Talking Chop

This has gone about like it should on paper.

I hope our playing rope a dope and saving the top part of the rotation for the Nats series pays off. The division is 95% out of reach. It probably was when we ate it against the NAts and Pirates. We need to clean up this weekend and just try to hold on.

The Dodgers and their mail-it-in act aren’t helping.

I said this in the gameday thread since this wasn't up yet

This loss was disappointing to me tonight as well however, on the bright side of it say the Phillies win the NL East and we win the Wild Card. If we make it to the NLCS we will have completely different games simply because of who’s pitching. This series we are catching the 1st 3 pitchers in their rotation however they are only catching one of our top 3 guys and thats Hanson tomorrow. These games would have been much different had it been Hudson vs. Halladay, Hanson vs. Hamels, and Lowe/Jurrjens vs. Oswalt.

I think all we proved tonight was that we can hit Halladay and yesterday we proved that our pitching can silence their lineup. In a championship game there is no way we see Dunn in there it would have instead been O’Flaherty or something.

All I’m saying is that I still believe we are the better team and we would have won had we matched up with their starters. However, no one seemed to agree with me when i mentioned skipping Minor and pitching Hanson and Hudson on 4 days rest.

Still

This

I agree, at least partly

A ball going off of Hey’s glove and Prado missing a monster 2 run shot by inches in game 1… we played right with them against their hottest pitcher with a rook making his major league debut, and lost the game by inches.

I didn’t get to see or listen to last night’s game, but only 2.1 out of our SP, doesn’t sound like I missed much (except for being annoyed)… nice to read that our bullpen stayed pretty solid to keep us in the game. We’ve hung with 2 of the Phillies top 3 so far, throwing 2 rooks against them, though unfortunately the results have not been in our favor in either game.

I don’t, however, agree that we should have changed our pitching order around for this series. A win is a win, no matter who it comes against, and the sweep in NY is keeping us in the wild card hunt. If we do make the playoffs, and end up seeing the Phillies in the NLCS, we’ll have seen their top 3 pitchers twice already in the preceding few weeks, which could definitely help our hitters against them. And I still love our pitching, and think our top 3-4 pitchers match up well against their top 3. If we can make their starters work a bit more and can get to their pen a little earlier, I like our chances against them.

So, here’s to hoping for some good baseball from the Braves over these last 2 weeks and holding onto the wild card… cause we’re a better team than how we’ve played recently, and if a few bats get hot, we can be dangerous in the playoffs

knarf - September 22, 2010 reply

Down go the Rockies

A gritty, gutsy performance from former Hokie Joe Saunders.

PM from DOB on Twitter

Asked him if there was an official explanation for the rotation not being moved around:

“Been asked several times. Cox didn’t want to move anybody up, wanted them to stay in order and get the rest”

For once

He has the right idea. No need to roll the dice this early. If we can just play decently down the stretch, we should be okay.

Has anybody projected the rotation out for the rest of the season?

Livan Hernandez on Saturday

FML.

you know

Derrick Lee should have a great game then since he can’t hit a 90+ MPH fastball.

lol

when i saw on Gamecast that he hit his grand slam on a 94mph fastball, i almost needed a new pair of pants.

really?

wow. I’m quite surprised. It’s just a shame that he took a month to start hitting. Hopefully that means he is on fire in the post season. He and Heyward 3-4 would be dope

Like Bobby would ever do that...

he’ll just keep on throwing Martin in that 3-hole, injuries and all. The guy hasn’t hit for two weeks now.

He could use tomorrow off.

With the off day, two sweet days straight would do him nothing but good.

I’ve been pressing for McCann to bat behind DLee, but Derrek’s recent emergence has made that moot. Whichever guy is 4, the other one is fine at #5.

i agree

he should be off and Heyward hitting 3rd.

Yes, JHey should be in the 3 slot.

Meant to mention that.

Is Conrad that bad that you can’t stick him at third or Infante at 3rd and Conrad at 2nd?

