April is Over for the Braves and the Dodgers Await

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Hammer Territory podcast. This is episode one nine zero. I am your hosts for every Wind, coming to you on a Wednesday afternoon slash evening, and I'm joined as I often am, by Scott Coleman. Scott, here we are again. It's a Wednesday. We thought we were probably going to talk about a sweep and then we're not, which might damp in the lab a little bit.

00:00:43
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna do.

00:00:43
Speaker 1: My best to not let it damp in the entire vibe. That's my aim on this podcast. How are you, my friend?

00:00:48
Speaker 2: Hello Brad. In this instance, I think two things can be very true. Wednesday's game was very frustrating. It was the first time in a long time that the offense just completely wet the bed all of those things. I think our colleague Stephen Tolbert said it best. This felt like a twenty twenty four loss where they got great pitching, could not score. But we would be remiss not to do our usual bit that the Braves won the series. And if I would have told you Friday morning that they were going to go four and two out West against the Diamondbacks and the Rockies, I think you have to take that even if today it was kind of a gut punch the way the game played out. Yeah, and I.

00:01:32
Speaker 1: Tease it a little bit on social media, kind of tongue in cheek about how you'd be mad on the podcast that I would not be mad on the podcast. That will there's more nuance to us than that, Scott, I will say, which is so we just sat on the top of the show. If you're new to the podcast, first of all, welcome to the show. We are Hammer Territory. We cover the Braves year round. We are part of the Felat Territory Network, so please go ahead subscribe to this show and all of the podcasts around fell Territory. But yeah, we thought we could be maybe celebrating, Like we said, it was in frustrating game that we will dive into in more depth in a few minutes. Our colleagues you already mentioned Steven also, Sean battled through illness on Tuesday evening to deliver a more upbeat podcast that they just covered two wins. So if you want more depth on the games from Monday and Tuesday, that's the place to go. The Braves scored fourteen runs. They just kind of had breezy victories against the bad Rockies team, and it is a bad Rockies team, to be sure. But we were talking before we started recording, and exactly two weeks ago you and I did a podcast as we often went on a Wednesday. It was April sixteenth. The Bridge had just lost to Fall to five and thirteen on the year. It was Straudter's debut. He was five, but they lost the game, and the headline of the podcast was kind of tongue in cheek but also kind of serious, and it was what's wrong with the Atlanta Braves? That was the headline of the podcast, and we were wondering out aloud. It was not going well right Obviously they started zhe and seven, we all know that, but they also just hadn't gotten back on track yet. At that point, it was a little bit better, but not nothing was solid. It was frustrating, to be sure. Since then, they've won four consecutive series and they're nine and three in the last twelve games. And to me, while we will lament today's game even more in a second, it's really hard for me to come on here and be like, woe is me? After they go nine and three and twelve games and win four straight series, And part of that's just me being me, but also we can you know, I did the show Sunday and said, look, it'd be great to swoop the Rockies, and when you win the first two, you start to get really greedy and you should win. They were big favorites today for a reason. They lost the game, but winning two out of three is pretty much the expected outcome. I know the Rockies are as bad as a team could possibly be. I understand that, but we've alluded to on the betting off on Sunday, like you're you're not one hundred percent favorite in a game, like you're probably seventy percent in each games, and if you add those together, you win two of them, and yeah, they could have won three. But big picture, it's like I'm not ultra Optimus Sky all the time. But when you go nine and three, when four straight series and also win on two series in a row on the road on the West Coast, which can be tricky. Like, I'm feeling pretty decent even if today was not ideal.

00:04:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, man, the tone of that podcast two weeks ago not good, not good. We were talking about if they don't figure this thing out in a few weeks. We could legitimately be looking at a really bad summer and all of those things. And it feels like we're not going to be there thankfully. Yeah, man, I mean, nobody feels good after a loss to the Rockies. It's funny the last two series, the Braves won Games one and two and then lost frustrating Game three.

00:04:34
Speaker 1: Just remain on the podcast.

00:04:35
Speaker 2: That's what happens, never fails. You're a longtime listener, you know, seemingly Brad and I do a show. Maybe this is our sign to no longer do podcasts. I don't know, yeah, but sure. I mean, you know, any loss of the Rockies, that is an abysmal baseball team. God bless you if you are a Colorado Rockies fan still tuning in. That is a rough team. But man, I mean it's it's baseball and nutshell. Great teams lose to terrible teams all the time, and we aren't going to sugarcoat it. Of course, we were hoping for a sweep. It would have been kind of that ceremonial back to five hundred with a win. You have an off day on Thursday. My mentions on Twitter, dear God, you would have thought the Braves just blew a three to zero World Series lead, And I get fans, they're frustrated. Everybody was hoping to go into that off day at five hundred. Then you get back home or the Braves I think have maybe the best record in baseball at home so far this year. All of those things, and of course they lose a stinker two to one with Chris Sale on the mound, which we'll talk about Sale later. He was, honestly maybe the brightest point of this entire road trip that he seems like he's back to his usual ways. But yeah, what are you gonna do? It would have been a really really fun podcast. It will still be a good show. We always we always try to have good shows. But you know, a loss on getaway day day, game off day, Dodgers awaiting, all of those things just kind of a little bit of a bummer.

