Braves Pick Up Much-Needed Sweep Over Twins

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, Welcome back to the Hammer Territory podcast. This is episode one eight four. My name is Brad Rowland. I am one of the hosts of this podcast. I am joined as I almost always am, by Scott Coleman. I'm not even sure what to say. It's Sunday afternoon and the Braves just one more than one game. In fact, they want one to three games in a row. That's called a sweep where I come from. How are you, my friend?

00:00:44
Speaker 2: Hey, Brad, I am great. Happy Easter to everybody out there. And man, the Braves really really needed to sweep. Of course, whenever you get into the hole that the Braves got into to begin the year, you cannot wake up and one night it's there and one night your sudden looking up and you're in really good shape. But you have to build and to win three straight this weekend was great against a decent team in Minnesota, and you just hope this is kind of the start of something for this club and hopefully they can build off it and keep it rolling.

00:01:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

00:01:15
Speaker 1: Obviously it's been relatively bleak so far this season. We'll try not to talk about that too much, but it's important context for a more exciting show on this Sunday afternoon. We should say at the top of the show, also, if you are new to the program, we are part of the Foul Territory network of podcasts. We are Hammer Territory covered in the Braves all year long, So please go ahead and subscribe to this show anywhere you find your podcasts, Apple, Spotify. We're also on YouTube, where we don't always do this, might be rarely do this, but we're actually live right now, so if you're watching live, we are actually live on YouTube platform. So hello and Fixer Spring is part of your Easter Sunday or maybe your Easter Monday with us.

00:01:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, the.

00:01:55
Speaker 1: Bravest sweep the series. They're up to eight thirteen. Now, that's not anything great, but they it looks sky It looks a lot better than other records that could have Right now, six and fifteen was the worst case scenario. After the show on Friday, we should say we did have a show. It didn't feature us, but it was a great one on Friday, covered by Sean and Steven. Then two more wins since then, and I alluded to it, but they had not won back to back games all year. I mean, that's kind of hard to do this late into the season. All the stats, I believe, one that was making the rounds was that the Bras this is the latest the Brays had gone without winning two games in a rows. It's like nineteen twenty two or something like that. Some ridiculous numbers, but hey, they it was basically a total team epter two. I wanted to at least lead with that.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: Like.

00:02:37
Speaker 1: It wasn't like there was one thing that stood out over the weekend. A lot of things were better, the offense chief among them. But the office was good, the wolfmen was good. Started, pitching was okay enough to not get you beat and in the end no blowouts. But three, I mean there was the one comeback win, which we talked about right on the podcast, but like three solid wins that were not fluky.

00:02:59
Speaker 2: It didn't seem Yeah, yeah, very well rounded. The bullpen did a great job this weekend, especially for a couple of starters who did not work super deep into the game. The offense looked very much like the offense that we have come to love so much. A lot of power. Braves had three more home runs on Sunday afternoon and some timely hitting, which is such a sight for sore eyes that comeback on Friday night. Man, it was like, yes, this is the Braves. These are the guys we have waited for for so long. After everything that's gone wrong, That eighth inning rally was so much fun to watch. Everybody was involved, and you know, even some of the unsung heroes or guys who have gotten off to slow starts had really good weekends. Michael Harris in particular comes to mind. Michael had a great weekend. Alex Vradugo, who is the newest member.

00:03:49
Speaker 3: We're going to talk.

00:03:49
Speaker 2: About Verdugo later, but Verdugo had about as good of an opening weekend as you can have. And you just need this lineup to keep turning in good at bats and as frustrating as those final two games were in Toronto, hopefully they were able to take that off day on Thursday kind of reset everything. They're home now for three more days after this and just kind of start stacking series wins.

00:04:10
Speaker 3: And that's what the Braves are gonna need to do.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: You can't get ten games above five hundred overnight. You just have to keep stringing this together and hopefully they've won three straight. Maybe they can run off five of six or six of eight, eight of ten and just kind of get back into the race that way. Because of course, there is still a ton of baseball to be played.

00:04:28
Speaker 1: There absolutely is. You know, we'll get into it later. There's one interesting, kind of I won't say off field, but kind of off field thing we have to talk about with regard to Ronald Acunya's comments today on a social media platform. We'll say that we're we're not gonna ignore it. It's gonna come up later on that Jared Kellicky that became national news, which was unsurprising once it came out, but kind of surprising if you asked me yesterday if it was gonna national news, it wasn't gonna be, and then it became national news. We'll get into that, I promise you, But we do want to talk about some on field stuff first.

00:04:56
Speaker 3: We sort of alluded to already.

00:04:57
Speaker 1: But Sunday I want to be getting there because Saturday has the stuff, the Keltnick stuff looming over it. That'll be a separate segment. But Sunday, his game wasn't like a dominant win again, but they were in control really the entire way, and that began with madd Olsen. Think a two run homer in the first ending off of Joe Ryan. Joe Ryan's pretty good, and the Braves made quick work of Joe Ryan. Honestly, he didn't like it was a lot of two out heroics for the Braves, which has not been the case so far this season. But you know, Matt Elson, we'll just want to stop here for a second. Medalson doesn't have incredible like numbers right now. But we've been saying it. I know, Sean Steven have been saying it, Money have been saying it. Matt's been hitting the crap out of the ball for most of the season. Matt and Baldea looks like it always looks, which is really really good, like it looks like elite, not even good like elite, And it's starting to the results are starting to catch up, which is a good side because of all the guys who had been struggling, we didn't that was kind of in his own realms, like Marcel's killing the ball. Riley's been streaky, but al Sin it's been like the guy we haven't talked about being bad or good because he had been really good under the hood and not so good results wise, and now it's like start to pick ahead a little bit.

00:06:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, we know just how good medals and can be when he's hot and just has the ball bounce his way, and he and probably Drake Baldwin. If there were ten more players around the league who were more unlucky than those two in the first couple of weeks of the year, I'd love to know it. Because it seemed like every night they would hit a ball to the wall and it would be caught, or the outfielder would make a great running play on a line drive in the outfield or whatever. The situation was so good to see Mackett going. He launched a ball off of Joe Ryan. Ryan is one of the better, more underrated pitchers in baseball, one of the best pitchers in the American League, quite honestly, and Matt crushed it.

00:06:41
Speaker 3: It was nice.

00:06:42
Speaker 2: I think the ball actually bounced off the very top of the bullpen wall based on the angle. You know, the story tells itself of that that ball is two inches shorter it comes back into the field instead of going into the bullpen for a two run homer. But yeah, in some ways it was a mostly breezy Win, and we know that when the top of this lineup is hitting for power, the Braves can go pound for pound with basically anyone. And Matt Olson is really just kind of that key cog, especially from the left side, to make it all go.

