Braves 6, Mets 1; Braves 6, Mets 2; Rinse and Repeat
Braves 6, Mets 1
Braves 6, Mets 2
These games were about as similar as the scores would indicate: we eked out an early lead against the Mets, our junkballer kept their bats off balance with six innings of slop, then we cemented the lead with a late homer by one of our lefty bats and used Boyer and Acosta to mop up. (I’m happy with everything that we did in both games other than Bobby’s serial, inexplicable overuse of Boyer and Acosta.)
After a characteristically shaky first, with a homer to Luis Castillo of all people, followed by two singles and a walk, Tom Glavine stranded those three men and then became vintage; he didn’t allow another to reach as long as he was in the game, retiring 17 in a row and probably pitching his most dominating baseball of the year. (Mets fans were just apoplectic.) 82 pitches, 54 for strikes, but he came out after the sixth inning because of a sore right knee; please get well soon, Tommy, because we need you.
We nickeled and dimed them for the first 5 innings. We scored single runs in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th innings, and might have had more if not for Yunel’s unusually unsound baserunning; he was thrown out at third after a leadoff double in the 1st, and then was caught stealing in the 3rd after a leadoff single. But in the fourth, Kelly Johnson led off with a double, Gregor Blanco drew the first of his two walks on the day, Glavine sacrificed them over perfectly, and Yunel followed through with a sacrifice fly.
My bête noire, Mark Teixeira, had three hits, and finally hit like he’s supposed to. But the real offensive star of the game was Brian McCann, who homered off Aaron Heilman in the 7th to open the lead to 5, and the punchless Mets simply couldn’t respond. Will Ohman was effectively wild for an inning and a third, striking out 3, two of them after going to 3-0 counts — I hate it when he does that, but I can’t argue with the result.
The second game started after an hour and a half of rain delay, but it didn’t seem to bother Jorge Campillo, the Seattle Mariners’ second gift to our pitching staff. He was absolutely brilliant in only the second start of his career, needing just 78 pitches to complete 6 scoreless innings, giving up only 3 hits, with 7 strikeouts and no walks. His line for the season reads as follows: 27 1/3 IP, 0 HR, 24 K, 5 BB, 0.99 ERA, 0.87 WHIP. I don’t know if we can give Roger McDowell credit for some of this, but he’s been an absolute star for us, and I’d guess he’s earned himself another start or three.
It was a funky lineup, and if we hadn’t won I would have complained about it. Infante started in center and batted second, which is stupid because his career OBP is .298 (and I like him); Kelly batted fifth, Diaz sixth, and, oh yeah, Blanco started in right field batting seventh, as Frenchy took a completely deserved day off after playing 370 consecutive games, a streak that I didn’t like at all. (His line in the past 33 games, since he hit 2 homers against the Nats: .244/.317/.328. He’s in the midst of an utter power outage.) Corky Miller even had a hit in the 8th hole, his second of the year.
Offensively, it was more of the same: a run in the first after Yunel singled and Chipper doubled him in (Chipper was 3-8 for the doubleheader, and sits now at .409). Three runs in the third after Infante walked, Chipper singled, Teixeira singled Omar in, and Kelly Johnson tripled them in. Finally, the game was put safely out of reach in the 8th, when Mark Kotsay — who had come in as a defensive replacement in the top of the inning, Infante moving to left — hit a two-run homer. Then more Boyer and Acosta, who might want to contemplate getting a restraining order against Bobby.
Actually, until Boyer gave up the Mets’ only two runs in the eighth, the Atlanta bullpen as a unit had pitched 20 consecutive scoreless innings, something that frankly boggles my mind considering how awful they were at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, if we have any more bullpen injuries, their success will be a very pyrrhic victory. Let’s just hope we can keep it together till we get Gonzalez back and Smoltz starts charging out of that bullpen again.
There was a scary moment in the last play of the second game, when Ryan Church went hard into second to try to prevent a double play, Yunel Escobar tried to jump over him, and smacked his knee into Church’s head. Church apparently got a concussion, but he was way out of the base line, wasn’t even trying to slide into the bag, and there wasn’t much Yunel could do to avoid him. Yunel’s knee “was heavily wrapped” after the game, and he was quoted as saying, “No DL.” Let’s hope so, because, between Glavine and Yunel, sore knees seem to be going around the clubhouse.
For right now, I’m coasting on the high of a doubleheader sweep. Let’s pour some sugar on it tonight.