00:06:00
Speaker 1: Right, And the way you said it actually makes sense to me as you're saying it, like there's also a lot of like round number like convenient stuff. They have won the game back to five hundred, you end the month with a win, you're you you kind of fully erase the zero to seven start by getting back to level all those things that could have happened. You sweep the words team in baseball, and it was right there for him, and they just didn't hit the baseball today. And I think part of why I'm not reacting more strongly is because of a Pril thirtieth, but also that, uh, the Braves have been hitting consistently and that was the problem today. Like oftentimes, I don't know about you when things when your frustration boils over, is once something that hasn't been happening keeps not happening. If the Braves don't hit for two weeks and they keep losing because they're not hitting, that is when your dander gets up even more. I feel like, but you're when you're hitting for two weeks straight, as we'll talk about more in a second, and then you have a you have a stinker, It's like, am I gonna be mad about the offense? Like big picture, like, it's kind of hard to be bad about the offense right now. If that happens three more times in a row after this, then you can start to met about the offense again. But early in the year it was disastrous, but like they've been a top three offense in baseball for about four weeks. Now, Like, however, one you want to say that is like it's a pretty it's hard to yell and scream so and also you alluded to it, but I just pulled the number. The worst team in baseball history was last year's White Sox. By the numbers, they still won twenty five percent of their games. This is This is not the NFL or the NBA, where like you can have a team that wins like ten percent of their games, like teams go one in sixteen sometimes the NFL or teams might go you know, ten and seventy two in baseball and basketball, if you would, if you went a quarter of your games, your you're favorite to win a game in every series, Like you're not always gonna win a game in every series. But like that's just the nuts and bolts of it. Anyway, the Rockies are awful. That's what makes it frustrated they lose a game. To anybody about the Rockies right now, it's just easier to sell that to anyone. But the Rockies are so legendarily bad that it's like hard to spin. But we're not trying to spin. I actually believe this what I'm saying.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: Oh, I do too, and and trust me, I mean we we try not to do the holier than that on this show. I was frustrated. Man, I was watching the game in my office on and off. Don't tell my boss, and I mean I was shaking my head. And they only had three hits, and they had two hits going into the ninth inning before a meaningless single from Azzi Alby's only three walks against a starting pitcher who had walked the entire planet. It was bad. Yeah, yeah, it was bad again. No one's going to come on and say, well, actually, here are nine good reasons it's a good thing to lose to the Rocky say we're not going to do that. We should do that. I think a good podcast.

00:08:31
Speaker 1: People very mad at us, very lively YouTube comments that day we tried to pull that number on somebody.

00:08:37
Speaker 2: You're right, we're not that crazy. But full circle two weeks ago, five and thirteen, today, four and sixteen, I think you have to take it, even if the taste is bad in our mouths from the loss today and hopefully now they go home a big series against the Dodgers. And then the schedule continues to be pretty light for the next couple of weeks. After that, hopefully the Braves can keep taking advantage of a off your schedule and eventually get to that five hundred mark and keep climbing.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: The Braves have done what they needed to do so far. After the to seven start, they had to climb out of it. They're starting to do that. They've been doing it for a while, up and up and up, and no guarantee that continues, but so far they've double they had to do after digging themselves, to be fair, digging themselves that whole at the beginning of season. All right, Scott, we're gonna get into more about today's game in some depth, and also later on in the podcast a preview of that showdown with the Dodters over the weekend. First, they'll work more sponsors on the podcast.

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00:10:33
Speaker 1: Okay, Scott, we're cheuching up a little bit on the format of the podcast and te up the segment that it's brought to you by FanDuel Sports Network where youre gonna stream Brives games. Tell you more about that in a second, and the spotlight segment today that we've been doing pretty much for the last month is about Chris Sale, and Chris Sale was the bright spot on Wednesday, he was by far the bright spot ausome I ever really up for debate in my opinion. Maybe disagree with me, but I'll tie it up here. Sale through seven innings, he allowed two runs, he had zero walks and struck out Tim And yes, the Rockies are abysmal. We just got done saying that. But pitching in Corsefield is pitching in Corsefield. It's the worst place in the league to pitch, and to put up those numbers at Corsefield, well, you've been struggling a little bit. Chris Sale has not been in the best of this year. I thought that was pretty obviously a step forward for him, and I couldn't Maybe I guess I understand it to some degree. But people were complaining about Chris Sale today and I was like, guys, forest through the trees, like he was quite good in this game. He wasn't absolutely perfect, but I thought it was he's the easy bright spot in this one.