00:07:10
Speaker 1: Speaking of Drake Baldwin, he has a second home run of the week. This one was I believe both of them were opposite fueld shots. And I heard the actually the radio broadcast. I was in transit today post church and on the way the things, and I was listening to the radio guys when he actually hit that home run, and they basically said, like one of the things that impressed the Braves a lot last spring, like before the twenty four season about baldwhen was he's still like a prosput was far away. It was like everyone was ready by his ability hit the ball the other way with power. You know, there's been lots of guys who have said this in the past about like when they're really going. Riley's the same way when they're really going and they can really launch these balls to the off field with a lot of power. Accuton is the same way too. I don't want to say that he's those guys because he's not just yet. But I was impressed by that, and I think I allude to earlier, but all five of the first five runs were with two outs. Like one of those clutch hitting issues that they've had all year long happened in this series. Knock on wood. Hopefully they stay away forever if you're a Braves fan. But we've talked about it a million times. They didn't have those issues today and Baldwin. We're all excited about what Balwen. We've all talked about it. That knowledge we want have to do us again about what happens soon with Drake versus being back a catcher. Different day. But the talent is very evident. Was Ray Baldwin like the guy des how to hit the baseball and the results are catching up there for as well.

00:08:24
Speaker 2: Drake Baldwin might be so good the Braves can't afford to send him to Gwinnett. Yeah, and we've talked around it quite a bit, but hey, it is a non problem in my mind. If Seohn Murphy's hitting the ball, Drake Baldwin is hitting the ball, and Marcelo Zuna is hitting the ball.

00:08:40
Speaker 3: Of course you can only play two of those guys.

00:08:42
Speaker 2: Which is a little bit of a bummer, but Baldwin's showing that, man, he is clearly ready. And he's twenty four years old. He's a little old for being your typical top ten, top fifteen prospect, but I mean, just be it. Bats are so impressive, and even when he makes out, it's like, Okay, that was a good a bat. The process behind that and that was really good. Two opposite field homers, which is just so impressive, and the homer on Sunday was just a laser beam into the left field bullpen.

00:09:10
Speaker 3: He's just really.

00:09:10
Speaker 2: Good, and he calls a good game behind the plate, does a good job. Grant Holmes was a little wild, probably effectively wild. Drake did a really good job blocking most everything and the one ball that got away from him wasn't even his fault. Holmes just spiked at about fifty four feet and no catcher was going to stop that ball. But yeah, so impressive Baldwin. The hype is real. You never know when the lights are bright. It's just how these guys are going to look. And the fact that he is doing this while not playing every day, I think really speaks to the kind of hitter and just some of the makeup that he has to be a really really promising young player.

00:09:46
Speaker 1: Absolutely love to see that. And luck We've always said it's not a problem. It's one of those good problems to have two awesome catchers, and they might have two oftome catchers on their hands for the Braves. Marcel Zuna came back this weekend.

00:09:58
Speaker 3: I love to see that.

00:09:59
Speaker 1: A little bit of a scare missed the last series, Like, oh, what's going on with Marcel? Looks fine to me? Homewer today. Two hits on Saturday. That's more of just an excel than anything else. Marcel does not have to run or do much of anything out of than hit, which is definitely helpful if you're battling leg issues or whatever he was battling. But a guy in the middle of the lineup that's been one of the ten best servers in baseball the last two plus years, Like, it's not to have that guy just in there.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, really good. I think everybody was holding their breath a little bit because Marcel just did. I mean, he could barely run in that series down in Tampa, and the home run on Sunday was a good sign. Hey, if Marcell wants to keep hitting them over the fence. Then he can take a sweet time chugging the bases. Doesn't have to let loose, but it does seem like the Braves dodge the bullet. Because even though this lineup has started to turn it on over the weekend, the last thing you want to do is lose Marcel for an extended period of time. And hopefully he's able to just stay healthy. And he is getting to the age now where he's no longer a young man. You know, those extra nicks and ouches when you wake up in the morning. You have to hope he's he's doing okay. But we know whenever Marcel is healthy, he just remains such a good hitter.

00:11:07
Speaker 3: In the middle of this order, he absolutely does.

00:11:10
Speaker 1: All right, we'll come back in a second talking about Gret Holmes, who you described as effectively wild earlier. I think that's the correct description about Grant, plus some Chris Sale, the aforementioned Jared Kelnick, Ronald Acune and Brian snicker Kerfuffle if you want to say that, plus much more coming up in just a moment after a word from our partners.

00:11:29
Speaker 4: Tea a band work, watch me, some bingers and rb eyes. I'm just gonna have my local borg rude the bos and they don't win in the Shames.

00:11:54
Speaker 3: Stream.

00:11:54
Speaker 1: Now, all right, Scott, let us dive back in use the word a little while with Grant Holmes. That's I think appropriate. This is a pro Grand Homes podcast. We've been high on Grant for a while. He pitched well enough today five and two thirds innings, four hits, one run, did walk four. It's a little bit of an area where I'm a little worried if I have to say about Grant Holmes but struck out seven. What are you making out of the Grand Holmes experience right now, even today and beyond, because obviously he's been in the rotation and is doing his job for the most part, it seems.

00:12:24
Speaker 2: Like, Yeah, I look, man, I think in a perfect ideal, no problems world, the Braves have Grant Holmes as a utility knife out.

00:12:34
Speaker 3: Of the bullpen. But we don't live in that world.

00:12:37
Speaker 2: Braves have three starters who they can count on right now, and then you add in Holmes as the fourth. And it was a little bit of a circus and wild ride on Sunday. It looked like in the third, the fourth and the fifth innings, things were maybe going to get out of hand, which would have been especially frustrating because the Braves had built up that big lead. But credit to Holmes, he only gave up the one run. He just gets a lot of swing and miss, and that's kind of what differentiates someone like grand Holmes against a Bryce Elder, that when Holmes gets in trouble, he has that swing and miss stuff to get strikeouts and to get weak contact, versus a Bryce Elder who does not have that. It's it's you know, it's the reason why I think Grand Holmes has to stay in this rotation until bare minimum the trade deadline. Maybe this is a giant maybe, but if the Braves can get to that point where they have Sale, Schwallenbach and Strider all healthy and then they could add somebody to the organization of the trade deadline, maybe then you could move Holmes to the bullpen and utilize him there. But until that point comes, I don't know how you can even think about taking him out of the rotation. Sure, it's maybe not the prettiest thing in the world. He does issue too many walks. He can have long ad bats or innings where he really labors, but he gives the Braves a chance every single time he goes out there, and I think you have to take it and hope he keeps building off this. And you know, whenever you can get the amount of strikeouts that Holmes gets, it's gonna give him a chance to be effective against basically every lineup he runs against.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, we like Grant Holmes. I think it's what you said is one hundred percent fair. That perfect world. Maybe he's the he's the guy between the rotation and the bullpen, but right now he is very clear with their fourth starter, like, very clearly he's much better, much better than Bryce Elder, and they, for whatever reason show's Elder over SMIs shav Or won't reletigate today. It would be for another show and already has been on the podcast. But you know he's in there until he's not. I mean, with the Lopez thing going the way that it's gone, he'll be out for a while longer at the very minimum. So yeah, and Holmes, I think it's perfectly fine. Honestly, it's it's a situation where perfect World. Yes, maybe you're a long reliever or whatever, but he's perfectly acceptable. In that fourth fifth star job. I don't think. I don't think he'll keep an ERA in the low threes like his underlying numbers right now, or more of a e RA in the fours. And that makes sense on a and by the way, that's acceptable. And if you're RA it's four point two, let's just say that's what you're gonna get.