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15 Responses to “Braves 6, Mets 1; Braves 6, Mets 2; Rinse and Repeat”
May 21st, 2008 at 11:02 am
What was it that derailed Campillo in his first start as a Mariner, does anyone know? He has great moving stuff, and if he has that going then his fastball is effective (otherwise it isn’t a good fastball). I am all for giving him another start if he can pitch like he did last night.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
Well, apparently Campillo had to leave to be Tommy Johnned in the second inning of that first start, so clearly something wasn’t right from the beginning. The thing is, he’s had a very respectable minor league career — 3.10 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in 264 innings, with a K/9 of 6.16 (okay) and BB/9 of 2.15 (great), but he was 26 when he got started at rookie ball. For some reason, the Mariners barely even gave him a cup of coffee for his troubles.
Rany Jazayerli made a very interesting point about Mexican League pitchers like Campillo, while talking about the Royals’ stellar Rule 5 closer, Joakim Soria:
I wonder if Campillo’s terrific breaking stuff can in part be blamed on the thin air of the Mexican League?
May 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
You have to like our chances against Pelfrey tonight with Jair on the mound for us. It’s funny how a little streak (to be expected because of the homestand and the pitching match-ups) makes things look an awful lot better. Now we’re in second place in the East, 1.5 GB of the Marlins. Things are looking up for us!
May 21st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
He doesn’t throw very hard and doesn’t strike a bunch of people out. As Michael Lewis (or Billy Beane wrote it if you ask Joe Morgan)pointed out a few times in his rather famous book that some teams base things on if a player ‘looks’ good rather than actually ‘is’ good. Strikeouts and the radar gun look good. Getting hitter out is good.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
The thing with Campillo is not only that he looks good, but from what he showed last night he just might be good. His breaking pitches are nasty, and he can command them as he seems to be able to then he should be fine. As I said, he has an average fastball at best, but it is more effective because he has a lot of breaking stuff. As long as he keeps the ball down in the zone I think he will be fine.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
He doesn’t give up homers and he doesn’t walk people. He doesn’t strike out a ton of people, historically — his current terrific K-rate is way above his minor league average — but because of his great control and low HR-rate, he doesn’t necessarily have to. He has filthy stuff.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
We have outscored the opposition 17-5, during this 3-game winning streak.We are at 24-21,just a game and a half out of first place in the NL East.What a huge plus it would be for our Bravos, if they can take 3 or all 4 games in this series against a division foe,I mean it would be huge in the long run.If you’re Atlanta keep doing what you have been doing, during this 4 game series and great things will start to come around, come October.Great pitching by the Braves.Let’s roll BravesNation.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I can certainly see how he would have been knocked around. On any given day, if he can’t locate his changeup or it isn’t moving, he has some serious issues. His ability to get hitters out is 99% focused around that change because neither his curve or fastball is all that good. It’s the same reason that Mike Pelfrey can be dominant sometimes but bad others. If his fastball isn’t working, he really has nothing else to turn to.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Clearly, he’s pitching a bit over his head — his BABIP is .257, so he’s due for a few bleeders to start getting through, his FIP is a run higher than his ERA, etc.
But no matter how you slice it he’s having a terrific year, and he’s already pitched more innings this year than he’d ever pitched before. Like Blanco, he’s a guy who came (relatively) out of nowhere to excel, and who’s bound to head back to earth, but just as Blanco appears to have an approach at the plate that looks like it might survive a slump, Campillo seems to have a long track record of preventing runs, not walking people, and not giving up homers, that could survive the inevitable moment when his ERA peeks over 1.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I heard Chipper got hit in the sheen. I did not see that part. Was it an injury that could sideline him for a few games or was it just Bobby being cautious with Chipper?
May 21st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
braves#1… i dont think its too serious…you know…Bobby with a 8-2 lead..better safe than sorry..but i hope Chipper is OK and this friggin incident doesnt affect his momentum!!!
May 21st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Another dominate win for the Braves over the hated Mets. It’s not going to be easy for the Braves tomorrow when they go against Johan Santana. The Mets brought in Johan for these types of situation (to end streaks). So we’re going to have to ground out at bats and work the count versus Santana. Now only if we can start playing like this on the road. If we can do that, we have a great chance at winning the NL East.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:21 am
Just curious, I heard there was a 3 error inning in the top of the 7th what happened?
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 am
You talked about the Yunel’s unsound baserunning etc, but you did not write about him going 5-9 and the superb play in the first game. Linedrive, stoped, cannoned to first, remember?`
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:16 am
I didn’t see the play, but he has a great arm, and it’s a pleasure to watch him at short or at the dish. I have been an unabashed Yunel lover.
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