00:11:38
Speaker 2: Oh, he's absolutely the bright spot. And now it's two starts where Sale has been at least closer to himself. Yep. The start against the Diamondbacks Friday night. He was probably effectively wild. His final line was pretty good, although I think Chris needed like ninety pitches to get through four innings still fighting. Some things Sale looked ventured like vintage Sale today. The slider was really really good. I think by default today Sale was pulling back on the fastball velocity because the reason I say that it was lower for most of the game, but that he was slinging like ninety seven ninety eight a couple times in the seventh inning, So I think that was probably by design. Again, man, I think I know every time Sale goes out there, we talk about the stuff and the velocity with good reason. He's the reigning sy Young winner at all. But I think today it was by design. He did not have to go full pedal to the metal, and really the one mistake he made was in the bottom of the third he left a Bellti fastball that went over the wall ended up being the go ahead, game winning homer. But yeah, man, two winnings from Sale seven inning or two runs seven innings from Sale much more efficient with his command, did not need to throw a million pitches. I think it's something to build off of for sure, yeah, And I just looked at while we were talking. He still has the highest batting average on balls and play allowed bad a lot out of any picture in baseball by about twenty points. So like he's getting for the season has been very clearly unlucky. He's never been that kind of picture like he's he's had a three hundred ish babbit.

00:13:10
Speaker 1: For his career. It's like three eighty three or whatever it is right now. So I still think he's been unlucky. And one of the reasons why is that he has forty six strikeouts and nine walks. I's say five plus to one start out to walk ratio. You love to see that. And I think he's just looked like Chris Sale to me, and even the comments postgame, both from Sale from snit like everybody's no one's worried about Chris Sale didn't seem like and I'm with you one hundred percent of the velocity I think people every time Sales Wasson dips, people worry. And I get why he is an older guy and you want to worry, But I think he's shown repeatedly that maybe more than anybody in the league, but certainly in the top quadrants of the league. He is willing and eager to change speeds when he needs to. Maybe it was maybe it was a corpse air, a cors Field air, thin air kind of thing, or whatever it was today day game, whatever, But uh, I have pledged him myself. I don't tell any of us they should react, but I just won't react to sale velossy stuff on short samples because just he doesn't. He does this too often. Even even last year he was doing it all the time when he was winning the.

00:14:07
Speaker 2: Saw Young Aworld.

00:14:07
Speaker 1: He would he would one game he'd be sitting ninety five. That's why he'd sit ninety two. But your point's perfect, Like when he shows he can ramp up to ninety seven late in the game, Like that's what takes away.

00:14:16
Speaker 2: And he concerned, really very cerebral, very smart. Sale has done this for a long time. He knows his limitations and his abilities. So yeah, and I think you're looking big picture here. If this is a sign of things to come, the Braves are going to be in really good shape. Is the fact that they are. Let me just say this, if you told me that Chris Sale was going to have an era and the fives or sixes coming into today, they were basically not going to have Spencer Strider for the first month. They were not going to have Acunya, they were going to lose Ronaldo Lopez after one start, they were going to lose Jerkson Profar for basically the entire first half of the season, and everything else that's gone on with this team. I think we would take fourteen and sixteen all all day long.

00:15:01
Speaker 1: Thick about it. Yeah, maybe not like an automatic, yes, but certainly a reasonable one if you if you include all that context that we are big on context.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: Yes. So look, man, again, we're not gonna sugarcoat it. We're not saying all is fine and dandy. This team is still below five hundred. But a good good day for Sale, hopefully a sign of things to come. He will start. He's not going to pitch in the Dodger Series, which there was a little bit of conversation about should the Braves have called somebody up to skip Sale and have him pitch on Friday. There's just there's just no depth, man, I mean there's there's no being Gwinnette, who you can with a straight face rely on to win a game.

00:15:40
Speaker 1: Well, I was actually gonna ask you this, So let's just talk about because people were asking us, and I think not just one off, Like if we get a bunch of questions about the same thing, I want to try to answer them.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: And it was a.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: Popular theory and I get why, like, oh, let's saved Sale. We're playing the Rockies and have Sale pitch against the Dodgers. That in itself is not a crazy thing to do. I would just say, I would just say it's April th if and if Chris Sale wanted an extra day or I guess it would have been two days off, they would have given him a detria. They're not a verse of that. We saw that last year. They were very careful and eager to get Chris as much rest as he wanted last year. But Chris Dale has been struggling number one, and he's his harshest critic, and I'm sure he would like he would have liked to take the mound today and look, they lost the game. But the process of it is like I think, you just you want to you want to win, like and you're not going to change. You can't take a game for granted. I think even it's weird to say this, but the fact that they pitched shale and lost is actually a reminder that you couldn't have just like assumed a victory with a bullpen game against Colorado, like they pitched the heck out of the ball today and still lost. So I get the theory. It makes sense to me. But also I would have if Sale was right, and he clearly was. You just give him the ball, try to get him him into a rhythm. Un once he doesn't want the ball that day, and he's never not want the ball that day. So uh, I get it, because it does make the Dodger series we'll talk about later on a little bit scarier. You're a pitching bachel that you don't love on paper, I guess la. But uh, overall, Sale was was quite good, and I think that's important to Also this is from Jason Foster. I want to say I was during the sales section.

00:17:11
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: Last year, the Braves lost a one nothing game with Sale on the mound, and again that Sale was incredible in similar to today to the White Sox, who we referenced earlier in the podcast, the Wittocks became the worst team of all time and the Braves lost a very, very very similar game to the White Sox a year ago with Sale pitching and shoving and just some synergy. I don't know, I don't know what it means is probably nothing. It's just one of those things that, like I thought was interesting that Jason Pastel I.