00:15:06
Speaker 3: From a four starter or whatever.

00:15:08
Speaker 1: Like, I think his underline numbers are worse than his RA, which makes sense if you watched it so far. He's been a little bit fortunate, but it maybe stops walkin as many guys and the stuff plays up. I love you said that he misses bats and occasionally you get a spot where you go you got to miss a bat, and he can miss a bat, and I like that.

00:15:25
Speaker 2: And a great stat from CJ. Nitkowski in the Braves Booth, which man, the Braves broadcast booth is just a plus. These guys rock, They're one of the very best. But a great stat. On Sunday, Grant Holmes was the first Braves starter since twenty nineteen with Julio Tehran and Dallas Kichel to have six strikeouts looking in a game. Pretty good, man, I mean the Twins. The Twins had a bad weekend. Sometimes it's you have to play well, but also sometimes you just.

00:15:57
Speaker 3: Need the ball to bounce your way.

00:15:58
Speaker 2: The Twins were oh for fifteen with runners in scoring position on Saturday and Sunday and ended the series two for twenty one. Hey, we'll take that, because we know the Braves have really struggled with runners in scoring position. I know it's like this never ending philosophical debate about can you control things as a hitter when you have runners on base?

00:16:17
Speaker 3: And is it luck? Is it variance? Is it skill?

00:16:21
Speaker 2: It's probably a long, methodical, deep conversation for another podcast, but hey, zero for fifteen, we take that. In Holmes, the fact you had six strikeouts looking really speaks to just Minnesota did not know what was coming. I thought Holmes did a good job of mixing the fastball with his breaking pitches, with his split change up to the works in there every now and then and again, Man, I mean one run over what five and two thirds? I think you have to take that all day long.

00:16:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, we totally agree.

00:16:48
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about Saturday's game a little bit because it hasn't been cover on the podcast yet. Of course that was the second one in the row for the first time all year, but a lot of talk about Chris Sale. They win the game, which means the volume of that talk is a little bit less than if they had lost the game. Of course, it would have became much more of a talking point, I think, but Sale, in his I would say trademark Way was not kind to himself. In talking to the media post game, he used a word I won't use, but said he sucks, basically with an expletive. On top of that, he struck out eight, but his command was not the sharpest. We will talk about what I think is pretty obviously if you watch baseball and also look at the numbers the way that we do a stretch of him being very unlucky. I think it's pretty obvious. It's not like a cop out. I also think, and you can correct me if you think this is not fair. I think it's both. I think he's not pitching as well as last year, and he is also being incredibly unlucky on top of that. Yeah, is that a fair way to look to frame it in broad terms?

00:17:47
Speaker 2: Scott one hundred percent agree. I think it's very fair to say that Chris Sale is not executing the way he wants. The command has not been nearly good enough, but he's also been ridiculou lessly unlucky. A stat here, Brad, and then I'll toss it back to you. But five starts for Chris Sale. Chris sales batting average on balls and play is four twenty two W. And for folks who maybe don't know babbeb super well a quick refresher. It effectively measures what your batting average against is other than Homer's, and three hundred is league average, and sales career average is to ninety eight. So again, say has been doing this for a long time, a decade plus career babbeb against two ninety eight. After five starts, it is four twenty two. The next closest pitcher in Major League Baseball is three eighty seven, so a thirty five point jump from number one to number two. And there's only four pitchers in the entire league who have a babbeb above three sixty, So it's very fair to say that Sale has been unlucky. He also has to figure out the command. He's leaving too much in the middle of the zone. His slider is not down in the zone the way it should. It's getting hit pretty hard, especially by righties. Sale would be the first one to agree. If Chris was on the podcast with us, he'd probably be nodding right along and say he has to figure something out. The velocity has been all over the place too, although it's been up in his last two starts for the most part, although it did dip off a bit in the final inning of Saturday.

00:19:24
Speaker 3: I don't know.

00:19:25
Speaker 2: I mean, I think Sale is probably tinkering with everything right now, and I think ultimately he's going to figure it out. And you just also have to hope that some of the luck balances out too, because this is an all time unlucky run for a really good pitcher.

00:19:41
Speaker 1: He said he had I think the word he us was misfires when he was like a couple of ninety nine our fastballs he did after that throw backups like ninety three ninety four, so he didn't end at ninety, which I think is probably a little bit better. I thought he might be hurt, which is a little bit concerning with that, but what he was able to wrip it back up, and he said after not like a injury concern, which is good about the velocity. But yeah, I mean this is not everything, especially this early, in this small example size. I'm not gonna I think this is gospel. But his FIP and his expip are in the threes right now. You know, I'm inclined to buy that a lot more than I am his era, which is whatever it is.

00:20:17
Speaker 3: Six.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: Like, I don't think Chris Sale's pitching like a SIXTYRA pitcher right now. He also has top like a guy who has a two seth of the ra like last year. There's some wiggle room in the mill there. Obviously he wants to be closer to two than six. We all want that as well, but I don't. I said this last week. I think I'll stand by it for what we one more outing. I'm not worried yet. I'm not worried as far as like him falling apart there. There's obviously more concern for a pair of his age. He's not as old as Charlie Morton was, for example, but Chris Sale is almost my age man, like, I'm more than him, but not by that much, and that's not great. Like I'm not a young man Scott, so there's a little bit more concern for a player his age. But I do think if you just look at the data and even watching him, he does look super duper Cris But like not to use example Tom, but if you watch Bryce Elder and Chris Sale, it isn't the same, you know what I mean? Like, I think Bryce Older is earning his seventy ra whatever it is. I don't think Chrisdale looks like that. I think Christale look like a guy who's get unlucky on some balls that are not being hit to places that they should be hit too. And I think if you fast forward two months and he's the ra is three point six, I will not be surprised.

00:21:21
Speaker 2: Even backing, yeah, nobody will be surprised. And you know it's funny. On Saturday night, the very first batter of the game, Byron Buxton chopped the ball about eighteen feet from the home plate YEP, and he got on base because Byron Buston can.

00:21:37
Speaker 3: Fly, and he's yeah, and he scored.