Broccoman - September 22, 2010 reply

damn

I’ll be at that game too. Hopefully he sucks that day.

nuftjedi - September 22, 2010 reply

With Jair's injury, it goes into a top hat....

Hanson tonight
day off
(@ Was) Hudson
(@ Was) Lowe
(@ Was) could be Jair, could be Beachy, could be Minor
(home vs. FLA) could be any of the above 3, or Hanson
the next games are below, but it really depends on when Jair is healthy, and if Bobby wants Beachy or Minor (or both) to take their turns one more time
(Fla) Hanson?
(Fla) Hudson?
day off
(home vs. Phily) Lowe?
(Phily) JJ?
(Phily) Hanson or one of the rookies?

you know

This to me screams that the FO and Bobby had already conceded the NL East and were just shooting for the Wild Card.

One side of this is that he is right. It keeps our guys on normal rest which will be great going into October for guys that were originally supposed to be under innings limits this year anyway (Hudson, Minor, and Hanson somewhat). Making our rotation a little more rested for the Post Season. If this is the case I would love for the Braves to lock up the wild card before we even play Philly and that way we can use guys like Beachy and Kawakami to start in that series and give the main guys in our rotation some rest going into the post season.

However the downside of this is it somewhat kills the confidence and the morale of your team and your fanbase to go and possibly get swept by a team they will have to face in the post-season if they win the wildcard and Philly doesn’t collapse with a 10 game losing streak. The fans also look at it as they should give up on reaching the World Series because they can’t beat Philly. No casual fan will really pay attention to the fact that we just threw two rookie starters out there against some of the top guys in the NL and still had really close games. All that matters to them is that they turned on the TV and the Braves couldn’t beat the Phillies. Rookie or not a loss is a loss and it stings no matter who’s pitching.

It also doesn’t help to see our guys playing like a little league team out there. Missing signs, terrible base running, some bad defense, just all around amateurish. It just screams “not on Philly’s level”

Either way we won’t know until October how much the decision to not skip Minor in this series and go JJ vs Hamels, Hanson vs Halladay, and Hudson vs Oswalt will be.

We really need that game tomorrow

You hear me Tommy, neeeeed

crsosa - September 22, 2010 reply

Giants win, Padres win, Rockies lose.

Giants beat the Cubs 1-0. Padres beat the Dodgers 6-0. Rockies lost to the D’Backs 3-1. Here’s how it all shakes out to finish September 21 and 10 games remaining on the Braves schedule:

NL West
Giants 85 66 —
Padres 84 66 0.5
Rockies 82 68 2.5

NL Wild Card

Braves 86 66 —
Padres 84 66 1.0
Rockies 82 68 3.0

Despite the two losses to the Phillies, it’s still favorable to make it thanks to the 3-game sweep of the Mets.

If the Braves just go 5-5 in their last 10 games, the Padres would have to go 8-4 in their final 12 to finish ahead of Atlanta. The Rockies would have to go 10-2 in their last 12. In case anyone bumps the Giants out of first in the NL West, the Giants would have to go 7-4 in their final 11 games to finish better.

The Padres and Rockies began a stretch of games today that will carry them through the rest of the season. No more off-days for them. The Braves still have two off-days left. The Giants still have one off-day left.

A lot of those West teams still have some games against each other, so there will be a let-them-beat-each-other-up effect to the standings. The Padres and Giants play their last 3 games against each other in San Francisco. The Giants still have a 3-game series in Colorado left to play. The Padres also still have games remaining against the Reds, but the Reds may be in coast mode for those games since there’s a good chance they’ll have clinched the NL Central by then.

10 games left. Just hold on to the Wild Card please.

Green

I love some perspective and sanity.

this.

Dr. Teeth - September 22, 2010 reply

Thanks so much for this. Makes me feel much better!

tomahawklove - September 22, 2010 reply

Win the series against the Nats and then again with the Marlins,...

and then I’d like to see where we’re at. But we need to do those two things.

yes, PLEASE hold on to the Wild Card

and have the Phillies rest their players the last 3 games

dank7 - September 22, 2010 reply

If you have a 360, you gotta go get Halo:Reach

I usually don’t even like the Halo games, but this one is pretty great.

womp

PS3 Move FTW!

