#14 Acuna Returns in Style, Baserunning Blunder, Sale, Holmes, Padres

[00:00:01] All right, let's get into it. Yesterday was brutal. There's no getting around it. I don't. I'm not exactly sure what happened with Eli White. He talked about it. He saw a ghost. He saw something that wasn't there, or he heard something that told him he needed to get back, which obviously he didn't. It was crushing, crushing to watch in the moment one, because obviously it's a huge spot in the game, and you're thinking about a first and third situation with one out, down by one in the ninth inning in the drama building. [00:00:31] The other part is that Eli White has been so important to this team. He has been so fundamentally sound. [00:00:37] Obviously, the baserunning is a really important part of his game. He's been excellent defensively. He's really contributed with the bat. He has filled in when this team has really needed him. [00:00:45] And you hear us say it all the time. He's just such a tremendous guy. He's easy to root for. So to see him go through that yesterday, it was brutal. It was tough. And again, you just feel so bad for the team. You feel bad for Eli. Very odd for him to make that kind of mistake, but you shake it off. I mean, the sun is pretty much out, and so you got to get back out there because he very well could be asked to be in a similar situation tonight. And I have zero issues with him being back out there. The confidence is high, which is one of those things that is odd. You don't see it very often, and just a mistake. A big mistake, but just a mistake. You move on today, and I hope Eli White gets another opportunity to contribute because there's nothing worse than sitting around after a bad game or a bad mistake and having to wait for your next opportunity. So I hope he gets it really quick. The other issue we got to talk about is Raicell Iglesias. So we did kind of that de dive on social media. I did with him and kind of dug in and was optimistic on Ryel because of some of the things that we were seeing, and that was that his slider location was getting better. His fastball changeup have been fine. The batting averages on them are a little bit higher than usual. When you watch that outing last night and where he has been lately, that combination, which is one, two, they're fine. Those pitches are fine. I have no concerns about those. It's been the inconsistency of the slider. Seven home runs allowed now, five of them on sliders. The previous slider that he threw was a really Good one. Manny Machado swings and misses, starts on the corner, finishes off perfect. He tries to go back to it again and he just throws a spinner that doesn't do much of anything. And so I'm not exactly sure what it is with Rycel and why he's struggling with consistency to locate that slider, but it is problematic for sure right now. So they got to get into the lab and get that thing figured out. What's going on with him? As I said before, he throws so many strikes that hitters are always on alert like they know he's going to be around the zone. So they're in swing mode right away and they are now capitalizing on those mistakes for Ricel. [00:02:39] Iglesias said it post game yesterday. It's absolutely true. Everything else looks fine. It just seems like it's that mistake that happens and it's been more sliders than anything else that they capitalize on. So it's going to be a battle for Ricel, but there's nobody I'd rather battle with. This guy is such a tremendous teammate. Don't forget last year how often he was taking the baseball. He always wanted to be in there. Even earlier this year after he had gone back to back days and did not want to throw him a third day and he said I absolutely want to go out there. You appreciate that about him, that with his back to back days going into today's game, will he be out there if it's a safe situation? It's a good question. I don't know. We'll see if Snit talks about it before the game. You are not making a change at closer. I generally don't react to some of the histrionics that we see on social media, but I did see that a couple of times. The answer there is no. For me, Racel Iglesias is still your closer. He's just got to figure out what's going on with the slider and maybe how often or how less he starts using that pitch. Quite honestly, Ronald was awesome. Come on, man. You can't do that first pitch against a guy that you've never faced and you haven't been in a big league league game in nearly a year. [00:03:45] That is ridiculous. And not only that, but Nick Pavetta's got like one of the best fastballs in the game. Not from a velocity standpoint, but we talked about his vertical break. It does a great job of keeping the baseball in the ballpark. All of that. None of it made sense that that would happen but that's the kind of star that Ronald is. He made a great throw. He looked pretty good moving around. [00:04:03] It was refreshing, certainly, to see him out there. The atmosphere was awesome. Listen, it was. It was playoff like, right with Chris Sale, Nick Pavetta, Ronald back. There was great energy. [00:04:12] That absolutely could be a game one in A. And it took on that kind of atmosphere, that kind of feeling yesterday. And Ronald loves those moments, as we know, and delivers in that moment. So that was really cool. This traffic is not cool traffic again. Gosh, I thought there'd be no traffic today. [00:04:28] And so that was great. He looks really good. It's encouraging. And to see how the lineup was kind of working. Wherever Dugo was in that, I think all of it makes sense. Michael, a little bit lower. I know some talk about him maybe when he hit ninth. So you kind of have a guy in front of Ronald, but you can go. I can go either way on that one. I think the lineup construction is fine. [00:04:46] Guys just got to get going. A really interesting note, if you were listening to the broadcast yesterday that I got from Peter Moylan, which, by the way, is a tremendous teammate. We got great people here in our broadcast team, both radio, tv, pregame, all that kind of stuff where he had text me about the curveball usage and what we were seeing from Pavetti yesterday, nearly double of his season average. Why? Because the Braves as a group have been really struggling on curveballs. They have the lowest batting average in baseball against the curveball this year. I was unaware of that. I didn't see that. [00:05:14] That's interesting, for sure. I'll take a deeper look individually and see who's struggling the most. But that was a really cool note from Peter that I was happy to share in the broadcast and appreciate him being such a great teammate in that regard. So we'll see what's going on with the breaking pitches, and we'll certainly continue to