00:21:39
Speaker 2: And then the next batter rope the double down the left field line on a ball that was not located well from Sale. And that was very much the story of Sale season so far. Some horrible luck Byron Buckston couldn't roll that baseball out there better if he tried lead off single and then four or five pitches later, Sale misses on his pitch in the middle of his own and it's one nothing twins, And that just kind of was a microcosm of everything that Chris Sale has done. I do agree wholeheartedly. I think he figures this out. I think sales next start is going to come against the Diamondbacks out West. Hopefully he can pitch well against that good lineup, and some of the things that are working against him, like the batting average on balls and play luck, we'll start to balance out. Because it's I mean, as we said off the top of this segment, just so unlucky. And I think you just kind of have to even if it's painful, and even if Chris needs to work on some stuff, I think you just have to tell yourself that better days are ahead.

00:22:32
Speaker 1: The YouTube chat did not love that I compared him to older guys. It was supposed to be at a thought exercise. He's not rice older. He's a lot better than that. I'm just saying it doesn't look to say he looks like a real pitcher still. And one more thing on Chris Sale, and we'll move on to promise you through his start so far, thirty two strikeouts and seven.

00:22:49
Speaker 3: Walks generally a good sign.

00:22:51
Speaker 1: Not always perfect, but I tend to lean into that a little bit, especially for guys who have a long truck like Sale does. He's not walking, guys still missing bats. That's a good underlying little area for me. One other thing I want to talk about on Saturday is h we live with the bullpen earlier. They allowed two earned runs and twelve innings this weekend. That's a great, great sign. One of the examples of that was Rafael Montero pulling at Houdini Act on Saturday in a what was a close fought win. That was a huge, huge moment in the game. And of course he just arrived. It's a weird way he got here. The Braves are paying a small portion of his contract. He was a highly paid guy. But in that moment, it's one game. But he's looked pretty good overall, and that was a great, great, great spot by him on Saturday.

00:23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a little surprised when Montero went into the game bases loaded, one out against the middle of Minnesota's order, but he was perfect, and he dotted a couple of fastballs right on the corner to Carlos Korea, of course, a very talented hitter, longtime talented hitter, and then expanded the zone perfectly and got the strike three for the first out, and then I think it was in. Vader was batting next, and Montero again peppered him with some fastballs and then dropped that splitter, which is a new pitch for him, and it was really impressive and for a bullpen that really needs some stabilizing with the inconsistencies that it's had this first month of the year, Montero looks good and man, when they traded for him, the numbers were not great. Clearly the front office had seen something in some of the changes and the stuff that he has, because Montero still has really good stuff and that was a huge spot. He did give up a run in the following inning on a sack fly, but I think Montero has shown in a handful of appearances that he can be counted on in this bullpen. And if the Braves kind of plucked him off the scrap he for a couple million dollars from Houston, then all the better. You can never have enough relievers and hopefully it lasts and if it does all year, then awesome. And even if it only lasts for a couple of months and then the wheels fall off, you can probably move on. So it was a really big spot for Montero and he deserves a big tip of the cap for getting out of the jam.

00:25:03
Speaker 1: Absolutely a big moment and it might be forgotten, but it might not be if the Braves get hot now and like you look back at these little things, they can kind of turn the season around and you want to overweight it either. But that was a big, big escape then ended up being a win, which made it even more magnified. We reference to Michael Harris earlier. But man, the home run he hit on Saturday was absolutely destroyed. Yeah, one hundred nine mile an hour, four hundred and forty six feet by stat CAAs that's an absolutely mammoth home run.

00:25:31
Speaker 3: And we said it. But he's bounced back.

00:25:32
Speaker 1: He raises his ops to like eighty points this weekend, which, by the way, it was in the it's still very low, so he had been struggling. It makes it easier to raise it. My bore, But I think our colleague Stephen pointed out that home run only was the home run, He also took two pitches before that and got up two zero in the count and then annihilated a pitch that he was that was actually in the zone. Small thing, but Harris's approach is the biggest thing with him. The Talent's always been there. That was a good moment, and not only just because he hit the ball one thousand feet.

00:25:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, great approach, And I thought all weekend Michael Harris was really good. He had the big hit on Friday night too, I think tie the game and then set the stage for Drake Baldwin had the massive home run at that. I mean, that's got to be what top three, top five deepest home runs of Mike's career. He launched that ball, and it's a ball he should launch two to zero pitch yep down in the sweet spot for a lefty and he launched. I think it hit the very top of the chop house out there. Really encouraging to see. And I mean, you want to talk about players the Braves need. The Braves really need Michael Harris to be Michael Harrison Capitol letters.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: And it was just three games we.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Don't want to proclaim that the whole team is back and the World Series is back on after three games. Not doing that, but really good signs from some players this weekend that the Braves needed to step.

00:26:46
Speaker 1: Up one hundred percent. Okay, everyone's asking for it. We did tease it earlier. We will come back and talk all about kell Nick Acunya snicker, all of that stuff in just one moment.

00:26:57
Speaker 3: After working our partners.

00:27:00
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00:27:06
Speaker 3: No doubt.

00:27:06
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00:27:21
Speaker 3: It's on order.

00:27:21
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00:27:37
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00:28:00
Speaker 1: Okay, Scott, there was a situation on Saturday that was already in our notes. To be fair like it was a local issue. I would say on Saturday, people noticed it, people talked about it, and it got out of control on Sunday, and we'll kind of talk.

00:28:14
Speaker 3: About it now.

00:28:14
Speaker 1: So if you miss this somehow and we're listening or watching us, Jared Kelnick thought he how it. I think on Saturday, hit the ball a long way, hit the wall, and he didn't bust out of the box because I think he thought everyone thought probably it was probably gone, and he started running fast pretty quickly, but not immediately right, and he was thrown out a second base because it probably should have been an easy double and it wasn't, and it turned not even in just a single, it turned into out, which was big. The game was tied at that point in time. It should have been second and third, no outs. They won the game, so it didn't get quite the juice that it might have gotten that they had lost. But it was a thing that we've seen before, as we'll talk about in a second, but it was a talking point.

00:28:57
Speaker 3: But in the.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Moment brought this up, Ronald Acuniy was benched for a very very very similar thing in twenty nineteen. I would say people didn't always bring this up, but I'll add this, and this came up a couple times as well. Less so, Marcelo Zuna was benched for essentially the exact same thing in twenty twenty three. So it wasn't just Ronnie. I want to make that very clear. This is not only a Ronald Acutney thing. Marcelo Zuna was a star level player, established guy. It's an older player, not even a young guy like Ronald was older player, same thing benched. Now it was probably gonna go away, and then didn't go away because Ronald Acunya and a now deleted tweet. But we've all seen it. It made the rounds. Mark Bowman tweeted about it, and Ronnie replied to Mark, which is even funnier in some respects, and he said, quote if it were me, they would take.

