick Allen first and Acunya ninth. If they're going to score twelve runs every night, then then do it. It's better than this nonsense we've watched for the better part of three months now. But yeah, just funny the way it worked out, and of course naturally everybody was like, what on earth is this lineup? And then the Braves scored a ton of runs, very on brand. I just hope that Radugo does not continue to bat second moving forward.

00:14:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be a bad decision. Certain he's been quite bad for a while now for the Braves. I mentioned it in passing, but Bryce Elder had the start of his life in his last outing before this, so I'm not bagging on the guy. He's been good for the Braves overall this season. But he got ten outs and allowed ten base runners on Friday against the Rockies. That's not what you want to say. All the two strikeouts, you know, it might Hopefully that's not a side of things to come, because they do need him. He's gonna pitch every fifth day or whatever it's gonna be. We'll talk about to shake up the rotation later on in the podcast. But hopefully that was a blip. But that was not a good follow up to his breakout start before that.

00:15:16
Speaker 2: Not a good follow up at all. And then you think about what Spencer Streider and what Grant Holmes did against this Rockies lineup, and then it's like, how on earth did Bryce get hit so hard? I mean it could have been the Rockies had four runs, they were a hit or two away from having seven runs, eight runs, nine runs. I mean they had opportunities all over the place.

00:15:38
Speaker 1: Four double plays they hit into in the game to kind of bail out not just the Elder, but everybody in the rotation, everybody on the mound. If you look kind of the expected numbers, the Rocky should have scored seven or eight runs like they did not sequence well, it was kind of the they were the Braves for one night basically where they couldn't get a big hit. It was all these bad but anyway, Bryce did not look good at all and hopefully a blip, but have to at least acknowledge that as the only real bad part about Friday's game. Saturday, it was the inverse. It wasn't great offense, but it was unbelievable pitching from the Braves headline by Special Strider, who through six innings allowed three hits, one walk, no urn runs, and thirteen strikeouts. People aren't worry about Strider are less worried today. It doesn't mean that any worry goes out the window. It was the Rockies, you'd give the caveat for sure, But he looked really good to me. He was throwing harder stuff, looked good. Check box of a step forward. Maybe, I don't know.

00:16:32
Speaker 2: Probably the biggest takeaway from the weekend was not only just the performance from Strider, but just he looked so much better and he had twenty four swinging misses in six innings. That is a terrific sign. His fastball velocity was up about two miles an hour, he hit ninety eight multiple times, and his slider had significantly more break. It had been pretty flat in a couple of his starts earlier this year, but he had more of that vertical drop, which is just why it's such a lethal pitch, because hitters think it's a fastball and then it turns right and hitters have no chance against it. So one start we got to see how Strider looks again when he pitches against New York later this week. But that was really really encouraging and very much a reminder of just how dominant Strider can be when he is healthy and feeling good.

00:17:21
Speaker 1: Right, And we were not handwaving some struggles he was having before. We weren't saying not to worry. We were kind of just saying, I don't want to speak for you, but like, let's just give it a little time. Yeah, given that he had been gone so long and then had the setback the hamstring was that's not easy, like when you're ramping up and you haven't pitched in a year and then suddenly you get you heard something else that is not easy, and the velocity being up is a big thing. The stuff playing off is a big thing. Again. I know it's the Rockies and that's why I'm not like dancing in the streets right now. But if you kind of just remove the Rockies' ness, and maybe maybe he would not have given up zero runs with thirteen stracouds, I guess another offense. But he just looked better, like his stuff was better. And that's why I really care about much more than the numbers, because we know especially gonna miss bats like he's tellent the guy obviously he's awesome. But that was a step forward and Also, he was part of a franchise record by the way the Braves score starting to score the race strickout nineteen combined in the game between Strider, Montero, and del Lee, that is the modern era team record for a night ending game. Nineteen strikeouts. Obviously, even started to do most of that damage, but he wasn't alone either. It was a fun game. Again, Rocky's asterisk maybe on that number, but hey, it all counts.

