5/22 Game Thread: All We Have to Do to Sweep Is Beat Johan Santana
Well, we’ve gotten the hard part out of the way, beating John Maine, Claudio Vargas, and Mike Pelfrey. Like Jeff Francoeur last night, we’re just a triple double short of the cycle. All we have to do to complete a four-game sweep and send the entire Mets fan base into paroxysms of despair — possibly getting their manager fired in the process, and even GM Omar Minaya is starting to get dragged in — is beat some guy named Johan Santana. Pshaw. Like we haven’t done that before.
Tim Hudson goes tonight. His season has been a bit maddening. Mostly, he’s twirled outright gems, but he’s peppered them with a couple of stinkers where his fastball velocity mysteriously vanishes and so does his control of the lower half of the strike zone. His last time out was one such start. Fortunately, he’s followed each of these with a fine performance, and considering the way the Mets are reeling — with their best hitter, Ryan Church, out last night following his concussion in Tuesday’s game — they’ll be a good team to help him to get his confidence back.
How schizophrenic has Hudson’s season been? Well, by at least one measure, average game score per start, he’s having the best year of his Braves career. This is borne out by his ERA and ERA+, both better than his previous best marks, set during his terrific 2007 campaign. However, his games have been very up and down. (Sorry to get statistical on you here.) His average game score is higher than it’s ever been in a Braves uniform (56.4), but so are the standard deviation and standard error of that average, which means that the variance between the best and worst is greater than usual.
That all means it’s hard to know which Hudson you’re going to get: the one who pitched the best game, by game score, in the NL this year (5/2, 9 IP, 3 H, 10 K, 0 BB, 0 ER), or the one who gave up 5 runs on 5 hits and 5 walks in 5 innings his last time out, who struggled to hit 90 on the radar gun or to throw anything that wasn’t belt-high.
But he’s been awfully good for us on the whole, so odds are he’ll do pretty well tonight. Meanwhile, with our full-on Mets beatdown the last three games, we’ve reclaimed our spot leading the league in BA (tied with the weirdly successful Cardinals, who won’t keep it up) and in ERA. We’re second in the majors in both, second in BA only to the Red Sox, and in ERA only to the Athletics. We’ve got a pretty good team, folks. Now let’s make the Mets hate themselves a little more.
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29 Responses to “5/22 Game Thread: All We Have to Do to Sweep Is Beat Johan Santana”
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
I believe Francoeur was actually a double short of the cycle.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
I never expected the Braves to take 3 games from the mets, but I’m still not at all surprised, because the Braves always being the damn good old Braves.Looks like we have a 15th NL East title in 17 years the way this season has played out after 46 games into 08.The Bravos are 25-21, and those Marlins won’t be a factor at all when it comes to pennant races in August and September.Our greatest foe are the Phillies and those mets are not winning anything at all after winning this division back in 06, and 06 is total ancient history now.This will be just a 2-team race between the Braves and those Phillies, and the team with the better bullpen will take the NL East crown.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Hate to pick a nit (believe it or not) but I believe Frenchy was a double short of the cycle. I like our chances tonight and I think our team will know what a golden opportunity this is to deal the Mets a bigger hit than what can be measured in the standings. And yeah, this is a good team we have; I’ve been saying that for a while. With you new found love of Blanco and Campillo, Alex, I think you and I are really starting to see eye-to-eye! Go Braves!
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
Whoops - a double it was. Fixed.
Hey, that’s even easier! Now we’ll definitely beat Johan.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
The true measure of offense isn’t Batting Average, it’s Runs per Game.
We’re currently fifth in that category behind Cubs, D’Backs, Bosox, and Rangers. (note: Four teams that play in hitter’s parks)
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Well, there are a lot of true measures of offense, Malone. For example, OPS+, in which the Braves are leading the league by a lot: our team OPS+ is 120, while the Cubs’ is 115, the Cards’ is 114, and the Diamondbacks’ is 103. In all of baseball, we’re second only to the Red Sox, whose OPS+ is 121.
Similarly, our ERA+ is 117 behind only the Diamondbacks (126), White Sox (121), Indians (120), and Cubs (118).
I usually use measures by league, though, because that’s who we mostly play. So we’re tops in the league in OPS+ and third in ERA+. Not bad.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Good news guys! Rafael Soriano pitched a scoreless inning in his first rehab appearance for Mississippi yesterday. He gave up a hit and walk but also struck out one. I’d think if he is fine and doesn’t have any setbacks, we could see him up after one or two more.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Bobby Cox said he thinks John Smoltz, Mike Gonzalez, and Rafael Soriano all will be in the bullpen within the next two weeks. Strong words. We’ll see.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Seeing “game score” and “standard deviation” in the same sentence is just about the only baseball-related thing to put a smile on this Mets fan’s face over the past 50-something hours. That is all.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Leaving pitches up will kill you and Tim Hudson just learned that twice.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 pm
This is the best the Braves have looked all season. Hopefully this will continue versus the Dbacks. It is going to be a very measuring point to see how well do we stack up against one of the best teams in the NL.