I have my 360 (the new one) and my roommate as a PS3

and there’s really no comparison in the games. The PS3 has the blu-ray, but that doesn’t make up for the crappy titles. If it wasn’t for MLB: The Show, I would never play it.

specs favor the ps3

brother-in-law was looking up on it and (recalling from memory here) and I believe he said the PS3 had 6 microprocessors while the xbox only had 4 (or maybe the other way around?). However, the point is, the PS3 had more microprocessors dedicated to running the game whereas the xbox had more dedicated to running the OS.

If Halo is the only reason for buying the xbox, it ain’t worth it. PS3 plays blue-ray and the controller is much more comfortable.

Sir Veza - September 22, 2010 reply

I have both

And the PS3 is collecting dust. You don’t buy a video game console based on its hardware, you buy them because you want to have fun. The reason more people have xboxes is mostly due to the fact that people didn’t want to pay $500-600 for a console when they could have a game console for $300 (all, at the time) that had a much larger library of games that looked comparably good on a HDTV.

FWIW, Halo alone could carry the xbox, so very, very many people disagree with your assessment that one game makes a console worth it. And I don’t even like the series, but it’s very true. God of War is an epic series, but doesn’t come close to the rabid dedicated fanbase that Halo has on the other side.

Depends on the games you enjoy...

is Madden that much better on XBox than ps3? I got ps3 (birthday gift earlier this month), and like it fine. Madden is great, and the bluray part keeps wifey happy.

That's the thing

Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the on-screen product, so hardware is kind of irrelevant to me. It’s not like you’re comparing an Atari 2600 to a Sega Dreamcast. Video games are for fun and competition, not who’s got the best hardware.

Atari....

man, don’t date us. I remember playing all night on that thing when I was like 5 or 6.

lol

What, you don’t want to remember when E.T., Empire Strikes Back, A-Team and Indiana Jones were all essentially the same game? Either you were ET’s head, Mr. T’s head, Indy’s head, or a tiny Millenium Falcon, floating around on a pea-green screen, dodging tiny circles meant to be bullets, while trying to fire tiny circles back at them?

dunnytwogloves - September 22, 2010 reply

Both consoles has it's pros/cons

I have them both, so it doesn’t really matter what comes out on what. I tend to lean towards Xbox on a game that is released on both consoles. For a few reasons that I won’t get into.

But the PS3 does have some good exclusive games. Uncharted 1 & 2, God of War, Metal Gear Solid. Of course the Xbox has got Halo, Mass Effect, Gears of War.

Think of it like this.

If the Braves win tomorrow, they’re still 4-2 on the road trip heading into Washington. That pretty much assures a winning road trip. I know they seem to freeze sometimes in Washington, but they usually just lose 2 out of 3 and never get swept. With Lowe and Hudson going in that series, it would take a major alignment of crap to be swept by them.

Anyone know how far Freeman's HR traveled?

Jay212033 - September 22, 2010 reply

426

If I remember right

Thanks Newb

Jay212033 - September 22, 2010 reply

ESPN says 428 feet.

-InsertWittyNameHere- - September 22, 2010 reply

how about that

freddie freeman? i loved watching him get his first shot off of halladay

jerryclore - September 22, 2010 reply

Over on TGP

they called him thorn-in-our-side-for-the-rest-of-the-decade Freddie Freeman. That’s got a good ring to it.

it appears they forgot Heyward

with this dynamic duo we will win the world series before it’s over

southman - September 22, 2010 reply

With Heyward and Freeman

the Braves will win the World Series before it’s even played. By themselves.

Roy Oswalt

Charlie Manuel meddled with his starting rotation to make sure Roy Oswalt pitched this game against the Braves instead of Kyle Kendrick. But Oswalt’s career numbers against Atlanta aren’t for the faint of heart.

In 7 regular-season career starts against the Braves, Oswalt is 0-3 with a 7.58 ERA. The Braves did not face Oswalt when the Astros visited Turner Field earlier in the season from April 30-May 2.