00:18:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it all counts. And I think for Strider too, And I wanted to quickly mention this. I think maybe as fans and even as podcasters, we didn't give him enough grace coming back from the hamstring. I think because we've seen Strider be just so dominant for his entire career, basically since day one of coming up from the Miners. We have never seen Spencer Streider not be great. So when he misses a full year, comes back, makes one start, and then gets shut down for like five or six weeks with the hamstring, that that was probably a lot more difficult to fully come back from than we gave Spencer credit for. Or Leeway four and the fact that yesterday over the weekend, that start was his fifth start since returning from the hamstring. I think the broadcast booth talked about it, and I tended to agree that's generally kind of the progression that a pitcher makes in the spring, starting from zero, and then by their fifth or sixth start, they're really ramping and letting things go, and the velocity is normal. So hopefully it's the sign of things to come again. One last time. It is the Colorado Rockies. They are terrible, but I think you can dig in beyond just the performance and say, hey, the pitches look good, strider look good. He looked confident out there. The command was really sharp, and let's hope. I mean, if the Braves have any prayer of getting back into this thing, that's the Spencer strider they're going to need every fifth day.

00:19:55
Speaker 1: That's definitely right. And you know, offensively, it wasn't the best day. In kind of get into that a little bit more in talking about Sunday's game, But Ronald mccunia, we should stop and acknowledge he homered on Saturday, his seventh home run in his first twenty games. Even with ay, I think he went one for two of the walk today, so still a really good game. He's his ops is like twelve hundred. He's on pace, on a full season pace for like a twelve and a half war season. Like he's basically just an alien. And we talked about that earlier this week, but just double down on that, like he's just ludicrous. And there's this discussion happening about like if he can't And look, maybe there were some Angels parallels that we don't want to get that we don't want the Braves to have with some of the numbers that happened today, Like if you weren't familiar with this, when when Otani and Trout were on the Angels, they did these crazy things and it was like and the Angels lost six sixty three, it was like Mike Trout hit five home runs, you know, all these things, and then today with grand Holmes was basically that it's like grand Holmes did this and the Braves lost ten to one. Roland Cuny is doing this and the Braves are thirty one and thirty nine. It's not his fault. He's been incredible. There's I think they were probably trolling. I saw some people talking about like impact on winning today. I don't know. I think they're maybe making fun of different Core, my old classmate. Oh yeah, but Runnald's been everything he could possibly be, and it's baseball. You can only do so much. But is he has been a very shining bright star since his return.

00:21:17
Speaker 2: I mean the home run he had on Saturday wasn't even in the zone. It was ninety eight miles an hour and above the strike zone and he just launched it. And he's such a special hitter. I will continue to tune in every night to watch Rondacunya Junior play baseball. It may not be a lot of fun other than Acunya and a couple of the starking pitchers. And Matt Olsen's having a good year, well he's had. He's turned it on lately, I would say. And but you know, we're looking for positives with this team right now, and Acunya is one of the very few on a nightly basis, and he's just such a fun player.

00:21:49
Speaker 1: To watch, he really is. And the bottom of five guys in the order on Saturday combined to go one for seventeen with no walks, and that unfortunately let into we'll talk about in a second Sunday's game, I promise everybody. We'll try to be diligent with our brevity on Sunday's game to not have the vibes go too bad. We'll get to that and more in the moments.

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00:23:12
Speaker 1: All right, scott an offense. First loss. It's gonna sound funny when they allowed ten runs, but the game only played off that way because of the inability to score runs. I think that's probably fair to say. I have a qualm that I'll share in a minute with bullpen management. But you gotta score runs. I mean, you score one run against the Rockies, you get what you deserve to some degree. Whether you lose ten to one or three to one or whatever, you're probably gonna lose one. Nothing is not a good it's gonna do a good expectation any night. You gotta score more more than one run, and you pull this number the race scored one run in the last twelve gangs of a series, Like, you just have to score. And maybe, honestly, maybe the most braves part of Sunday's game, other than the weird loss, was the fact that they when they did score their one run, they probably should have scored more than one run and then any which has been a brave staple all year long. So I'll want you talk about it, but it was just, you know, did they get six hits. It's like, that's not a terrible number for a game. It's not as two walks like you should have beat up on the Rocky, you should just scorre more one run and offensively like almost no one was good today, and the fact that no one got multiple hits, it was just an outage that happened. And it's one game, but it's also you can't afford it well.

