*Official 2009 Atlanta Braves Thread*

Hanson = God

 

yeah, i can see why you say that, some of his breaking stuff last night seemed to deny physics.

also, Bowman says on his blog that unless the Braves hit a major skid, they are probably done dealing before the deadline, with the exception of dealing away KJ. said Wren is happy with the team, their increased offensive production, and since they are in the thick of the Wild Card at minimum currently, they have no interest in trading away Gonzo or Soriano, since both will be Type A free agents.

that said, they won't be able to keep both Huddy and Vaszquez's salaries after this season, or match what Soriano will get on the free agent market for that matter.

 

I think they should be done dealing. No reason to mortgage the future for a rental player like Dunn or Holliday. The platoon in RF with Chruch/Diaz appears to be going well, and Anderson has been heating up since June.

It's a given that either Hudson or Javy is gone at the end of the season. I'd almost rather keep Vasquez at this point. The guy eats up innings and has been more reliable than the oft-injured Hudson.

Soriano is also likely gone, especially when you consider he's likely to garner more than Gonzo in FA. I think they let Raffy walk, keep Gonzo as the closer, and groom Luis Valdez until he's ready to take the closer role full-time.

 

hudson pitched a bit yesterday I think it was in single a. just an fyi.

 

Heard that. Supposedly it was pain-free, which is great news.

 

The lineup has scored four runs off of Lincecum in only three innings. This is good news. Getting past Lincecum gives them a great chance for a sweep. Escobar is money in the sixth spot. Lincecum challenged him with a high fastball and he crushed it to straight away centerfield.

 

4 Runs against Lincecum is like 8 or 9 against anybody else. Jair continues his dominance and could very well be the best NL pitcher in July.

 

One more and we move the giants further from the wild card......

 

Well, Mike Gonzalez getting injured and shotty defense is going to cost us the sweep today. Figures that we face arguably the Giants worst pitcher and can't muster any offense except an Escobar homer. 3 outta 4 ain't bad though. When Hudson comes back, Kawikami is def in the pen though.

 

Jesus, that catch in the White Sox game was ridiculous. Not to mention it saved a perfect game.

 

go braves!

 

Hopefully Hanson will have better luck against the Brewers lineup tonight than he did last time.

 

Big Marlins series starting tomorrow. It's pretty important at this point to keep the momentum going. I think Kawakami will be up for the first game?

 

we are tied with the marlins currently. I'm hoping sweep, but we are in florida....

 

With any luck we'll send the 300 fans home disappointed.

 

Tue, Jul 28 7:10 pm EDT J. Jurrjens vs. R. Nolasco
Wed, Jul 29 7:10 pm EDT K. Kawakami vs. J. Johnson
Thu, Jul 30 7:10 pm EDT J. Vázquez vs. R. VandenHurk

Pitching schedule. Good starters, this will again boil down to the bats it seems.

 

Or the lack of bats as it sometimes is for both our teams. Has there ever been a series where every game was decided 1-0

 

yeah, I'm not sure how it is for the marlins, but there are times where the braves just completely rock pitchers, or do well against very good pitchers, and other times where they couldn't hit a beach ball with a car. Its pretty frustrating....

 

You mean like chasing Lincecum after five innings one day and then getting shut down by Zito and his 5-10 record the next?

 

It's pretty much the exact same for us. We'll put up 5-6 runs for 3-4 straight games, then get shutout twice in a three game series. I feel your frustration.

 

nope thats not what im talking about at all

 

Our bats are on fire right now. I think we lead the NL in Avg and runs scored in the month of July.

 

I think we're also leading the NL in ERA this month. Good things will happen if all of this continues.

 

Yeah, we were sand bagging it all through the first half. Now that Schafer and Frenchie are gone, we dont have any real easy outs in our lineup. When Nate McLouth has the lowest avg on your team (yet still takes walks and hits for power) thats pretty good.

Scary thing is 2 of our 3 losses out of the break have been when Kawikami pitches. When Hudson comes back and takes his spot we'll have the most formidable staff in the NL... maybe all of MLB.

