POSTCAST: Atlanta Braves survive surprise bullpen game in close win over Cardinals LIVE REACTION

POSTCAST: Atlanta Braves survive surprise bullpen game in close win over Cardinals LIVE REACTION

The Atlanta Braves took down the St. Louis Cardinals 6 to5 behind the power of a double catcher lineup. Let’s talk about it. This is the Graves Post Cast, your instant game reaction for the Clan of Braves, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Yes, welcome on in to the Braves postcast, part of Locked On Sports Atlanta, where we cover your Atlanta sports teams each and every day. I’m your host, Lindseay Crosby, host, author of the Braves Today newsletter over at bravestoday.com. You can follow me on social media, Crosby Baseball. Uh Jake Mastriani is on vacation this weekend. Uh so we are running solo for this Cardinals series. And because Jake’s out, those of you who are here with us live on YouTube, I’m going to turn on the uh the YouTube comments here. They’ll show up on the right hand side of the screen as you guys leave comments so I can make sure I see those while we talk about the game. Please don’t make me regret that decision. Uh we’re here to talk about Atlanta’s 6 to5 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. And this game was a bit of two extremes, right? These teams score all of the runs in the first three innings of the game and then when the bullpens come in, nobody scores a run the entire rest of the game. And both of these pitchers struggled early and the bullpens came in and really kind of locked it down. We’re going to get to the pitching, but I think the biggest story of tonight, we have to start off with Shawn Murphy. Atlanta did the two catcher lineup. We saw this a little bit last week and they sat Marcelo Zuna. They played Drake Baldwin behind the plate and Shawn Murphy uh as the designated hitter batting fourth. Those two catchers combined for five hits in nine plate appearances with two home runs, two runs scored, and four RBI. Both of the home runs came from Shawn Murphy. And even his one of his outs I want to say was he had a 104 mph line out that actually had like a 470 expected batting average. Shawn Murphy’s seeing the ball incredibly well right now. And I know that Atlanta, like people have asked and people have talked about this about, hey, are the Braves going to trade Shawn Murphy? I think today you saw the like the good that can come from having two very good catchers. When you have, in this case, an injury and poor performance from Marcelo Zuna, who’s been one of the worst hitters in baseball down the stretch, like I guess since his injury that he missed the Toronto series for, you can plug Shawn Murphy into the lineup and, you know, as or take whichever catcher is not already behind the plate, plug them into the lineup and get great production out of both. And I do think that, and I made this point over on the newsletter, maybe last week, I do think it’s a big deal to have both Murphy and Baldwin in the lineup like this. One, you saw the offense, right? Um, as Masw points out in the comments, Shawn Murphy has been very, very good against left against left-handers. But another thing that it gives you is it gives you the ability to get Drake Baldwin as much playing time as possible so that he can win you rookie of the year because the rookie of the year nomination or I guess the rookie of the year win comes with a draft pick after the first round and Atlanta has the top four odds of the number one overall pick next year. they’re on track to have a early pick. Even if they’re not chosen high in the lottery, they’re likely going to be in the top 10. So, a much larger bonus pool comes with that. If you can get Drake Baldwin enough at bats to remain as the favorite and win rookie of the year, you get the extra draft pick. And the biggest concern there, Jacob Miserowski of the Brewers, was named as an injury replacement to the All-Star game tonight despite throwing like 25 innings. So, the Braves looking forward, the best thing for the team right now, we saw it tonight, but also the best thing for next year’s version of the Atlanta Braves and the Braves farther down the road is letting Drake Baldwin and Shawn Murphy both be in the lineup. Um, Deion Rodriguez in the in the chat has a question. Does Drake get a monetary incentive if he wins rookie of the year? There is something that’s given by Major League Baseball. I don’t know what it is. I I’m not 100% sure what it is that there’s nothing usually in their contracts in the standard player contract that gives him something. He would get a full year of service time even if he didn’t qualify for it bec. But I do believe there is something that they get. So obviously a big deal. The other reason you may want to keep doing this is Austin Riley left tonight’s game and it was kind of surprising by time for his uh for his I think it was his third at bat he was one for two with a run and an RBI. He he think he had a like an RBI single in this one. By the time for his third at bat, Luke Williams came in to replace him. The Braves announced later that this was uh lower abdominal tightness or something like that, discomfort, something like that, which is a really kind of vague and interesting thing there. Don’t quite know what that’s about. We’ll wait to find out. Brian Slicker is going to talk to the media there in St. Louis tonight. We’ll see if this is something is Riley expected back tomorrow or does he miss a couple days? So, they hold him out over the weekend so that he can have this and the All-Star break and get like a week off with you only missing maybe two uh maybe two games there. Something else that was different tonight, and I hate that we have to be all excited about this being different. Michael Harris got a base hit. Tonight was really kind of the first time this year they put him in the nine spot versus, you know, usually batting him