But in starts that really mattered

In three playoff matchups, Oswalt is 2-0 vs. Atlanta, with a 3-something ERA. Either way, I’m not a big fan of career numbers sometimes, because like in Oswalt’s case, most of the players he went 0-3 against aren’t even on the Braves anymore. Off the top of my head, the only Brave he’s faced playing today is probably Brian McCann, and maybe guys like McLouth, Ankiel and Lee if you count their tenures with their old clubs. No more Andruw, no more Chipper, LaRoche, or anyone else with good power who gave him fits that led to that 0-3 record. As far as I’m concerned, his past is irrelevant in this case.

He’s a creative and deceptive pitcher, and I do question anyone who doesn’t think he doesn’t have the advantage going into tonight’s game.

We need 7 or 8 strong innings out of Big Red tonight

Also minimal errors

I’d say “no errors” but that’s been kind of an impossibility since ASB. I’ll take errors that don’t have dire consequence.

Errors, ...

errors are bad.

m'kay

knarf - September 22, 2010 reply

Oswalt’s previous losses against us were with a totally different offensive team behind him.

A win tonight is possible, but will not be easy.

NCChopper - September 22, 2010 reply

"Our focus is on winning (Wednesday) night," Braves manager Bobby Cox said.

What? He didn’t care winning the first two games?

rubbles88 - September 22, 2010 reply

Um no but

Now that they have lost the first two he’s saying that they are focused on winning the game tonight. Every coach wants to win every game but it doesn’t happen like that but you can’t dwell on the past you have to move forward.

Jay212033 - September 22, 2010 reply

Pitchers

Anybody can say what they want to about the Braves but Frank Wren did not have to go Rent a couple of high dollar rent a pitchers like the Phillies did? These Braves might still make the playoffs?

jayball - September 22, 2010 reply

I don't think you know what "rent" means

They have Oswalt for at least another year and Halladay for at least another two or three. And given that they Phils just beat us two in a row, I’d say, yeah, he did have to rent a couple of pitchers, and he failed to do so.

Dr. Teeth - September 22, 2010 reply

The pitching

is not the problem. Never was.

Chief Noc-A-Homa - September 22, 2010 reply

think prado gets a day off here?

he would probably benefit from 2 days rest

lingsched - September 22, 2010 reply

Its games like this....

that make me miss Chip more than ever

bravesguy311 - September 22, 2010 reply

Melky + Conrad >>>>>>>>> Hinske + McOut

Instead of batting Hinske and McOut in the 8th and 9th, why not just forfeit? It would be less painful, lol, because you already know it’s coming.

Has Hinske ever NOT swung at a pitch?

Stick with it TP. Stick with it, baby.

what?

melky is terrible and is a 0 power threat, and at least nate has shown signs of life as of late. i can see the conrad thing, but i’d rather have anyone up there besides melky at this point

lingsched - September 22, 2010 reply

SRSLY?

You’re advocating for Melky over anyone? I’d rather have a dead goldfish up at the plate than Melky (and I’m not joking).

Sir Veza - September 22, 2010 reply

I mean, at this point, does it matter?

It’s choosing who’s going to not get a hit. Does it matter? It’s still an out. The cows are out of the barn at this point, kids. No point in shutting the door.

Dr. Teeth - September 22, 2010 reply

what the fuck are you smoking?

Kobe:The Legend - September 22, 2010 reply

Does anyone else on this thread detect the smell of dead meat?

Jess Think'n - September 22, 2010 reply

yea

you!
we’ll get the Wild Card and run shit after that.

dank7 - September 22, 2010 reply

Were done… Fuck Frank Wren

Albert K - September 22, 2010 reply

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I am missing a much-needed dose of positivity and optimism in my life.

Also,

are you any relation to Special K? How about Fat Albert? Did Special K and Fat Albert have a kid named you? And what would the love child of an animated human and a box of cereal look like?

Yeah, I have way too much time on my hands. And I don’t know what to do with myself.