 

Soriano blew it. Big time. Tomorrow night is not a favorable pitching matchup for us. They should have had the game tonight. More of the same BS from the first half of the season. I'm getting pretty tired of Atlanta laying down for the Marlins and Nationals all the time. You should be able to muster more than two runs against Nolasco.

Pathetic crowd. I'm not exactly in love with the Marlins but they deserve a better crowd than that. Even on a weeknight. Not sure how they can afford their own stadium with minor league crowds showing up.

 

Soriano had been really good for a long time until tonight. Hopefully its just a blip on the radar.

 

It's a costly blip at a time where they could do without blips. Tomorrow is an unfavorable matchup with Johnson vs. Kawakami. They are in very real danger of losing this series to one of the several teams they're trying to catch to have a shot at at least the wild card. With a series against the best team in baseball coming up this weekend. With the way the Phillies are playing they could be almost out of the race in just a week if they continue to blow opportunities. They had that one in the bag and that was the worst blip I've seen in a while by the way. Soriano was horrible, I think he threw a single strike the entire inning [beside the one hit out of the park]. To the bottom of the order.

 

You obviously don't know much about Ricky. He had a TERRIBLE start to the season, went to the minors and came back. His first five (four?) games after he came back he had a sub 2.00 ERA. After that he had one bad game, but has put two straight great games together again. He's a top of the rotation starter, and a lot of our fans believe when he's on he's better than JJ.

 

Better then jair jurrjens?

 

Thats the problem with though from what Ive seen, he's very inconsistent. Last night was frustrating because we usually own that guy and only mustered 2 runs off him. We let a few scoring chances get away and didnt do well with RISP.

 

I know that Atlanta has had success against him. I can also conclude from what you've just told me that he is very inconsistent if he can go from being sent to the minors to top of the rotation in a matter of months without an injury being involved. Atlanta should have scored more off of him. That's all there is to it. Like he's so untouchable. They scored four off of last year's Cy Young winner maybe a week ago but this guy is so good they shouldn't expect more than two runs in seven innings? Give me a break please. Anyway, good win, fortuantely for the Marlins Soriano must have thought it was still the All-Star break. I'm not optimistic about Atlanta's chances tonight.

 

Maybe in his dreams.

 

He was a 15 win guy and our best pitcher last year as well. I don't see why you're being so defensive, all I said was the guy has the best stuff on our staff. He had a terrible start to the year, who knows why. He just couldn't put hitters away, I think it was a mechanics issue actually.

Actually when a guy puts up a sub 2.00 ERA over a 4-5 game period and you score 2 runs....you did better than average. Thats the type of outing we EXPECT from him every time he takes the mound.

Then he had a TERRIBLE game giving up 8 runs, but even WITH that game his ERA is just above 2.50 since returning.

 

BTW, our Super Stud Jason Heyward (ranked #1 Prospect by Baseball America) is absolutely RAKING at AA Miss. He's hitting .473 and his OBP is .536

 

how is jordan schaefer doing?

 

Yeah I saw those stats today and did a double take just to make sure they weren't his stats from high school. You'd have to think he'll be up with the Braves by the end of the year and could help them much like Miguel Cabrera did for FL in 2003 for a playoff push.

 

He had season ending surgery on his wrist. Supposedly he hurt in the first week of the season.

I don't think they wanna bring him up this early. Everything I've read points to him being called up towards the end of next season. Don't get me wrong, I wish he was batting 5th for us right now. Who knows, maybe they call him up when the rosters expand.

 

Bowman mentioned this after he was sent down, the injury. and it came up a few times before he was demoted. heck, i hope that is the case, after the way he playes in Spring Training, and that an injury caused his lack of production. or at least contributed to it.

 

Somebody fire Kawakami's interpreter. It looks like he told KK he was pitching the home run derby tonight.

Tim Hudson hurry up with that rehab. Kawakami is certainly a serviceable starter but I'll like seeing him in long relief more.

 

I don't think there's any doubt KK is in the pen for long relief when Hudson comes back. 3 of our 5 losses since the break are KK's starts.