eighth ahead of Nick Allen. Michael Harris goes one for four with the run scored. Now, they didn’t quite use, even though they flipped those two guys, right? They put Nick Allen uh at eight and Michael Harris at nine, they still didn’t necessarily use them the right way. I remember in the third inning, Nick Allen does a sacrifice bunt uh ahead of Michael Harris. And so, and Mel actually got a good swing on it. Got a fly ball to center field. And this was an amazing play by Victor Scott to get Drake Baldwin at home. The process ended up being okay, right? It was not a bad send. Victor Scott was coming in awkwardly. It was an awkward angle for him. He made a perfect throw to the plate and Baldwin still would have been safe had the slide been a little bit better. Uh his foot kind of popped up as he as he got to the plate and so he did not touch the plate in time. But I I don’t necessarily love the process of sack bunting with Nick Allen in front of a guy who has been an automatic out so much in Michael Harris. Again, it worked out this time. You got this what would have been the sack fly. And again, fantastic play by Victor Scott. I do think Atlanta made the right decision to send Baldwin. He got a little bit of a slow jump off a third, but I still think Atlanta got that right. He just didn’t get the the run in. Uh but you also saw Atlanta get a little quiet late. Ronald goes three for five. Outside of that, not many guys did anything else. Se Jerks and Proar two for four with two doubles. Azie Albies is over for three. Uh again, Nick Allen goes 0 for two. Uh he does walk. He does have that sacrifice there. M you know, but quiet for the offense after Matthew Liberator leaves the game. Uh Liberator leaves at the same time as Grant Holmes who really kind of struggled. And I want to talk about what I noticed from him and kind of why he struggled. We’ll do that next right here on the Braves Postcast. 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Lindseay Crosby and I want to talk about what we saw out of Grant Holmes because this ended up being an impromptu bullpen game, right? Uh three innings pitched, nine hits, five runs, two walks to one strikeout. Uh, and Grant Holmes threw 86 pitches to get through 19 batters. And so you from a pure workload perspective now, you’re not really in a great place for the rest of the weekend. When you consider uh we don’t, unless this something came out while we’ve been on this postcast, I don’t think we know who the starter is going to be for tomorrow, but the expectation is Nathan Wilds. last time he got a start uh or he got an appearance in the majors, he didn’t do very well. He struggled actually, if I remember right, against this Cardinals team. And so I’m a little concerned about how much exposure you had to do to the pin. You gave Dylan Lee the night off. He pitched both of the last two days. Desabel Hernandez got the night off. Uh Aaron Bummer, Jesse Chavez, none of them pitched. Chavez feels like he’s almost a guarantee to get used tomorrow unless it’s a very close game simply because they’re probably going to have to make a roster move to get a starter for Sunday and he’s a candidate as always to get DFA uh and replaced by somebody else. They could DFA him, they could option down Wilds and bring up two different pitchers to supplement tomorrow. Somebody to start and they could make a 40man move to add somebody else. But going back to Grant Holmes for a minute, the thing that I noticed with Grant Holmes tonight is it felt like he really struggled with when to throw the the cutter versus the fast ball and when to throw the slider versus the curveball. He is uh he’s a really unusual in that those kind those two those pairings of pitches really kind of blend together. And in Major League Baseball, you kind of want those to be separate, right? You want your cutter and your fast ball to be distinct pitches. Most people want that to happen. Um Grant Holmes, those are really similar pitches and he kind of goes back and forth with the usage of them. And the idea there is you never know what’s coming. It looks like it’s a fast ball out of the hand, but it might be a cutter and it moves off the barrel a little bit. you think it’s a slider coming and it’s a curveball and it drops below the the barrel, but to it felt like he really kind of struggled here with making the wrong decision, right? He would try to like I he throw a slider down and away and it it probably should have been the curveball. I want to say it was a if I remember right it was like a one two count and he throws a slider down and away on the corner when he probably could have dropped a curveball below his zone. Now that being said, a lot of the contact off of Grant Holmes was also not hard contact. You know, he gave up his fair share of hard hit balls, but 43 mph single by Victor Scott looked like a sack bunt. Really kind of popped up and landed in front of the the thing there. 66 mph single by Nolan Areronado. 76 mph single by Nolan Gorman. 88 mph double by Alec Burlson. Just a ton of soft contact. Really kind of got to him there. And Grant Holmes was playing with fire the whole time. I think it was the bottom of the second. Ends up loading the bases. Bunch of soft contact and he gets out of it. But eventually they started to cash those in and that’s why his he went up so high. But what I will say about Atlanta in this game, five different innings the St. Louis leadoff hitter got on. Atlanta stranded that guy three times because the bullpen really stepped up. In de Santos, two scoreless and perfect innings, one strikeout, no hits, no walks. He got the win. He’s now three and two. Uh Austin Cox gave a good inning of relief, albeit with a uh with a walk. Raphael Montero gave you a solid inning, gave up one hit. Pierce Johnson gave up a walk. And then Risel Glacius looked again kind of like the old Riceella Glacius. Uh Risel Glacius has been