Talking Chop

I'd imagine that very few of you actually want to relive this past series, but I'll give this a shot anyway. The Braves just got swept, and by the Mets of all teams. They only scored 3 runs in 3 games (though the last game was really only 5 innings long). They stranded a ton of runners. They played horribly on defense and on the basepaths. The lone positive is that the pitching was solid. Now, for some "awards":

Lindsay Lohan Award (for the most disturbing trend)

This "award" goes to the Braves' defense, which committed 7 (!!!) errors in the series, struggled with the wind (game 1), sun (game 2), and rain (game 3), and made some key mental mistakes. Chipper Jones alone made 3 errors, including a throwing error that led to the only run in the rain-abbreviated game 3. Chipper and Brian McCann also failed to cover home after Chipper dropped a popup, allowing a run to score.

Speaking of McCann, our catchers overthrew 2nd base twice on stolen base attempts (actually 3 times, since Ross was bailed out when the runner couldn't advance on an overthrow). That brings our season total for catchers' throwing errors to 5, which means that Braves catchers have more throwing errors than caught stealings (4).

The Braves have now made 18 errors in 18 games, good for 3rd-most in the majors.

(More series "awards" after the jump...)

Silver Lining Award

This goes to the Braves' hitters. I know what you're saying: "This is sarcastic, right?" But it isn't. The Braves' hitters actually did a good job in one respect in this series. In 23 innings, they got 18 hits and 16 walks. That makes their on-base percentage a robust .350 for the series. Overall, it was a bad offensive performance filled with guys being left on base, but there was a silver lining. After all, you can't leave lots of guys on base if you're not getting lots of guys on base. If they can keeping up a .350 OBP all year, the runs will come.

Sisyphus Award (for greatest effort with the least results)

This goes to the Braves' pitching staff, which held the Mets to 8 runs in all, only 7 earned (the 2 runs charged to Saito really weren't his fault, either). That's a 3.00 ERA for the series, which is pretty darn good. All 3 starters pitched well. The bullpen wasn't needed much, but it generally pitched well too.

Brain Cramp Award

This one goes to--who else?--Yunel Escobar for neglecting to tag up from 3rd on a deep fly ball from Troy Glaus. It figures that when we finally get a good piece of situational hitting to drive in a run, Yunel would manage to screw it up. He turned what should have been a run in and a runner on 3rd with 2 out into no runs and 3 outs. I still have no clue as to how a major league player (or a little leaguer for that matter) could forget to tag up in such an obvious tag-up scenario. I love Yunel, but the team really needs him to get his head in the game.

Honorable mention goes to Chipper Jones for playing on Sunday when he clearly should have been resting his injured hip.

Best Hitting Performance

Jason Bay, Mets-- 6/9, 2B, 2 BB, R, 2 RBI, WPA over 0.2 (The WPA values for the 3rd game have been recalibrated to 5 innings, which I think skews the numbers tremendously. Thus, I won't be giving exact WPA values for the series.)

Worst Hitting Performance

Jason Heyward, Braves-- 1/9, BB, 4 K, GIDP, WPA less than -0.2

Best Pitching Performance

Hisanori Takahashi, Mets-- 3 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 1 BB, 7 K, 0.074 WPA (honorable mentions to Mike Pelfrey, who gave up no runs despite a 2.00 WHIP, and Manny Acosta)

Worst Pitching Performance

None. No pitcher on either team actually pitched all that badly.

Now, let's forget this series ever happened and hope that the Cardinals series turns out better.