00:24:24
Speaker 2: And Austin Gomber, who is pitching, who's not like a total nobody, but he's not good, was making I believe, his first start of the season for Colorado, and the Braves were being no hit until the fifth inning and it was on a bloop down the line that just hit the foul line. So I mean the Braves had nothing, man, they weren't hitting the ball hard. And you said it a minute ago. Hitting four singles in a row with your first, second, third, and fourth hitters four singles in a row to start an inning with the top of your order only resulting in one run is maybe the micro cosm. That inning might have been the micro cosm of this entire season.

00:25:06
Speaker 1: And they got six is in the game. That was two thirds of their hits in the game. They got four the six hits within like three minutes, so with they secrets in the right. They just think you can get out of the base paths, Like, what are we doing?

00:25:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't even tell. Did Acunya overslide the base and that's why he kept running home? It was kind of an awkward play.

00:25:28
Speaker 1: I don't know, in the in the in the box, it was kind of it was funny. I looked up to see how it was ruled because I was like, Wow, that was a weird play. They wrote it to be a single. Yeah, but Acunya, who started to play on first base, made it out at home. Yes, Like how often do you see that like that? That doesn't happen like Ronald. I love Ronald for taking the extra base. He's always ing great at that. You don't usually see a guy making it out at home on a single when he starts at first. That's just one of those things that happened in this game.

00:25:58
Speaker 2: It was a weird play. And then Olsen follows with a single. Ozuna drives in a run, so it's now we're tied. It's one to one. Okay, Okunya's base running, whatever you want to call it, weirdness didn't come back to bite him. Now you have Ozzy Alby's who we should talk about here in a second. You have Sean Murphy do up, you have Michael Harris do up. And it turned to nothing and just more the same to stop meing heard this before, but it was just the Braves offense in a nutshell all over again, and to only get one to run and then like eight seconds into the top of the seventh, Grand Holmes gives up a homer and then the you know, the avalanche was on and the Braves just got embarrassed in their home park.

00:26:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't want to overstate how much this matters. That's my caveat. I really hated the win. That the menace of bullpen there. You know, Holmes pitching again in that ending is fine with me. Whatever. He looked great in this game. We already kind of talked about it. Holmes fifteen strikeouts, six and a third, Like, cannot pick on Grand Holmes. He allowed a home run there to lose them, to lose the tie game. I don't care, but I mean it's great. It's with a benefit that didn't happen. He isn't the problem. They didn't score in a fronts Now it's two to one, you're losing. Then bringing Dana Santos, we have not that high on him. I would say as a podcast, I will at least acknowledge he has gotten good results for the last couple of weeks. Like hasn't a lot a lot of runs. Peripherals are not great, but like whatever era, run prevention has been fine. So down a run. I was not losing my mind when he came in the game, didn't love it was losing my mind. My issue was he comes in, looks awful right away, allows a single, a single, then walks in a run with the bases loaded. You gotta face three batters. So like, once he comes in, he's facing three batters, you're you're stuck at that point. But now he's faced three batters, he's allowed a single, a single and a walk for a run. But it's only three to one. The game's not over, and for reasons passing understanding, they visit the mound and leave him in. Yeah, and then he allows basically the two run double that breaks the game open and then you get blown out. Now, I'm not saying they would have won the game. They were down three one. They probably would have lost the game. I don't understand why he was still the game. You got an off day tomorrow. He just looked terrible for three batters. I don't, I don't, I don't get it. So here we are. It's if this was Friday night when I said this on the podcast. Maybe not, but I just that one blew my mind. I was like, wait, he's staying it. I mean, I assume there was there taking him out. I was doing something else. I looked up and I was like, well, he's still in the game. Why is he still in the game.

00:28:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, it's him. Look, man, this was at the start we said this is an offensive loss, which is very weird to say when your team loses ten to one. But we never should have gotten in this place in the first place. Against the runs.

00:28:47
Speaker 1: I should have been a competitive game, and it would have been different relievers coming in, and you still might have lost. If the Braves had scored two runs on that ending instead of one, he still might lose the game. But I am confident it would have been ten to one.

00:28:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:28:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't even remember his name. Who's this reliever they keep bringing in, who's like absolutely.

00:29:05
Speaker 1: Awful, Luise, it's Ruiz who they brought it. He was a guy that got a lot of the especially like on on Facebook, got a lot of the like Craig Kimberl backlash because he's the guy they ended up with after they got rid of Kimberl. He's not good.