00:17:39
Speaker 2: Tried to purge that game from my memory.

00:17:42
Speaker 1: Brad Well, yeah, I mean we talked about it on the podcast, and it's like it doesn't matter now obviously, and they made the playoffs, so it wasn't it didn't cost them anything that they've lost the game. But it was interesting to just kind of put those side by side because it was eerily simp I looked at the box scorers. They're eerily similar games. I guess two bad.

00:17:58
Speaker 2: Teams for sure. And the offense, as we outlined at the beginning, has been really really good. Dear God, why is Eddie Rosario playing? Ever? We'll get to you. This is gonna be my twenty minute rant on the podcast. But and I shouldn't do a rant, but I'm joking. We're not gonna we're not gonna go crazy online.

00:18:19
Speaker 1: Up, We're gonna're gonna talkbot. We're gonna talk about that. I promise you, I published you. I just want to make sure we get our friends at Fandel Sports Network. What that what they asked us for, and that was the player spot on Chris Sale. I don't want them to associate this thing with us yelling abou Eddie Rosario on April thirty. So we'll close it out here. Check out fanal Sports Network and Braves games there and we'll be back in a second. You can now stream Braves games through Fandel Sports Network, and if you use the promo code Baseball thirty, that's promo code Baseball thirty, you can start it off with a thirty day extended free trial at FanDuel Sportsnetwork dot com slash packages that is FanDuel Sportsnetwork dot com slash packages promo code Baseball thirty. All fir sparts pot two twenty five nineteen nine nine a month a free trial, champ'sburn a free trial to avoid charges Elibai to Christians, apply visit Final Sports atwork dot com for de tips. Okay, scott As noted the offense not so good today. We'll save Veddie Razara talk for like two more minutes. We're getting there, I promise everybody. Uh, you referenced it already, I think. But they had three singles, no extra base hits, three walks. They were over in scoring position today. The top four of a lineup, Michael Harris has been really good lately until today, and he led off no. One. No, especially like Michael Harris. We don't want HM leading off just ever, probably h but the top four in the laps of Harris and then the big three zero hits combined in the game. Yeah, in a game of course field, that's not what you want obviously. And look, it's literally been two weeks. We referenced the show two weeks ago, exactly two weeks ago that we did. That was the last time before today that the Braves did not get to at least four runs. And four runs is a good number generally speaking. If you score four runs, you're a pretty good shape. You're not credibleship all the time. But two weeks in a row they scored four or more runs at every single game, and then today they decided not to in coursefield, so there you go.

00:20:08
Speaker 2: Just kind of felt like getaway day. And it wasn't even like the Braves ran into a bunch of bad luck either. I think their expected batting average today was around two hundred or two ten. So it wasn't an unlucky game. They just didn't do anything. And other than I think it was the third inning, the Braves got a rally going and that kind of fizzled. They had first and second with nobody out. They did get a run in by way of an Eddie Rosario ground out and a Michael Harris ground out, but that was basically it wasn't you know. It was different than like the Sunday game against the Diamondbacks where they had a million runners on base, had a couple of hits, but just couldn't quite get that one big three run homer to kind of change the game. It was weird. They played three games without a home run in course field. That's weird. The Rockies walk everyone, They didn't walk a ton. I mean, it wasn't like the Braves were just free swinging today either. I mean the Rockies threw a lot of strikes. Just one of those weird games. Hopefully it's not a sign of things to come. God help us if this is. If the lineup is now going to revert back to what it was before, No, I don't think so. Hopefully let's get Verdugo back in there. Let's get Sean Murphy back in there. Let's not have Michael Harris bat lead off ever, let's get Ozzy Alby's out of the fifth spot. Why is Brian Snicker doing that? I don't know. Well, yeah, just little grievances today that led to a loss. And again, sure Eddie Rosario should not be playing. But Rosario playing today was not the reason that the Braves lost. They lost because they had three hits in three walks in nine innings at Coursfield and.