00:29:52
Speaker 3: Me out of the game. End quote.

00:29:55
Speaker 1: Before we move on, Scott, a little bit of news that happened while we were talking that I just saw on Twitter. So this is secondhand. I've not seen snit. I'll see this multiple times from reporters, so I trust. I'm gonna trust Dob and Bowman on this that he said this apparently today Sunday. Snicker was actually asked about this yesterday and he kind of downplayed I didn't understand it or whatever, just downplayed it right. Apparently he didn't know. He told the media today on Sunday that he didn't know. Kelnick essentially pimped his single off the wall, and his thoughts might have been different had he known yesterday. I'm mad in that bit of coloring, because that's going to change the conversation a little bit. What do you think of all of this? Because people are mad at Snit. People are mad at Ronnie for airing the dirty laundry? All kinds of thoughts and opinions here. Given all that context, Scott, where do you come down on this thing as of Sunday afternoon evening?

00:30:50
Speaker 2: All right, let's break this into chunks, because there I could probably talk for nine minutes straight.

00:30:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:30:56
Speaker 2: Number one, whether you are Jared Keellmick, or you are Rondra Kunya Junior, or you are Marcelo Zuna, or you are Shoheo Tani, or you are a twenty eight year old utility man playing their second game in the league, you need to run hard out.

00:31:10
Speaker 3: Of the box.

00:31:12
Speaker 2: Who used to say they pay you to run hard four times a game? Run unless you just you better be one thousand percent sure. Michael Harris was one thousand percent sure when he hit that ball to the chop house on Saturday.

00:31:26
Speaker 3: But that ball was not a no doubt.

00:31:27
Speaker 2: And if you're Kelnick, he got thrown out. It's a bad look. If the Braves would have lost, it would have been an even worse look, which is part of this. But I think the first thing we need to say is just run, man, Unless you hit that ball.

00:31:39
Speaker 3: Four hundred and fifty feet.

00:31:41
Speaker 2: You have to hustle, and let's now I'll throw it back to you on Akunya. The fact that this is still kind of in Ronald's mind five years later, I don't love that. Hopefully these guys can have a heart to heart sometime soon and just kind of bury the hatchet. But when he tweeted it, my eyes probably jumped out of my head because it was like, oh, no, we don't need this. We definitely do not need star players signed for five more years, still apparently not happy with things that happened five years ago.

00:32:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, we all have that thought. It's interesting.

00:32:20
Speaker 1: I'll be regulatory about my own thoughts here. I think Ronald is right about this to some degree. I think Ronnie is right that he got benched for something, and again, Marcel also got beutched for something that Jared Kellnic did not get benched for.

00:32:35
Speaker 3: And that is weird.

00:32:36
Speaker 1: It's a little bit strange, and I actually want to attribute something to our colleague. Grant McCauley's been a guest on the show before, does a great job on his own podcast, Night Too. Not all these things, Grant said, basically with regard to consequences for specific actions in a clubhouse or on a team. He put it this way. Quote that message should should read the same for every player, every time.

00:32:57
Speaker 3: End quote.

00:32:58
Speaker 1: And then that's a perfectly fair for me if you're Ronnie. And yeah, there's something to be said for it's a long time ago.

00:33:04
Speaker 3: I get it.

00:33:05
Speaker 1: And also he's not with the team right now, he's obviously still rehabbing. That adds some fuel with the fowre here he's not he's not face to face with sin it. But yeah, I could see it running me the wrong way if I know I did something. It became a national by the way, that became a national story when it happened to Ronnie, because Ronnie was a big name player, star player. That was a national talking point. For a couple of days. The takes were flying about Ronnie. I mean they always they always seem to fly about Ronnie. But that's I'm sure that probably contributed to some of this. And I could see being bothered if I'm mccunya at the theme at the apparent inconsistency is what I'll say, Because you're a Colling's not some old guy.

00:33:38
Speaker 3: He's young.

00:33:39
Speaker 1: He's this is a young player. This is not like this is not a who's an old guy. This is not Marcel is in a now or Matt Olsen or like some guy who's some thirty year old established player like I see people talking about Kellick being more of a veteran guys. Kellic's like a twenty five year old, Like he's not established like an anyway. So there's that part. Then there is the should you a tweeted that Ronnie? I tend to think no, even if I'm kind of on team Ronnie on this one to some degree. I would also add that I don't think I would have tweeted this if I was him. No, And look he deleted it. You never know why that is, Like, did someone this this is agent call? Does somebody called by, Hey, Ronni, are you sure about this one? Don't know, we have no idea, So I think everybody's got a little bit of something there. I don't I don't love that he tweeted it out. I don't think he's right about this, and I it's really weird to me that Snicker just apparently didn't know. And also, you know they didn't bench Kelnick yesterday and during the game, and the way they did to Ronnie and to Azuna, he also started today. Yeah, which that's the weird thing to me, is like, I guess again, I'm reading this, not watching us. We're doing a podcast. But Snith apparently said it might have been different if he had learned it, but he knew it before the game today and Kelnick started still, so there was still an opportunity if you want to send a message to Kelvinick to say, hey, you're not starting today, man, And they didn't do that. So I don't love this. And I also don't think that it's Snicker's lost control. I mean there's other side of this where fans are who already don't like Snip very much or like fire the guy to now it's all over or whatever, he's lost the team. I don't think that's the case either. But it's just this is a weird situation. It's nuanced, and what I will add and I'll throw back to you, we'll never know all of it. And that's something I've learned, even more covering basketball the way that I do and being around the team more than I'm around the Braves physically. In person, people always think that we know everything and we can't ever know everything, ever about anything much about this clubhouse stuff. Is this very interesting situation in general, This got public to a degree that a lot of things do not. But I guarantee you there's conversations and dynamics in play that we cannot understand, and that's not good for hot takes, it's not good for social clips. I get all that, but I always keep my guard up to say, there's stuff we don't know and stuff we can't know, and that's kind of where you have to defer a little bit to the guys who were actually there.

00:35:52
Speaker 2: My sincere hope is that this is in the news cycle for twenty four hours, they'll probably talk about it on Monday morning because it made the right It was a superstar level player when healthy going to Twitter to effectively complain about the way.

00:36:06
Speaker 3: A manager handled him. Yep.