00:29:20
Speaker 2: We could I mean, he's awful, and I mean, at least with Kimberl, he's cool and like, we love Craig and it's it'd be fun to watch him. I mean, if Kimberrell didn't have it, at least it's you know, a future maybe Hall of Famer we could watch or Scott blew it. We don't have to have the conversation, but really, this is your guy.

00:29:36
Speaker 1: Oh I almost forgot that Luke Williams pitching this game.

00:29:39
Speaker 2: I turned it off so fast.

00:29:40
Speaker 1: Oh I know I did. I put it on my second TV. It was I have my two TV set up. It was on my first TV and when the game was over, I moved my second TV and I put the golf on my first TV. And I kind of looked up and I was like, who is that pitching? And I was like, Oh, that's Luke Williams. That's a utility infielder.

00:29:55
Speaker 2: That's uh.

00:29:56
Speaker 1: How you know things went well? Today is that Luqwys pitched for the Braves. But it was bad. It was all bad. We should give a stat because it's hilarious. This is the one I kind of referenced earlier about the Crazy Angels like stat. Grant Holmes became the first pitcher or first team how do you want to put it in baseball history to have fifteen strikeouts in a game in which this team lots by six runs or more?

00:30:20
Speaker 2: Geez, So if you strike.

00:30:22
Speaker 1: A fifteen player that matters in a game. It takes some real machinations to lose by even five. But he's the first pitcher ever to have in the history baseball history is a long time ever to have the histrikeouts and lose by six runs or more, and that else by nine. It wasn't like it was only six. That's by nine months. So hey, not your fault, Grant, you were awesome.

00:30:44
Speaker 2: What are the odds? In the last eight days? Bryce Elder goes eight innings and strikes out twelve. Grant Holmes goes what six plus strikes out fifteen, which was tied for second in franchise history for strikeouts by a storting picture with John Frickin' Smaltz and the only picture who's had more than fifteen in Braves history with Spencer Strider a couple of years ago. You have the second most strikeouts in the franchise history of the Atlanta Braves. You'll lose that game, You'll blue the elder game. It's just I mean, this is like a science experiment, Brad, to see how dumb a baseball team can be and how many dumb losses they can have until their fans like just hit a total wall and breaking point.

00:31:30
Speaker 1: I think we're almost there if you listen to the podcast regularly. We might be there now, let's just say we might be there now. I'm not sure, but we're we're getting close. I do have one more non game thing to discuss from the weekend kind of, and it's actually about this week coming out, and that is the fact that Jerks and Profar or he that will not be talked about by a lot of Braves fans because he's been suspended for a long time, is getting closer. In fact, we got word this weekend that he'll be able to start his rehab assignments. Like basically, when you're suspended, they let you start ramping up. He can play the miners as early as Tuesday, which that's two days from now, and he is now, according to Mark Bowman, projected to return unless there's a rain out or something like that in the meantime, on July second, So that's like two weeks from now. And given just how dire, slash awful, whatever adjective you want to use, leftfield has been all year long, we can probably assume he's gonna play every day. Because they paid him, he's probably the best option, even with a downgrade of talent from last year. Talent in quotation marks all those things. I just want to bring this up because like we're not there yet, but he'll be on the field in a minor league game on Tuesday, so it's like a story that matters, and hopefully season isn't over when he comes back in two weeks, but it's a thing we should keep.

00:32:50
Speaker 2: An eye on, you know, Jerks and prof are he has some goodwill that he needs to garner back because for everything, and we don't have to rehash everything that happened over the last twelve months, but you ask a player in Major League baseball, there is zero tolerance for cheating, and that's what jerks and Profar did. He got caught cheating. He did the same thing that many Ramirez got caught cheating with fifteen twenty years ago. And when you get popped for peds after just an unbelievable career best year and then get a team to commit forty two American million dollars to your name, and then you get caught cheating four days into the season, This dude better perform or he is going to become even more of a whipping boy for the whole fan base because he put the Braves in such a bad position to lose an impact. I mean he was going to lead off for the first two months Untilacuna came back. Then he was going to be a middle of the order hitter. I mean, clearly the Braves believed in him enough to give him this contract, and then he gets caught with peds. It's just Profar, man, you were going to have an enormous magnifying glass on you from day one, and this guy better performer. I mean he might get booed. Honestly, I think that's where my my mentions I mentioned Profar's name, and half my mentions I think fairly are like f that guy, Yeah, this team over.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: I don't think it's yeah. I think he's going to have to be good to not be booed lustily. And it might happen in his first I don't know, I don't be his first over four he'll he'll he'll get booded. That's what's gonna happen. I get it too, Like I'm I'm not emotional about it, but like it's obviously it's hurt the team quite bad. I mean we can go through the numbers. We talked about it all season long, but just the current left field numbers are insane. I mean they have a team.