00:21:44
Speaker 1: Their best players did nothing. And that's I mean a couple a couple of walks for those guys. But like, yeah, I think with this offense right now, if you were to assume that the best three or four guys in the lineup go over for the game, occasionally they'll do enough with the rest of the lineup, but they need those guys to They have three stars. Maybe if you sometimes back Baharis gets to that level, but they have three clear offensive stars right now. They're available, and if they do nothing for you, this is an offense that probably can't withstand that too often. And that happened today. We talked about Eddie Zario just do this now. I thought everyone thought This is odd at the very least. Of course, as Sean and Stephen covered, they brought Eddie Razerio back. That actually happened, which we you and I haven't talked about. He's on the roster, yes, the faciator I had a pitcher. But coursefield is probably the hardest place to play defense in baseball. In the outfield, it's the biggest outfielded baseball because of the way that the park plays, it has to be that bigger, even more home runs, but it leads to a lot of doubles in course field, like a lot of space that Eddie is, let's just say, defensively challenged at this point in his career. He was never great and now he's bad basically. And look, I gave the sat on Twitter, so I will share it here. And look, we love Eddie Rosario. World Series Hero, NLCS hero, never buy a beer again, and a same thing. All that stuff still applies right now, big caveats still love Ay Rosario as a guy, as a hero. He's been, by the numbers of fangrafs quite literally, the worst position player in baseball since the end of a twenty twenty one World Series. That's three and a half years. He is number two thirty eight out of two thirty eight qualified position players in fangrafts War negative two point one coming into today, which it probably got worse today. Like, so Eddie's bad, we could just be honest about that. He's a bad baseball player at this point in time, and he's actually been worse than that recently. Last year he was terrible, as we all remember. This year, he was so bad he got he was available to sign. So the combination of the park and the fact that he's been so bad and Duco has been good led us all to wonder and we don't know. I just checked Twitter one one more time if Duco was healthy. I don't understand why Rosario played today. I don't get it, but maybe maybe he wasn't. To be fair, maybe Vernao has banged up and snit is not just what this doesn't want to say that. That's the only way that I could see. I don't want to speak for you. That's the way I could see Rosario playing today with a day off tomorrow, is that Verdugo is like not one hundred percent.

00:24:14
Speaker 2: Maybe I can see Eddie Rosario playing because his manager is Brian Snecker, well that that that's uh, yes, I wish what I should say.

00:24:23
Speaker 1: I if it was me, decided that'd be the only way that I could see for me decided. I'm with you one hundred percent that that's probably what happened. Is that, well, either Verdugo was hurt again just to give a little bit of the caveat or snit like Eddie Rosario, which I understand why, and it is a righty that he was facing. Eddie has a strong platoon split at times and has in the past a chance to give rdego to days off or whatever. I don't know, man, but uh it was. It's I'm glad you said it earlier. I want to I want to reiterate this. It did not cost them in the game. Nothing Eddie did like he did throw the ball with the wall, Like he didn't do it some incredibly ridiculous play out there. He was just a normal bad outfielder today.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: Nothing bad happened.

00:25:05
Speaker 1: But it would have been nice to play your best line up.

00:25:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's no reason to ever play Eddie Rosario. It's funny. I agreed one hundred percent with sending Jared Kelnick to Gwinnett to play every day same. I think, I think everybody agrees that is what is best for Jared Kelnick and the organization right now. But the millisecond I saw Eddie Rosario's name, I thought, oh no, Brian Snitker is going to play this guy until the front office takes him away.

00:25:36
Speaker 1: Well, you just want to get not to cut you off, but like I I agree with you because I wanted that's that spot to be occupied by someone I've never heard of.

00:25:45
Speaker 2: Yes, you're a fair child exactly.

00:25:48
Speaker 1: That kind of that kind of player that no one knows other than the absolute secos. Like, that's better because Snip won't be tempted. And look, Eli, why we've covered you long way at Nausium the last week. He's been awesome. I don't know, I feel like White some game changer, but he's obviously playing every day. The ride in the hot hand he should play right now. Totally cool. Yeah, it's it's a take the club out of the back situation. Same thing we had him belt with Edi Anderson, you know, not didn't talk about that either. He Ian was signed. We did talk about when he was signed, but he got DFA before before he pitched, which Sean and Stephen covered. That was another thing I was worried about. It's like taking like having Ian and available to pitch, like you just don't want to have that happen.

00:26:24
Speaker 2: So it's like a tough shot in golf and you tell yourself I cannot make this shot, but then you look at your club and go, you know, I might be able to do this. Maybe I could sneak it over that tree and before the sand and ever and yeah, I mean Eddie went over three today, had a strikeout, had one opportunity with two runners on and just weakly grounded a ball.

00:26:46
Speaker 1: Hey, he moved he moved the runners over, Scott As you're not texted during that moment, he.

00:26:50
Speaker 2: Moved the runners over.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: So it was a swinging bunnet worked out fine. I did say to you, just to be a fully transparent I thought it would have been funny. And I was not gonna be shocked if Eddie Homeward just to like put one in my eye hole, you know, because I just I had just tweeted basically about how bad Eddie was, and I was expecting that to come back and bite me in a good way for the braves.

00:27:10
Speaker 2: And it didn't. It didn't actually happen, so fingers crossed. We still haven't heard a recent update on Ronald Acuna Junior, which is well, yes.

00:27:19
Speaker 1: Snick got asked apparently just to has that along during and snit just said there's no update, which is I don't know what that means. Doesn't mean it's a bad thing, but we have not gotten the Ronald is about to start playing in games announcement which is not the best.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: So hopefully it's only a couple more weeks for Ronald. Also, if another team has to dfa and outfielder who has a pulse and is better than Eddie Rosario, and based on that statue shared basically everybody is better than Eddie Rosario, I would not be surprised at all if Eddie goes out and they bring somebody new in. It's not going to be a superstar, but why not try to find your next Ramon and Loreano?

00:27:58
Speaker 1: Well, ye might not him, that's not him, I'm out said in that person, but like somebody like that who we talked about a lot this winter.