Today’s game felt like a playoff game for some reason. The Braves were battling all game and the crowd was really into it. It’s no surprise the Braves are playing better when Kelly Johnson, Teixeira, and Francoeur are playing well. Those 3 guys are the key for us to have a more consistent offense. That and executing on bunts, hitting the runners over, and other stuff like that.
LETS KEEP IT GOING TOMORROW!!!
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Well, I enjoy the fact that the guy the Mets traded away their up and comers and paid eleventy billion dollars for can’t do crap against us.
Between the return of Smoltz, Gonzo and Raffy, and the equalization of our 1-run record, we should coast from here on out.
*knocks on wood*
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Well, the nice thing is that we’re missing both Haren and Webb. The matchups are Reyes v. Davis, Campillo v. Johnson, and Glavine v. Owings.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:00 pm
No we’re not Will, It’s a 4 game series versus the Dbacks. The Monday matchup is going to be Jair Jurrjens vs. Brandon Webb.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Boy, what a SWEEP!!!….if the Braves play the Dbacks like this….i REALLY likea our chances!!!!!!!! Go Braves!!
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Good point, didn’t scroll down that far when I was looking at the probable pitchers. At least we don’t have to face Haren as well then.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:00 am
I would rather for us to face Haren than Webb. That sinker and Change that Webb has is just unfair. Well sense the Marlins beat him, we should be able to beat him.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am
I’m just so happy our Bravos got that sweep. They hopefully can keep the momentum going into the D’backs series. The D’backs have no momentum right now, so that should help. I am not happy about facing Haren, but I agree with Will; at least it isn’t Webb.
I bet Mets fans are absolutely livid right now. I wonder if any of their trolls will have the gall to grace us with their presence on this site now.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 am
Andrew, we’re not facing Haren, we’re facing Webb.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
I’d say that when you play a 4-game series against a team and you happen to miss either of their top 2 pitchers, you’re living right.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 am
Agreed, Stu — especially considering that we won’t have an off day till June 9.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 am
How sweep it is, my fellow Braves fans,we are at 26 -21, five over 500. after 47 games, the Braves destroying those mets in this four-game sweep, and I expected us to win just two games in this four-game series.Now we have another four-game series with those boys from the desert, so let’s get totally nasty just like the last series.Let’s roll BravesNation.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
3 day games in a row after tonight’s game. it would be brutal in the summer to have to play 3 day games in a row, however, it looks as though the weather will be quite nice. plus, our day game record has been quite good. here’s hoping for a good series against the d’bags..i mean d’backs (sorry, i couldnt resist).
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
It sucks to be a Mets fan right now. I think some fans are getting a bit too happy right now. We’re still tied for 2nd place with the Phillies and a 1 1/2 behind the over achieving Marlins. We need to at least take 2 games from the Dbacks this next series. Then the true test is when we go back on the road to face the Brewers and the Reds.
If we can show that we can win on the road consistently, then we can say we’re for real. Overall the Braves played near perfect baseball versus the A’s and Mets. If it wasn’t for Rich Harden we should have an unbeaten homestand right now.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Arizona is 9-12 against teams that are currently better than 5 games UNDER .500. We’ve allowed 20 fewer runs than they have over the same number of games, so what advantage they have in the rotation, we more than make up for with our bullpen. Our line-up is peaking and theirs is scuffling (one run scored for Webb and Haren over the last two in Florida). They have a losing record on the road and we dominate at home. We get Webb, but we miss Haren. All in all, I like our chances to at least split and hopefully win the series.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Also (and I am knocking on wood now) Tex and KJ seem to be finding their swings. Tex seems to be back to hitting from both sides again and KJ seems to be back to working counts. These are good signs, and KJ faired well against Santana who is pretty much the best Lefty in the NL. Yunel should be back, and our bullpen is getting re-enforced soon. I like how we are playing right now, and I think we can get some road wins now.
I won’t count on Frenchy continuing until he does this for another couple of games, including road games. I sure hope he really is putting it together for the season.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Until Frenchy does what? In yesterday’s game, Francoeur swung and missed at a first-pitch slider on every at-bat of the game, as I recall. He hit the ball hard a couple times, and narrowly missed a home run once, but he didn’t help himself out any by making himself so easy to pitch to.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Arizona is a good team. Good whipping put on by the Western team. This is a good message for the Braves not to get overconfident. They aren’t going to have a cake walk to the playoffs. Reyes put in 5 innings of work. Shows his weak points.
July 5th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Добрый вечер
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