track that. [00:05:31] Speaking of breaking pitches, Grant Holmes pitching tonight as I was getting ready for today's game. I say Today, tonight, it's a 410 game. I don't know. It's kind of annoying, but. [00:05:41] So he throws both the curveball and the slider, and he uses both of them a pretty good amount. He's one of only like a dozen pitchers in baseball that have thrown at least 100 curveballs and 100 sliders this year. And his combined batting average on those two pitches is.141. That is the best in baseball. He's coming into his own right now. As far as what he is doing as a starter. I know he's coming off a good one that the Braves eventually lost, but he pitched well in Boston. [00:06:04] But keep an eye on those two breaking pitches. They have been excellent for Grant Holmes, used to both that curveball and slide, like a good amount of them has really yielded an extremely low batting average. Oh, Chris Sale yesterday. I don't know if again if you guys were listening and heard this or not, but I noticed, I was like, man, I feel like we hadn't seen a change up for a while, like the fifth inning or so I noticed and then I went and looked. He hadn't thrown one. He didn't throw one at all in the game yesterday and he didn't throw one in his last start against the Red Sox. And I think there's probably a real conscious effort here for Brazil that he may have gotten rid of his changeup or it's on vacation right now, on hiatus because it hasn't been right. Last year was really good. This year he's cut it a lot. The numbers against it are really high. Batting average, ops, that kind of stuff. It just hasn't been the same pitch. So I do wonder about that. And last year when Chris Sale got into camp, one of the things that Rick Granite said was that to see him close up to watch the bullpens, he did not realize how good his change up was. And it was, it was excellent last year, but it just hasn't been there. I do wonder. We talked about his arm angle being low at the beginning of the year, starting to creep back up to where he was a year ago. Still not all the way there. [00:07:11] But perhaps the lower arm angle, which would make some sense to me, has caused that change up to come out a little bit differently and not have the same movement profile. Not be as consistent. Not exactly sure. [00:07:21] Hopefully somebody will ask him about that or we'll see if we can get an answer from Craney. [00:07:26] These are the kind of things that sometimes players don't want to talk about or they don't want to throw it out there, right? [00:07:31] Because you think about your opponent and preparation and you don't want them going in and saying, hey, don't even worry about Chris sells changeovers and throw it anymore. So we'll see what kind of answers we could potentially get. It really doesn't matter. Which makes him even more impressive that he was throwing only fastballs and sliders yesterday and he is on one right now. That is six straight really good starts for Chris Sale. And when he is Right. And he is so fun to watch. Which again, as a two pitch pitcher, that question comes up sometimes. Somebody asked me about it regarding AJ Smith Schomber and obviously he throws more than two pitches but the fastball split are the two best for him. And saying and asking me like could he really survive as a starter predominantly throwing those two pitches? The answer is yes. If those two pitches are consistent and good, they got to be there every day. Right. If Chris Sale doesn't have a slider one day, he's probably going to be toast. If AJ Smith Shawver doesn't have his split, he's probably going to be in trouble that day. And it happens. Sometimes you wake up and one of your pitches just doesn't want to cooperate no matter how much preparation you do to get ready for a game. So those things do happen. But can you do it? The answer is yes. Is AJ just a two pitch pitcher? I don't think so. He's still so young. [00:08:38] There's a lot of time to kind of continue to work through that repertoire and figure it all out. But I know he had a rough one the last one, but he's been really good so I'm not too worried about it. But can he do it? Yes. It just has to be consistent in the split is the key. Michael King tonight. Tonight, today. Whatever. For the Padres. I really like this guy. I don't like saying it. I know that the Braves did a good job against him. It is season debut, made him work, got him out of the game early. [00:09:05] But man he's, he's good and he'll be a free agent at the end of the year. [00:09:09] So he's been throwing the ball out. Last one, he gave up four runs. Three were earned against Seattle. They lost that game. I think it was six to one. [00:09:16] Everything moves like even his four seamer, nothing is straight. He's hard to catch. That was the one thing I noticed the first game and I can't remember if it was Maldonado or Diaz that caught him. I think was Diaz. [00:09:26] They're not good receivers. That's the one thing. There are a couple of veteran catchers that they have in San Diego, but their receiving numbers are down. Their framing numbers, numbers are down. [00:09:34] Maldonado's really struggled with pass balls the last couple years. I mean he's been an excellent catcher throughout his career, but he's definitely starting to lose it a little bit. [00:09:41] So we'll see who ends up catching. That could be a factor. We'll see. But Michael King is good and despite the fact that that bullpen came in to the series with the Padres like not pitching well at all. There was a couple of big blow up games that kind of led to that. They're good. I think they're the deepest bullpen in the game quite honestly. They got a lot of different big time arms that they can throw at you. We saw it yesterday to some degree. So it's not going to be. This would be a toug two ways about it but you do not want to lose another one to the Padres. So hoping Grant Holmes has a really good one. Hoping Michael King makes a couple of mistakes. Looking forward to some more Ronald Acuna Jr drama and hang in there. I mean I left, I don't know about you guys but like I was talking to BG on the way out of there. Like we got in the elevator I was like I felt like it's kind of fight like I'm physically exhausted. Like I pitched some of those innings and was giving up runs or making base running mistakes. Like it's weird but that's how much we love this team and tracking this team and the emotions go along with the team. I almost did a drive in on the way home last night. I was a little bit cranky. Probably smart that I didn't do it. [00:10:40] But anyway, enjoy the game. It's gonna be a fun one. Big weekend and yeah, traffic's finally cleared up. We'll see you in a little bit. It's gonna be fun one tonight.