00:34:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead, No, I was gonna say it has killed this team. They have a zero in left they have worse than a zero. They have negative war in left field because of Profar getting suspended.

00:34:53
Speaker 1: That's right. I'm just to put a number on it. That might be reference point raves. Left fielders, according to as of right this second, have combined for a five fifty four ops this season. That is impossibly bad. Like that is Nick that that is worse than Nick Outen. Just for reference, that's worse than Nick Allen's offense. And Nick Allen is a platinum glove level shortstop and he's okay despite his offense, and that's worse than Nick Allen's offense with not great defense, like not terrible, but not great. So that's a to your point, that's a negative below replacement level performance for an entire position group. And I don't know they got some money back for Profar that went into paying for Verdugo for example. But he's been awful since the first week of the season. So since he got here, Eli White predictably has cooled off to a large degree. So it's been it's been a disaster. Like I would say, there are other issues. Michael Harris has been one. We don't have to go through all of them. But the worst position on the fuel for the Braves this year has been left field, and that is the position. And that you signed the guy you're one splash signing from the winner. So I will take the bold stance that he can't be worse. Knock on wood, I guess he can't be worse. I can't imagine that because even though his defense, by the way, his depen is not good and we knew we knew that, we knew that ahead of time. That was baked in but the one thing he even when he was bad at times, he does take a walk for instance, which is useful in this lineup all these things. He also isn't like a lefty masher. But the Braves soundly can't hit left handed pitching like I found this today. The Braves have a six fifty seven ops gets lefties this year. That's terrible as a team. Like last year when they had a bad season offensively, they had a seven seventy three ops I gets lefties. That's one hundred and eighteen points higher than it is right now. Pfar will help with that, you would think too. So he isn't a savior, very clearly not a savior. He's not wrong with Kunya, none of that, but he should help. And again the hope is, as we'll talk about in a second, we talk about schedule, they could be out of it in two weeks. They're not out of it now, as much as it feels that way. They're not out of it now. They could be in two weeks when he comes back. And if that happens, he'll get boot even more because it's like, hey man, you're ruined this for us, and it won't be all his fault. No one's saying that, but he has been a contributing factor his absence.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: And for reference point you talk about being out of it, the Braves are eight games out of the third and final wild card.

00:37:24
Speaker 1: Spot, which is a lot undred fifteen a lot.

00:37:27
Speaker 2: With four teams ahead of them. I believe maybe five. I think it's five teams ahead.

00:37:32
Speaker 1: Think it's five. Yeah.

00:37:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's not impossible, and I promise you we are not about to do a hopium. Everything's gonna be fine segment here. That is the farthest thing on Brad and I's mind. But they're not dead yet. But as we're going to talk about now, if the next two weeks are bad and they're about to play maybe two of the three best teams in the National League and maybe two of the five best teams in Major League Baseball over the next two weeks, we could be in a really dark place come July first.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: As Scott just said, this is a big stretch, and we're not saying anything about the current state of affairs to say that, like, unless they were out of it, or unless they were you know, fifty and twenty right now, anything in between. This is gonna be a big stretch because the schedule of the way it is so just broadly speaking, the Braves have ten of their next thirteen games aka three to the next four series against the Mets and Phillies. There are two rivals. And I want to be very clear. We said this before, I'll say it again now. Yes, they are division rivals. That's not why I'm bringing this up. The division is so far off my radar right now, I'm not even thinking about it.

00:38:44
Speaker 2: Yep.