00:36:08
Speaker 2: Now it was twenty nineteen, and there is this long history with the Cunya and I think being unfairly blamed for things. There was that ordeal in the Philadelphia outfield in the playoffs a few years ago. Remember the ball bounced in left center field and then ricocheted towards right, and everybody went at Ronald because he wasn't on like a dead sprint to a ball that landed two hundred feet away from him. There there's just kind of been this thing with Ronald, and I've generally thought it's not fair. Even if getting back to the point, you need to run the ball out. Yeah, you pulled that when you're four years old, and you should do it, whether you make a billion dollars a year or you are on your first day in the major leagues, even the minor leagues, whatever level. I really do hope though, that this is a twenty four hour cycle, Ronald and Snitt have a chance to talk and just kind of bury this. You don't want to let it fester. Maybe they already have talked, or maybe they're going to talk today. It was just reported that Jared Kelnick went into Snit's office today and apologized for not running it out. So hopefully that is buried as well. Not that Kelnick is some key core piece of this team, but again, you want him to be a professional and to apologize and own it. I hope this is not something we continue to talk about. Let's hope this is the one and only time we talk about it on the podcast. Yeah, it made for an interesting Sunday morning and interesting Easter Sunday morning. When that tweet went out, it was like, oh no, we don't need this.

00:37:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to your point, I hardly agree. I hope we never talked about this again. Honestly, number two, we were gonna talk about it no matter what it was on our notes, even before Ronnie tweeted about it. But it would have been two minutes instead of twenty, you know what I mean. So it was notable to a lot of people that watch this team closely. I have long thought, and many have thought, it's not just us that Ronnie's gotten a bit of a raw deal on some perception stuff along the way, where other guys can get away with things that he's somehow, for some reason can't.

00:38:03
Speaker 3: I don't love that.

00:38:04
Speaker 1: And part of the reason I brought up Marcel is that it wasn't just Ronnie two, but yeah, a weird situation hopefully. And look, this is crass and I don't mean it that way. It helps the day one, yesterday and today.

00:38:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:38:16
Speaker 1: Like, as funny as that is, a lot of things happen in sports such as baseball, where like the vibes go way down when you lose in general, and the bands are still eight and thirteen, Like it's not such on of rainbows. But if you lose yesterday or you lose today or both, maybe it's felt a little differently. Maybe guys are in a worse mood and things fester a little bit more or whatever. Wins equal vibes a lot of the time in professional sports, and winning a couple of games here might help to, as you said, kind of bury this one and have it not be a big thing moving forward. Anything else to add on this and then we can. If not, we'll talk about ox perdugo. But anything else you want to add on the topic, d jor today.

00:38:52
Speaker 3: Just might as sweet. Hey the brace what's the twins this weekend? We love with that.

00:38:55
Speaker 1: A lot of shows listen, a lot of shows would and probably are going to lead with the Acunya Kelnick thing.

00:39:02
Speaker 3: Today.

00:39:03
Speaker 1: We did not want to do that because I want to talk about baseball on the field and they swept the series. That's much more important to me than a tweet from Ronald or reaction from snit.

00:39:12
Speaker 3: But it's still on top of we have to talk about Yeah, had to talk about it. Let's hope this is kind of it. It's out there.

00:39:18
Speaker 2: Bury the hatchet move on, run hard out of the batter's box, and let's talk about I mean, let's talk about it really. I mean, we talked about a good weekend for the Braves. Let's talk about maybe the most encouraging part of the entire weekend.

00:39:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, this segment, we should say, it's brought you folks at Fatal Sports Network. We're can have stream Braves games and we'll tell you much more about that shortly. But our spotlight player for Final Sports Network today is Alex Rdugo, the afore mentioned He just got called up to begin the weekend. Not a young player, but a player they just acquired before the season. And we won't go back to that, but it was like, WHOA, that was kind of interesting signing at the very last part of spring training. A guy who's a major league starting caliber player who was just available for very cheap. All these things, but three games. The biggest one was on Saturday. We had a monster game on Saturday.

00:40:05
Speaker 3: Four hits, two.

00:40:06
Speaker 1: Doubles, the go ahead, the go ahead hit. Look, he's not been in I mean he's five of fourteen with two doubles and three games. That's really good, right, But the reason why we're spotlighting Oxford Dugo. Even more than that is that as you and I talked last time, one time we did a podcast was a few days ago, and one of our lead segments is about how just how bad the outfield had been, and especially the corner guys, because Michael Harris had been bad but he's still a talented player. The corner outfield has been a disaster so far this season, and Alex Ordugo looks like a rainbow or unicorns whatever whatever you want to say, is your perfect imagery is like, oh, riding down on the white horse to save the corner outfield is Oxford Dugo. And we're overstating that a little bit because I do want to say he's not a superstar player, but man, he's helpful and it helped right away.

00:40:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, immediate impact from Ridugo, and that's what we were hoping for. And whether it lasts for a couple of weeks or a couple of months or the entire year, the Braves really need somebody to step up, especially in left field until Acuna comes back. And Verdugo had as good of an opening weekend as you can have, and he's been I mean, look, man, you can't fake it for seven years in the major leagues and be a total nobody. I mean, clearly this guy has some talent. Now, did he ever emerge as the star level player that maybe people were thinking he was going to when he was traded for Mookie Betts. No, the last couple of years with Boston and New York were very average ish, maybe a little sub average. But the bar to be a starting outfielder, a starting corner outfielder for the Braves right now is really low, and Verdugo does some things that this lineup could really use. He's generally a pretty patient hitter. He doesn't strike out a ton, He puts the ball in play, and he can drive the ball. He's maybe not like a thirty home run a year guy, but he can hit double digit homers if given a good chunk of bats. He has some speed, which is valuable for this lineup too, to help kind of move around on the base paths and put some pressure on the defense. And to me, I mean, if you want to talk about a player who has an opportunity right there for the taking, it's Rdugo. And you talk about another again, a player who was a starter on a World Series team last year in New York, and then he found himself unemployed until two weeks into the spring. It's kind of make or break time for his major league career, just in the way it was for guys like Eddie Rosario and jorgees Solier when they came to the Braves. And I'm not saying that Radugo is going to be a World Series hero seven months from now, but he clearly has something to play for right now. And if he can give the Braves a spark in the leadoff spot too, where they just don't have anybody to lead off, it would be so so helpful until they get Acuona back.

00:42:51
Speaker 1: You gave the caveat, but it's a great comparison to Eddie Rosario and that, yeah, you would bet on him not being Eddie Rosario. That Eddie Rosario about October he was out of his mind, but a similar level of pedigree, a similar level of player, like a established major leaguer, but not a star at all. And Verdugo was, like, like you said, almost on the track to be a star ish level guy back in twenty, like twenty twenty in Boston he was kind of breaking out, but he probably isn't gonna be that now. But he is an established major league cornothuver. Like, this is a guy with a career coming into today, a career ops of seven forty three. That's not special, but you know what it is acceptable. You can live with that. In a core affold spot. He can he can catch the ball out there. He's a decent defender. Someone mentioned this in a YouTube college Actually it was in my nose as well. He didn't have a four hit game all of last season, and he had four hits in the second game with the Braves. That's that's kind of fun. He had a bunch of three hit games. So it wasn't like he was terrible terrible, but he wasn't good last year. He had a bad year.

00:43:45
Speaker 3: That's why it was.

