Show #164: The Braves Stumble on the Road
Looking at where it all went wrong this week. Plus Chipper batting second and the post season hope meter.
137 Responses to “Show #164: The Braves Stumble on the Road”
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Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 » Show All
September 12th, 2011 at 12:22 am
Chipper can bat anywhere in my lineup. The key is to have someone in front of him that can get on base and someone behind him who has some skill to drive him in. Not much to pick from that meet either criteria right now. Freeman is consistent but beyond him and Chipper, who would you want batting with the game on the line? What is the hitting coach (Parrish) and Fredi doing to help these guys hit? Nearly the whole team looks out of rhythm; if they are doing what Parrish tells them, he should be fired today.
September 12th, 2011 at 12:26 am
You just HAD to get rid of the “Post Season Hope Meter”…
September 12th, 2011 at 12:41 am
Parrish just isn’t a good hitting coach. Terry Pendleton was very successful during his time here and just last year the Braves had one of the highest team OBP’s in the league. I just don’t know why TP gets a bad wrap.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:03 am
Solid show considering what you had to work with. Hopefully Brian Jordan is right, and sleeping in their own beds turns things around for the team. The postseason rotation is just scary to even think about at this point.
I get that Fredi has had to deal with a lot of adversity, but so has every other manager this year. For example, La Russa has endured Wainwright’s season ending injury and an injured Pujols in his worse year so far, and they’re still making things interesting. I honestly thought Fredi did very little with a talented team in Fla, and I think he is continuing the trend in Atlanta. Maybe it’s part of being a young manager. Bobby certainly had similar issues early in his career. One thing we never talk about is the fact that Fredi is still learning his players and what resources he has with this group, but he is making very slow progress.
I’m not looking up the numbers, but Hamels and Lee probably have a better postseason winning percentage than Maddux and Glavine. I’m guessing Halladay is no slouch either.
September 12th, 2011 at 2:16 am
Frank Wren is going to have a busy offseason. The Four Horsemen of the Pitchpocalyse have looked very solid. The only real blemish for me was Minor’s Glavine-esque first inning. Teheran’s control was a little suspect, too, but that guy can really change speeds better than the other 3. Beachy is still the only one I fell comfortable with starting in the postseason. I think Stevie’s right and you have to take Lowe’s experience over Hanson’s unknown status and Minor, and Delgado and Teheran have to be approaching their innings limit.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:05 am
I don’t know enough about how to read pitches, despite much coaching from this board, so forgive my stupidity. Could Lowe’s struggles be attributed in part to his trying to add cutter to his pitches?
My hope meter was at a 5 but if you guys think we’ll go 4-2 this week then I’m a solid 6.
September 12th, 2011 at 9:07 am
#5 — What makes you think that Wren is going to have a busy offseason? It seems like most of next year’s lineup is in place:
Starting rotation:
Hudson
Lowe
Hanson
Jurrjens
Beachy
+Minor
+Teheran
+Delgado
+Vizcaino
Lineup:
LF Prado
CF Bourn
RF Heyward
3B Chipper
SS ??? (though I also think it’ll be Alex Gonzalez)
2B Uggla
1B Freeman
C McCann
He’ll need to add some pieces in terms of bullpen and bench, but for the most part, it’s a matter of health for some of these guys. If JJ and Hanson were healthy, I think our magic number would be less than 5, and we’d be talking about how our rotation would match up with Philly’s in the NLCS. As it stands, we’re hoping that a 4.5 game lead will be enough with 15 left to play.
September 12th, 2011 at 9:47 am
Don’t forget Medlen. And there will only be a couple of bullpen spots available as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hanson and JJ get moved this off season for pennies on the dollar.
September 12th, 2011 at 9:53 am
#8 and they will proceed to torture us for the next decade.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:36 am
#7, I was thinking more along the lines of the starting rotation: Lowe, Hudson, JJ, Hanson, Beachy, Minor, Medlen, Delgado, Teheran, and Delgado.
September 12th, 2011 at 11:40 am
*”and Delgado” should be and Vizcaino. It’s hard to remember all 10.
I could definitely see Vizcaino and Medlen in the bullpen. Is a move to the bullpen out of the question for Lowe? I don’t know how they could possibly trade him, and he is probably the worst of the 10 potential starting pitchers I listed.
September 12th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
I would say yes. I think he has stated that he has no interest in going to the pen and where would they use him? $15 mill for a long reliever who can’t really go long in games?
I think they try and trade him too. I think they are getting proof that they can “rely” on these young starters and are going to do what they can to move salaries to free up room for them, thereby making us a fringe wild card team at best next year. Maybe Hudson gets shopped too. They have yet to waiver on these in-house cost cutting moves when they can.
Insert Uggla comments here.
If they could free up money to sign Bourn, I’m all for it. If they don’t make some legitimate effort to sign him, they are crazy.
September 12th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Ham, question. Are the Sox fans going more crazy than Braves fans, with their collapse and now 3.5 WC lead over Tampa?
September 12th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Curt I dont think they will move both Hanson and JJ. I think just moving JJ makes the most sense.
September 12th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
@12, I would rather spend money on Michael Bourn than 2 injury prone starters, and the only reason I feel that way is our depth at starting pitching.
I think 2 of this year’s original rotation probably go. If I had my pick I would say Lowe and then JJ as most expendable. It has taken 8 solid starters to be contending for the WC this year. Chances are it might take the same number next year, too.
September 12th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
great show guys. after such a horrific week, its nice to feel like i can commiserate with some other braves fans.
good news is, weve been getting the job done all season, enabling us to get this large wild card lead which now looks very important.
every game from here on out is a big one. lets win tonight.
September 12th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Curt – all of the 9/11 coverage was second to the Rays/Sox story. It is much doomier and gloomier up here.
September 12th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Perhaps a bit of hope for this week and the coming weeks…
I just looked at our week-by-week records. Out of 24 weeks so far, we have had:
- 13 weeks in which we posted a winning record
- 5 weeks in which we went .500 (3-3)
- 6 weeks in which we posted a losing record
We have not had any back-to-back losing weeks. So, every time we’ve had a losing week, we’ve rebounded in the following week.
During weeks 8-12, we went LW-WW-LW-WW-LW (losing week and winning week). Apart from that, our losing weeks have been spread throughout the season, not really close to each other.
We’ve had two losing weeks since the All-Star Break.
By far, last week was our worst week, in which we were 4 games under .500 for the week. We’ve had two weeks of -1 games, two weeks of -2 games, and one week of -3.
We’re due for a winning week.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
We seriously have way too much talent for this to be going on right now. Slowly losing faith.
September 12th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
The only good thing about now is that if we lose it doesn’t mean the cardinals win. Those head to head match ups can kill you. Cmon pittsburgh.
September 12th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
“The only good thing about now is that if we lose it doesn’t mean the cardinals win.”
Sadly summing up the state of things right now.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
GONZALEZ!
September 12th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
Wow! See what sitting for a series does for ya? Also, I miss Omar.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
I miss winning.
And being good.
September 12th, 2011 at 10:52 pm
I miss games where we don’t pitch every pitcher in the bullpen.