00:28:05
Speaker 2: I do think I should say this earlier.

00:28:07
Speaker 1: I forgot if his name was not Eddie Rosario, they would not have signed Edie Rosario like that seems safe to me, and that what you said is one hundred percent Drew like take a shot on somebody. But given just how bad Eddie has been for as long as it's been, I don't think they would have signed him if not for the prior relationship, which is fine, I get it. I'm not I'm not outraged by signing him. I think it's not helpful. I wouldn't have signed him, to be fair, I was not like about to lose my mind. But I don't think it's a good decision to sign him because of what we just talked about.

00:28:41
Speaker 2: So as long as Eddie Rosario is not playing beyond today, we're fine. If he's in that lineup again against the Dodgers, if you're playing, scream my mother, f and head off. If Eddie Rosario's in there against the Dodgers, you can maybe I mean today they lost, you can maybe sneak it against like the Rockies or I think they play the Pirates in a week. But stop, Brian Steedger, stop. I'm sure you listen to every minute of this podcast. Oh please do not play Eddie Rosario ever.

00:29:11
Speaker 1: We could, we can do one more thing on Eddie adjacent and I it's eight for thirty. If this is not a playoff brickdown podcast, I do have to say, I am. I'm at least slightly offended bothered that neither Sean Murphy nor Alex Ridugo came to the plate today in a one run game. There were multiple chances to pinch hit for Eddie, not only Eddie, but even for honestly, for Eli White would have been fine. From Ani he's hot right now, I get it, or Nick Allen like they could have hit a better hitter multiple times. Sean Murphy has been quite good, and I I said, I, I actually don't get it. Snid has the weird as ad nausea and discussed a version to hitting his backup catcher, which will never go away, I guess. But it's it's a one run game in the ninth inning, like Murphy, Murphy, or I mean again, or Verdugo if he's what was available, could have let off the ninth inning for any reserve.

00:30:07
Speaker 2: Yeah you could.

00:30:07
Speaker 1: You could hit Murphy if you don't want him to run whatever, if he gets it, gets on base, pinch run for him. But like you're down one run of the ninth inning, like it's the time and Eddie leads off the ninth or was it the eighth inning? I can't remember which one it was.

00:30:19
Speaker 2: He went out.

00:30:19
Speaker 1: He went out one of those innings and I was like, why is he hitting for himself?

00:30:22
Speaker 3: Right now?

00:30:22
Speaker 2: I know it was the eighth, Yeah, it was the eighth. I don't know. This was the getaway day on the West coast with a four hour flight, and you've won four out of five games on the trip so far. This was getaway day to a t under snite. It can drive us nuts because a game against the Rockies on April thirtieth counts all the same as a game against the Mets on September first or whatever day on the calendar. Yeah, just flush it, forget it, move on, and now they have a real They have a big series this weekend at home against a team that we know well and is as good of a threat as anybody to win a World Series. Yeah.

00:31:00
Speaker 1: Last day on the games that I just saw this, I think it was from d B. But uh, the Breves have currently had a flucally large day game versus night games split. They can't seem to score runs in day games, which is which happened, has happened in the past, but it's like a two run per game difference right now, which is incredibly large. So uh, noise probably had this small sample size of a season, but they've just been bad in day games and I believe they're now. Yeah, they're now three and seven in day games. Just a little bit of more fun with stats anything else. I don't think it means anything. Just want to know that, all right, Scott, you just teat us up. We'll get into one bit of news and then a preview of the Daughter series in just one moment.

00:31:41
Speaker 3: Take me out to my team a bad sports now work watch makes some bigger and RB eyes.

00:31:50
Speaker 2: I'm just gotta have the local go through. Will will put the runs and they don't win in shame now, okay, Scott.

00:32:11
Speaker 1: The news the item I just teased is that Brian Stickers said after Tuesday's game that they believe Agrias smiths Shav is gonna be fine and will probably start on Monday unless the thing goes wrong. So if you miss this either on the show last night or previously, smith Shov pitched well and then had to leave the game, or that he wanted to leave the game on Tuesday, he was hit with a line drive in the arm. Out of precaution, may total sense to take him out of the game. No one's been definitive, but everything that's been out there so far has been he seems to be fine, which is a good thing.

00:32:42
Speaker 2: Now, there was even.

00:32:43
Speaker 1: Drama people that he was gonna start yesterday. We didn't know he's gonna start until right before the game. So he's not like fully interest in the rotation. But when you look down at what they had brace have available and the way he pitched on Tuesday, you do want him to be able to throw on Monday. All things gets thired. So that's a good sign.

00:32:57
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, And the importance of a J. Smith Schauver has gone up even more with Strider back on the injured list. He looked really good. Again. All the caveats apply the Rockies. They're terrible, all of those things. But that splitter that AJ throws is weird in the best way possible. When it's anywhere near the plate. Big leaguers really struggle against it. And I think, I mean, I know they picked Bryce Elder over AJ before the Strider injury. Bryce is pitched okay, but I think. I mean, it's obvious that Smith schav has such a higher up ceiling. Up upseiling a new one.