00:43:46
Speaker 1: That's why he was available for a bargain basement price. But yeah, I mean he's already I don't you want to say after three days. But if he just does a little bit, he's more than returning value on the very minimal investment. And yeah, maybe you get to win profar come back and you have some decisions to make. Not the worst thing in the world. Owed a bunch of money, so he's not gonna just not play, I don't think. But if for Dugo is your fourth outfielder when Profer comes back, that's bad.

00:44:10
Speaker 3: News for Jered Kelnick. But it's good news for the Braves.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: I think, probably because look, Alex Riduego is better than Jared Kelnick. There's no there's no evidence of the contrary. Like if you compare their careers to date, it's not close. Ridugo is a much more established player than Jared Kelnick. That doesn't mean it's impossible for kell It to be better from this point forward. But if you ask me right now who i'd rather rather having a box, it's Alex Rduego, and I don't think I have to think about it for more than a second. So not the highest part of clear, but a helpful player for this team.

00:44:38
Speaker 2: I joked about it on Saturday night, but after Verdugo got his second hit, I tweeted congratulations to Alex Radugo, who now leads all Braves outfielders with two hits.

00:44:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean not entirely wrong. I mean I probably was wrong at that moment, but it was not by a lot.

00:44:55
Speaker 2: Obviously, it's a joke, but look, man, I mean, I can't watch more Stewart Fairchild, I can't watch more Brian de la Cruz, so they mercifully sent down a Gwinett. Kelnick is very limited as a baseball player, even if he once upon a time was a top prospect. Yes, there are many ways for Dugo to impact this team at the top of the lineup, get on base, plays a pretty good defensive outfield. He didn't get a ton of opportunities this weekend, but historically he's graded out fine in the outfield.

00:45:24
Speaker 3: And again, man, you're not looking for an MVP here.

00:45:27
Speaker 2: I mean, if he wants to give the Braves anything even remotely close to that, it would be huge. But just somebody to stabilize the corners, because even after a good weekend, the Braves on the whole, in the outfield statistically is near the bottom of the barrel. And if they can get Verdugo to give him some on base at the top of the order, and then if Michael Harris can keep hitting for power as he did, and then hopefully in two, three, four weeks you get a COONa back in that lineup, there's a way to really bridge the gap.

00:45:53
Speaker 3: After some really dark.

00:45:54
Speaker 2: Times these first couple of weeks where they were getting literally nothing out of their outfield.

00:46:00
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and he may not be a savior.

00:46:02
Speaker 1: Alfredugo has been a basically an entirely league average kind of player for the last three or four seasons. But hey, league average is a lot better than what they have in the corner off field before this. And also, they're gonna need a corner affilter in the playoffs and they make there. That's that's an if at this point in time. But as a reminder, Profar can't play in the playoffs, so that's going to be a spot to circle. And I bet you right now if you gave the front office a bunch of truth here, that they are very very happy with having Alex Ordugo signed.

00:46:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're super cheap and having their.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: Body again, not because it's gonna change their lives, but because he's just their best option.

00:46:35
Speaker 2: I have to think that the front office was tipped off about Profar potentially being suspended.

00:46:42
Speaker 3: Usually there certainly know that.

00:46:44
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, there's an appeal process when a player gets popped, so I think he gets tested again, and I don't know the exact specifics, but usually it's a couple of weeks before you get clarity on it. And I mean when they signed for Dougo, we did a podcast that night it was like, do they do they need a fifth out?

00:47:01
Speaker 3: Feel there? Well?

00:47:01
Speaker 1: And also I want to add to this on the player side too, a lot of the questions were like, why is Verdugo.

00:47:08
Speaker 3: Signing with the Braves? Yeah, like because he.

00:47:11
Speaker 1: Didn't think give If the Braces ha given a bunch of money, it would have made sense, but they didn't. It's it's a peanuts kind of deal. And it was like on both sides, like why are the Braves to doing so? Why is pro Why is Viverdigo doing this? This is really his only offer he had maybe it was his only offer, But if you're Verdugo now and if you knew or he's kind of knew, you were going to be a starter probably for half a season, there's more. INSTEADI to sign that contract to be a shown me kind of contract on a well presumably good team was supposed to be a good team coming into the season. So both sides like, yeah, I think we almost have to know now that they probably knew this was coming when they signed Dugo. But in that extent of the player side to you. We always forget about player side. The player has a choice too, and I would imagine if, even if it's just a tie breaker, a chance to play a lot, and I'm sure the brains are like, hey, you're gonna play man like, and once you're terrible, you're gonna play because we have a spot for.

00:47:57
Speaker 2: You well, and it's funny, and then we'll wrap up here. A year ago, Jerkson Profar signed a one million dollar deal with the Padres because his career was on life support and he had a career year, and he got forty two million dollars from the Braves. And Verdugo and Profar are not identical players by any means, but it's kind of a similar situation.

00:48:18
Speaker 3: Where Dugo was looking for work. He took I think a million dollars or two million dollar deal from.

00:48:23
Speaker 2: The Braves, and if he has a good six month season here, even if it's not in an every single day capacity, he's going to be able to get a real contract this upcoming offseason, a million dollars one year deal for five million, eight million something like that two years fifteen. There are so many incentives for Verdugo to have a good year at this point in his career, and who knows, maybe the Braves after striking goal last year with Ramon Loreano with Mirrifield was good for them. Gio Orchello was good for them. Hopefully Verdugo is the next guy who can step up and kind of reward the team for taking a chance on him when clearly most of the league was not super in.

00:49:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, Alex has been good with these guys who are not necessarily pure cast offs, but guys who are available for cheap dating back to twenty twenty one with Rosario. But you just named the guys from last year. I've done a good job patching those holes with cheap editions. You don't want to live on that if you don't have to. But they hit on a lot of those, and hopefully Ford Togo is the latest for one year. And I just looked at up one point five million this year for a starting caliber corner outfielder is a pretty good, pretty a price if you can pay it. All right, Scott, We'll have more about the next series up for the Braves, because, by the way, they can't just stop playing now. For Forondes that A really have to keep winning baseball games. We're getting that more in just one moment. You can now stream Braves games through FanDuel 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 fanduelsportsnetwork dot com slash packages. That is Fanduelsportsnetwork dot Com slash Packages Promo Code Baseball thirty all first parts BOT two twenty five, nineteen ninet nine. A month after free trial free trials to with what charges elibate Christians apply us the final sports atwork dot com for de tips.

00:50:05
Speaker 3: Okay, Scott, we'll be.

00:50:06
Speaker 1: Breezy here, we'll get out of here under an hour, I promise everybody right now under an hour. Challenge accepted. The Braves play the Cardinals beginning on Monday. The Cardinals are not the best I would say they are. They have, at least till recently, been a little bit better than they were last year where they had their first disaster season in a long time. But they got dog locked by the Mets this weekend. They lost fourner road to the Mets this weekend. So is that good or bad? Do you want to see a struggling team kind of, but do you want to see people swept in four games?