pitching a lot of ninth innings. They’ve been, and I think Jake and I talked about this last night, they’ve been using Dylan Lee a lot in the highest leverage moment and saving Rise Glacius for the ninth. In his last seven games, he’s pitched seven innings with two hits, one walk to 11 strikeouts. In his last 15 games, he’s pitched 13 and a third innings with four runs, three walks, and 17 strikeouts. So, if this really is it for the Atlanta Braves, like if they are not necessarily like they know they’re not contending, they’re going to do like do trades, Risel Glacius has rebuilt some of the lost value simply because he’s been so good recently. Again, last 15 games, 270 RA, last seven games has given up three base runners and struck out 11 in seven innings. So, shout out to Riseel Glacius for being much better. The bullpen as a whole was fantastic. Again, now the question is, what do you do? How deep can Nathan Wilds go tomorrow? And can you avoid using a lot of these guys tomorrow so that you have them for a possible bullpen game or a shorter start from somebody on Sunday? Again, Aaron Bummer, Jesse Chavez, Des Hernandez, Dylan Lee didn’t throw. you can probably get six innings out of that group of guys. If it’s a um if it’s if you’re winning, you’re going to have to go back to some of those high leverage relievers, right? You’ve got Dylan Lee, you’ve got Desabel Hernandez, but you’re not going to want to throw Chavez in a one-run game. You’re probably not going to want to throw um Austin Cox. I don’t think they trust him enough for a one-run game yet. You’d have to bring Ryel Glacy’s back or Pierce Johnson back or something like that. So, we’ll see what happens there. Again, I as far as I see, we they have not yet announced who this is, but Nathan Wilds is my expectation for the starter. And then the Braves brought back Joey Wentz today, claimed him off of waiverss. I see Julie in the chat asking, “What do we know about him?” He’s not going to be I don’t think he’s going to be starting. uh he’s been working in relief for the last couple years and he’s not actually been that good in relief this season or last season. So I really think uh if they add him to the roster before the All-Star break, you have three days I believe it’s three days now after a guy is claimed before you actually have to add him to the roster. they may wait until after tomorrow’s game, report him to the roster, after the game, and get rid of somebody there. And so that is one of the that is one of the moves. It’s entirely possible that’s what they do. But I wouldn’t expect more than an inning or two out of him. That would probably be on Sunday. Probably not tomorrow because you’d like to be able to use one of the guys you would get rid of, probably Jesse Chavez or Nathan Wilds. You want to use them tomorrow. Um, I did see a thing in here. I’m trying to find where it was real quick. Uh, from Mr. Lickicket, great name. Rookie of the year gets $750,000. Runner up gets $500,000. So, the league does financially compensate them for uh for winning those awards. So, Drake Baldwin would get additional money. $750,000 would roughly equal his salary this year. So, he would get a bonus equal to one year’s salary if he would do that. Um, kind of final thing here I saw from William Joiner. I don’t know why the center fielder jumped on that home run. He’s referring to Victor Scott jumping up to for the home run to center from Shawn Murphy, his second homer. Uh, not even close. I’m going to disagree with you here. You’re right. It wasn’t that close at all. But a good center fielder knows or good outfielder in general knows to give a little bit of that effort even on a no doubter to not make your pitcher feel that bad. The one of the worst things for a pitcher is you know it’s gone and you look out there and your out leader doesn’t even move at the very and I I’ll give Michael Harris credit for this. He can’t hit with a lick this year but Michael Harris will act like he’s about to rob a ball that is eight rows up in the stands. I’ve talked to players. It sounds dumb, but that’s something that they notice. they noticed that that dude was gonna try to make a play if the wind knocked it down or did something or just acted like it wasn’t as bad as it actually was. So, shout out to Victor Scott for that and for the fantastic throw home to um to get Drake Baldwin at the plate. Ultimately kept the game a lot closer, but Atlanta still took this down. Again, Braves wins six to five. Game two is an afternoon game. And again, as of right now, from what I’ve seen, we don’t yet know who the starter is going to be for Atlanta, but I’m assuming Nathan Wilds. I will be back with a postcast after that daytime game. And then again, Sunday, an early afternoon game as we head into the All-Star break. Do me a favor. If you’re listening on audio, uh, leave a fivestar review. Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music. If you’re watching on YouTube, one, thank you for being here. It’s a Friday night. Jake’s not here. I really appreciate you guys coming in so we can chat ball for about 20 minutes. Um, do me a favor, subscribe to Locked on Braves and Locked on Sports Atlanta. Hit the notification bell so you know when I’m coming with the pod with a postcast, when Jake’s coming with the podcast about the draft and everything else. Reminder, you can watch the Locked On MLB draft show on Sunday night. I’m hosting uh it’s on Locked on uh Locked on MLB. So go check that out over there. And until next time, this has been the Braves Postcast.

The Atlanta Braves only got three innings out of starter Grant Holmes, but the bullpen came out and shut down the St. Louis Cardinals for six innings to make catcher Sean Murphy’s two home runs stand up in Atlanta’s 6-5 win. Postcast host Lindsay Crosby went LIVE after the game to break down all of the action.

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