00:38:44
Speaker 1: It's that that they are really good teams. That's the thing here. This is a challenging bit of schedule. Yes, there's one Marlin series in there that's obviously lighter in terms of challenge, But when you're playing when you have to win, and we alreay established nobodys have to win a lot of games. Now, when you have to win, and you're playing teams that are at the moment flow out better than you, but even in the rosiest thing imaginable, comparable to you, at the absolute words, they're better than They're better than you, that's what they are right now. But that makes your life hard. And that's ten of the next thirteen games, including yes, this series is at home, this first one on Tuesday. It's the Mets, it's rivalry, it's rafted it up. We didn't mention this before, we should talk about it now. The Bridge did shift the rotation around a little bit to line up the Mets series, which I actually liked, and people, predictably after they lost today, were like, well, if they hadn't changed, guys, short of Chris Sale throwing a shutout today, which I guess could have happened, that was not why they lost today. So if Holmes got blown up today, they would have gotten killed for making the change, and rightfully so. But when Holmes pitches like that, I don't really care. But basically what they did was if we missed this, they pushed Chris Sale back to face the Mets, which I was okay with. It made total sense to me. You're playing the Rockies, You're still massive favorites with homes on the mound. I know you lost. It is what it is, but it does set up headline grabbing matchups schwallow Bach, Sale, Strider one, two, three in some order on this rotation facing the Mets, and like, you don't want to overstate it, but like, if they get swept this week, if they get swept on the Mets with Strider, Sale and swallow Bach. I don't know, Scott, You'll have trouble getting me, the eternal rational person, to not come on here and be like it's over. If they get swept, I might have to I might be the one saying this over, and I never do that. So don't get swept.

00:40:35
Speaker 2: Please don't get swept. And you know, I know they just came off one of the worst losses of the season, but taking two out of three against the Mets would be a successful series, no questions asked.

00:40:48
Speaker 1: This is not the Rockies. Yes, with a series.

00:40:51
Speaker 2: Correct, And then you have the Marlins, who are pretty terrible, and then you have the Phillies and the Mets again next weekend. So this is going to be real challenge. This kind of feels like not kind of This feels like the season hangs in the balance over the next two weeks. They have thirteen games I believe. Yeah, And again we're not talking to NL East. The Braves have thirteen games left against the New York Mets. The Braves are thirteen games back of the New York Mets, so Atlanta could sweep the Mets in all four series. The rest of the way and they would be tied atop the division Brad tied. So NLST just take it, throw it out of your hat. We'll try again in twenty twenty six. But the wild card is still there. And if you want to have any prayer of having a fun summer where you're playing catch up and you're gonna have to keep winning series, it starts with the Mets. They're a very good team. The Braves have their pitching lined up as best as they can have it lined up. See what happens, and if they, dear God, if they get swept on this week at home by the Mets, that would be like, we might do a four man podcast and I'll just take turns screaming for five minutes and then say thanks everybody, visit our sponsors, have a good night.

00:42:04
Speaker 1: I'm good. Yeah, no, I And look what I I think you'd agree with me. But if you don't, let me know. I am not saying they can save the season over the next two weeks, but they can put the season in the grave over the next weeks. Like obviously, if they go twelve and one, then yeah, maybe you saved the season. I'm not saying you can't save the season. I shouldn't say that. Like, if they go twelve and one, that's not likely at all to happen. But if they did it, all right, you're over five hundred again, you're feeling pretty good. You're twelve, that would be enough to be like get me excited again to.

00:42:39
Speaker 2: Be or even like ten and three or something.

00:42:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, ten and three, you're back to five hundred. Basically, Yeah, I get that, Like the job is not even close to done at that point, but you may have like somewhat kept it on the rails. What I am saying more is like naked honestly, here's to bring a full circle from the game of this podcast. They could go out in the next four series and win all four, go eight and five and be in trouble still, you know what I mean. Like we are all about stacking series wins, and I stand by that, but that doesn't do anything for it. I mean, it helps you, obviously, but what you can't do is go out and go four to nine and dig the hole even further.

00:43:23
Speaker 2: I guess right.