00:33:36
Speaker 4: I like that.

00:33:36
Speaker 2: I'm leaving it in too. I'm not editing at that.

00:33:38
Speaker 1: That was incredible up ceiling. I had one of those on Sunday where I said just the wrong thing and I was like, you know what, I'm leaving that. I could edit that out. I'm not gonna here. We are we go a podcast.

00:33:48
Speaker 2: Taking a stand in the editing process. Yeah, up ceiling for a J. Smith Shauber is high. We saw it. He still needs to work on fastball command, still needs to develop a slider or curve or whatever he wants to do to add a third pitch. But yes, good news. Didn't seem super serious on Tuesday night when AJ left the game, and he'll probably be out there against the Reds on Monday.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, a good sign there. That's the only bit of news that I have seen as of seven ish pm Eastern Time on Wednesday. So we will now preview the Dodger series which begins on Friday. So off day Thursday. Obviously, long trip back from the West Coast, travel day, et cetera. Showdown. Obviously, it's been almost exactly a month since the Braves were swept in la in unceremonious fashion to fall to to seven. That was a dark time in recent history. A lot's changed since to then. On both sides has been playing better.

00:34:41
Speaker 2: Of course.

00:34:42
Speaker 1: The Dodgers had a little bit of a lull about a week ago when they lost four out of five for best team was unexpected, but they are twenty one to ten. They're good, unsurprisingly the bets of injuries, they're still the better favorite to win World Series. All those things, they have a bunch of pitching injuries. Blake Snell is out, Tyler Glass now was out, Playton Kershaw is out, So three of their bigger name pitchers are unavailable. Old Palfreddy Freeman is now back, but he missed some times. So like they've been a little bit in and out. But you know, probably would that have a pitching matchups in a second. What do you make of this? Because the Dodgers, I said, and I'll own it. I still believe it. The Dodgers coming into the year had the best roster I've ever seen in the modern era baseball. And I actually own that take. I think I was I still believe it, but they the available roster right now is not that roster they have, Like I said, they have three like top three stars in the rotation, global guys out other injuries. Like they're still really good, but this is not exactly like an absolute and utter juggernaut. As I knock on Wood saying this, what are your thoughts on this series?

00:35:40
Speaker 2: Probably speaking a ton of talent in that lineup you mentioned, the Dodgers had a bad stretch. I mean they started out eight no and everyone was like, Wow, this team's gonna win one hundred and twenty games. Yeah, and then they basically had three or four weeks where they were a five hundred team and just weren't pitching super well. They had the injury. I think situationally they've struggled a bit. I saw somebody from the Dodgers kind of like the Braves. Honestly, whether or not you believe runner in scoring position hitting is a skill or is it random or is it variance and all that, but they had struggled with that too a little bit. But I mean, you look at the lineup a lot of name value. The pitching is kind of being held together by scotch tape. Right now. It's it's not great. I mean, eventually it'll be really good. But honestly, if you had to pick a time to play the Dodgers this entire season, it's probably right now.

00:36:33
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:36:33
Speaker 2: The way does mean. It doesn't mean the Braves are gonna come in and just you know what, they're asked for three games. I mean they might, but you know, it's it's an opportune time now compared to maybe middle of August when they are presumably healthier, have added at the deadline because they don't have a budget and they have a good farm system and all that. Yeah, I mean, it's not a bad time to see the Dodgers, especially for a Braves team that, as we know, had to I mean, they really went through it in that first week of the year out in LA for sure.

00:37:03
Speaker 1: And you're gonna score some runs, obviously, That's what I was saying. Because the Dodgers, while they're their lineup outside the top four or five is not like ridiculous, but they do have three of the what best ten players in baseball at the top of the line every day with Otani, Betts, and Freeman, Like that's pretty ridiculous. There are very few teams that have a better top three than the Braves, and I think that's they do have a better top three than the Braves. With those three guys, you know, we'll see the probables have been announced for pitching stuff. And UH, gotta say unsurprisingly given that Sales not pitching as a top earlier, and also the Braves issues without Lopez, without Strider their favorite to the Dodgers in the pitching matchups overall, I would say it's fair. Maybe disagree with me, but the first game on Friday is Grant Holmes against the Almamoto down Lodo currently leads the entire major leagues in the RA at one point zero six. He is an ACE level pitcher.

00:37:54
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:37:55
Speaker 1: Saturday is the one matchup that might actually favor the Braves. Schwellenbach against rookies is he sucks, really talented, but schwella Buck is really really good too. And then Sunday is Bryce Elder the aforementioned against Dustin May. And just to give a little shot with to Bryce, we think on Bryce a lot. He's given the Braves a good chance to win the last two games he pitched. He's not been electric, but he's been totally fine. If they can get three six sayings, three runs out of Bryce Elver, sign me up, check Mark please.