00:50:38
Speaker 3: Maybe not.

00:50:38
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about the series overall. Then we'll dive into the pitching matchups.

00:50:42
Speaker 2: Cardinals are a team that you really should have a chance to win the series against at home, and let's hope the Braves don't go out there and lay a total dud in Game one or two or else. All those old wounds are going to just come right back to the surface and here we go again. But the Braves should be able to take advantage of a Cardinal team that's really struggling. I was kind of shocked that Saint Louis didn't start it's rebuild this winter. They have pieces that could fetch them a lot in terms of prospects. And I know it's a proud organization in franchise, I know it's a proud fan base, but Saint Louis, I mean, the team just stinks.

00:51:17
Speaker 3: They've been on.

00:51:18
Speaker 2: The wrong path for a few years now, and hopefully the Braves can take advantage and just keep that losing streak going, especially after the Cardinals couldn't do us any favors and win a game or two up in New York.

00:51:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's you know, the vibes should be decent at Truest after a sweep interesting pitching matchups as well. The Braves just swept this series. If you want to be an optimist, even more so, without Schwellenbach or Schreider pitching series usually a good sign those guys are now going to go in this series, Schwelly is supposed to start on Monday, Stryder on Tuesday. The probable for Wednesday is Bryce Elder. I don't know if it's going to be Bryce Elder, but it might be. He is listened as the probable right now, Scott. So usually would they list a guy they didn't go TVD. They went with Elder, and that means he probably will pitch. That's an afternoon game, so if you are someone who can't watch price Oller pitch anymore, you won't have to. Maybe it'll be at work on Wednesday. We'll keep an eye on it. For the Cardinals it's Eric Fetti Andre Polonte I believe is his name, and then Miles Michaelis on Wednesday. So nothing disastrous in the matchups. Obviously, Elder versus Michaelis is not an advantage for the Braves, but Michael's is some great pitcher. He's fine, and the first two are advantage Braves pitching matchup wise. So in theory, a pretty good setup to at least hold Serven win a series at home.

00:52:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, even though the Braves lost both of the Spencer starts in Toronto last week, all eyes are going to be on those guys, and I think it was just going to be a blip on the radar for Schwallenbach, just a weird night, didn't have his command against the Blue Jays. I think you have to feel good every time Spencer goes out there. And then for Strider, I mean especially, all eyes will be on Strider in his second start look good. Maybe not Capitol letter Spencer Strider in his first start of the year, but that was probably to be expected against a Cardinals lineup that is not anything special or fancy Saint Louis. They're a decent lineup, they're decent pitching staff, but they just don't have the high end talent that can really carry you over a six month season.

00:53:18
Speaker 3: But all eyes on.

00:53:18
Speaker 2: The Spencers and then a noon game Elder against Michaelis has been awful this year. We know, I mean Bryce Elder, it's thrown him to the wolves. I don't know how much longer this experiment goes on. Maybe the Braves make a change. They do have Elder and Smith Shaffer lined up on the same day right now. They do have a day off on Thursday, so maybe they just want Elder to go out there and then they'll reevaluate on the road trip after it. But hey, if the Braves can win two out of three, it would keep the vibes going, and then they have another early season West Coast trip and hopefully that goes okay. Can't go much worse than the first West Coast trip this year.

00:53:56
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a Nourse statement, Scott, to be sure. I wasn't gonna invoke it if you didn't, but you did it for me, so we won't. We won't do that, and we'll talk about that later on this week hopefully. But look, you can't expect to sweep every series, but winning every stacking series wins. I know that's kind of an old school bracism Bobby Snit everybody, but it's also just true. If you go in win every series, you're gonna be just fine. Two out of every three games, three of every four games. That's what you want to do. And get two out of three of this week, keep it rolling. If they get to out of three, they'll be ten to fourteen and it'll be just not rainbows.

00:54:26
Speaker 3: But it will be fine.

00:54:28
Speaker 1: And I mentioned this before we start recording today. The Brains not have a very normal looking run differential. Now that doesn't mean anything. I mean it means something. It means that you're not getting killed in games. But one more good week and it could be back to like level there. They have a better run differential than the thirteen and eight Rangers right now. Not too much solace to take in that, but a team that I still believe when we said this last week, I'll say it again now is better than its record. We'll see how much better they are than their record, but they're better than their record. I feel good about that. And with Spencer and Spencer on the Mounta, the next two is we can take some solace in the big arms coming to the dish for the braves. All right, Scott? Anything else to add and if not, we might have some new wistters today relive on YouTube? Where can folks follow the Scott Coleman experience on social media. Yeah, just a great weekend for the Braves.

00:55:18
Speaker 2: They needed to sweep in the absolute worst way, especially with that bad taste in their mouths after that trip to Toronto. It seemed like that series was going to go really well on Monday night and then just two total duds. So the Braves they get three wins against a Twins team that's really going through it right now. Hopefully they can keep winning series. Like you said, Cardinals are beatable, Diamondbacks are good, but then they go play the Rockies. They have a series against the Reds coming up, a series against the Pirates, the Nationals teams they can beat and should be. If they're going to get out of this early hole. The Braves have to take advantage against the lesser teams, and hopefully this weekend is just kind of a leaping off point to doing that consistently these few weeks and months. I'm Scott Coleman. I am at Scott Coleman fifty five on Twitter. Much better vibes this weekend, Brad, much much better es bro.

00:56:10
Speaker 3: It was fun.

00:56:11
Speaker 2: The wins are really fun. The losses sometimes they get to a dark place. God help us if they lose on Monday, it'll be right back to it. But a great weekend for the Braves and hopefully everybody. If we have new listeners, welcome aboard, and for our returning listeners, thank you as always.

00:56:26
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you very much for listening.

00:56:27
Speaker 1: If you want to follow my stuff on social media, I am at b T Rowland a lot of Atlanta Hawks recently. Season is over, but I still cover that.

00:56:35
Speaker 3: Team a lot.

00:56:36
Speaker 1: But hey, we're probably more Braves per capita over the summer than it has been lately, So please go ahead and follow me there, and more importantly than that, please follow the show on social media at Hammer Territory. Sure some highlight clips, share the links of the podcast, engage a little bit Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, et cetera. And please, one last time here check us out. Check out the entire Pilatoryturentfiul Territory network. Please subscribe to Hammer Territory where you find your podcasts, whether it be YouTube like subscribe there plus audio platforms. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and smash the subscribe button or follow button on Spotify or Apple two should be easy to do that auto download, support the podcast there, patronize our sponsors, all that fun stuff for Scott. Thank you, Starve for being here as always, for the listeners, Thank you for being here, and we'll see you much more.

00:57:21
Speaker 3: We don't have to pick. I promise you see you all next time.