00:43:25
Speaker 1: So I don't want to we don't we don't want to overstate it. But between the challenge of playing good teams numbers are not good, but the Mets and Phillies are legitimately good teams. And the stakes and the hole you've dug, it's a lot of emphasis, Like it's crazy how big this feels. In June, it's the Mets, Like I hate the Mets. I'm the age where the Mets are the team that I hate, of grapes people we thought about before. I'm of that age. I shouldn't feel this way about a series in mid June even then with the Mets, like this is big man. And they also placed I don't know if this is on purpose, they also really did put a spotlight on this series by doing the pitching that they did. It was like, hey man, we are going balls to the wall here for a three gamer in June, and they did. And if you lose a series, we weren't doing that. Who man, the vibes, I mean, we talked about the vibes all the time Thursday. I don't know which some of us will be on the podcast after the game on Thursday. If they lose a series, man, I it's gonna be muddled, mirroring perhaps some of the ones why you were in Hawaii in terms of vibes. I don't know.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough. Win please, yes, win some baseball games. It's it is. It is make or break, truly and full circle. They went four and two this week. That is fine. In a vacuum five they we we said they need to go five and one. They should have gone five and one. They should not have lost to the Rockies again. But four and two is not going to kill you the second week of June. But these next two weeks, man, Brad, this is it, this is season they I agree. I think what you said a moment ago is perfect. They can't come all the way back unless they go crazy and like sweep three of these series or something.

00:45:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.

00:45:11
Speaker 2: If they have a bad next two weeks, it could be like actually over not not like I tweet something and the same eleven people go, oh, this team sucks. I'll trade everybody other than a Conye. No, I'm not. I'm not.

00:45:24
Speaker 1: No. There is a way, you're right, there's there is a way. Two weeks from today, you and I do a podcast June twenty nine, there is a way this goes where even like joking aside, I might be like the series is the season is over, like if they again, if they go, if they go three and ten, four nine in the next two weeks, they won't be mathematically eliminated, but will you'll you'll be down to five percent. Yeah, and right now they're not like im I feel that way. Right now, they're like twenty percent, which isn't a great which isn't great either, but that's not five percent. That's four times less in fact, So I don't know, man, it's big. We don't want to overstand it, but it's a big, big time and this first series is maybe the biggest of all because the way they line this up, like you got your three big guns, the three s's in order at swallow Block Tuesday, Sale Wednesday, Strider on Thursday, you're firing your bullets. Schwelly against David Peterson on Tuesdays and awesome match. We won't pre the whole series in detail, but that's an awesome matchup. Peterson's really good. That's not even a huge Braves advantage. Schwallow Bock's better, but not by a ton like Peterson has a sub three RAF last two year, is really good and the Mets are good, so let him up boys.

00:46:37
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, really good. I mean good pitching in all three games. David Peterson against Schwellenbach, Paul Blackburn just returned, but Blackburn against Chris Sale probably the biggest advantage the Braves have of the three pitching matchups, and then Clay Holmes against Spencer Strider in the finale. Holmes has been good this year. Maybe not, there might be a little bit of smoking mirrors with his performance so far. But on the whole, Holmes, who is converted to being a reliever a year ago, has been good for New York. I mean, the Mets are a really well rounded team. They hit for power, they have a deep lineup. I think though Francisco indoors battling. I think New York actually got swept this weekend by the Tampa Bay Rays, so maybe the Braves are getting them at a bad time. I don't know. They also got the Diamondbacks when they were really, really bad, and we know what happened there. So big week, big series ahead against New York. We'll see. I mean, it's it is truly now or never for this season.

00:47:35
Speaker 1: We will see.

00:47:35
Speaker 2: Scott.

00:47:36
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for doing this on Father's Day. Here we are anything to plug before we get out of here and if not work, if folks find your day to day musings, which which include Tiger Woods memes and general anger. Sometimes it's positive but not lately.

00:47:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my Wildcats. My Arizona Wildcats got eliminated for the College World Series on Sunday. So baseball has just not been real fun the last couple of weeks for me, Brad. But yeah, yeah, College World Series is a great event. I would love to get to Omaha one day and take that in with all the fans and everything, but maybe do some Gello shots. I am at Scott Coleman fifty five on Twitter socials if you want to follow there, and is always a big thank you to everybody for tuning into the show.

00:48:25
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you to everyone for listening. Please subscribe if you've not found on us already somewhere else or find us for this first time. We appreciate you listening, but please stick around join us all the time. We average I don't know, four ish shows per week during the season. It's a lot of content, but we are here churning it out for you. Sundays is pretty much always will be there and then sometimes during the week whatever times and dates and hours and whatever weekend we'll be here, but please subscribe, ratings, reviews, tell your friends about the podcast. Follow Scott Fallows on social media at Hammer Territory, and we'll see everybody next time.