00:38:22
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean good on Bryce. And it's interesting in his first couple starts, maybe his first two starts, I didn't think he was like god awful. He no, no, he didn't pitch great. But the Braves had a chance, and at least in those first two starts when the offense couldn't score, and that only amplifies everything. So I mean you look at the pitching matchups, they are not the sexiest. I mean, coming into the year, you could have had just all time, you know, Sail against Glass now and Strider against Snell. You you could have some like a plus billing matchups. We aren't going to get that. But obviously the Dodgers still a good team. And if you tell me, I mean the Braves if they can win this series at home and take two out of three with Holmes and Elder and then we talked about Schwallenbach on the last show being fine not I mean, not bad by any means, but pretty good ish. I think you take a series win all day long and hopefully the crowd is really into it the truest and they can kind of help the team out and hopefully especially if you can win that first game, where I think the Braves will be pretty big underdogs. If you can beat Yamamoto, who has been insane this year, you know, then you really feel good about your chances going into the weekend.

00:39:35
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, you know they could just use a quality outing from Holmes and or Elder one thing to not take back my shots. Pressolder that this is a different kind of test opponent wise, the Dodgers are not the Cardinals and they're not the Rockies, so we'll see how this goes. But uh yeah, interesting games if you I haven't because it's Wednesday and not Thursday. The betting market is not matured. I think the Dodgers will probably favorite to win the series. He's in the betty market, but not by a crazy amount. It is in Atlanta. That definitely helps things for the Braves on paper of note, and I no Braves fans will hate this. They have two national TV only games in the series. Saturday Night is a Fox Network Fox game and then Sunday Night is Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, which means no Brandon a CG on Saturday. No Brads cg on Sunday. Brace fans will not enjoy that, I promise you. On the bright side, it's not all three. There was one series last year where it was Apple Friday and then it was Fox and ESPN and it was no local all weekend. It's only twice this time, but uh, night games, prime time. Hey, it's showcase for the team. I know peoplen't always love this. Listen national announcer doesn't bother me as much, but it is a national showcase that the Braves can win some baseball games.

00:40:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, big challenge. Hopefully the Bats are back after a disappointing Wednesday. Pitching is gonna need to be on it. They cannot walk, they cannot issue walks to this Dodgers lineup, you start walking everybody, you are going to pay, guarantee. The big challenge for the team. They've been playing really well. Four straight series wins in a row. Let's make it five. The vibe will be really good on Sunday night, Brad on the pod if they can win the series, and let's hope they do it.

00:41:14
Speaker 1: Yes, the vibe will be greatly affected by the performance over the weekend, but we'll be here.

00:41:18
Speaker 2: No matter what.

00:41:19
Speaker 1: This is what we do on the podcast. I don't believe Scott's gonna be here on Sunday, so if you can, we can blame Scott if things go wrong. I want to say that right now. If this go wrong, it's entirely because Scott Holman's unavailable on Sunday. But I'll be here in a surprise. But whatever for I. Actually we don't we don't know who's hosted with me, but somebody's gonna be weird with me. Or maybe I go solo Scott. Maybe I just rip one off for thirty five minutes by myself just talking.

00:41:40
Speaker 2: We'll see. I have done one solo podcast in my life. And the only thing I'll say, I remember you, Why why did you do that?

00:41:47
Speaker 1: I can't why why it was?

00:41:49
Speaker 2: It's a big grows thin wall drop skot for you. That's funny, I can say for people who haven't done a podcast before, imagine talking to yourself for six minutes and it feels like you've been talking to yourself for two hours, and then you look at the little clock in the corner and it shows you've been talking for six minutes and thirteen seconds. That is what it feels like doing a solo pod. So let's we'll find you a guest. Maybe we'll do like a random like Twitter draw and some random fan can hop off.

00:42:18
Speaker 1: Let's not offer that that's not a good idea, but no, it's funny. I'm sure we have some listeners that listen to my Hawk show as well, and I would say eighty percent of the time or more that is just me for thirty five minutes. So I'm used to doing this. I could do it my sleep, but I won't. I'll try not to everybody everybody's sake, but that's the lay of the land. Also, we probably will have a show Friday night after the opener. I don't want to promise that, but that's the plan right now, so stay tuned for that. Please subscribe to this podcast anywhere you find your podcast, and the Braves have a chance to win their fifth straight series over the weekend. Scott, anything else to add before we sign off on this Wednesday night.

00:42:51
Speaker 2: Only thing to add? I hope our colleague Sean Coleman, the better of the Coleman's on this network, is feeling better. I listened to the show last last night. I thought Sean was going to pass out. About midway through that show, that was that was a trooper. That was a flu game episode for sure. So I hope you feel better, Sean. I hope you're getting some sleep. And as Brad said a moment ago, we will be back soon with more shows. Win, Lose, Sonny, Rainy. Let's go beat the Dodgers and help they have a good weekend ahead.

00:43:21
Speaker 1: Sean, if you're listening, just tell me next time. Man, I could have I could have hosted the show for h Scott was. We could have just done it. We could have helped Stephen out, could have carried But hey, Shawn's a trooper.

00:43:30
Speaker 2: We love Sean.

00:43:32
Speaker 1: Thank you again that we're listening to the podcast one more time, One more plea from us. If you were a listener sometimes that's totally cool. Go ahead, subscribe, follow, like, rate review, all that fun stuff. Tell your friends and I'll see everybody next time.