#7 Huge W. The Drake is Special, De Los Santos, Michael, Byrdie and let's go streaking!

[00:00:02] Did you enjoy that roller coaster last night? My goodness. I got home from my son's high school game, saw they were losing late, felt like they were headed to a third straight loss and then we get that amazing comeback. What a game. That was awesome game. [00:00:17] You know, I know we keep saying it a lot but they needed that one. The idea of a three game losing streak was not going to sit well certainly with the fan base. So good to see the win. Good to see the boys playing well at home. Four and two now in their six games at home. How about the Drake? Drake Baldwin is crushing right now and the thing that we were concerned about, we talked about it in Toronto, was what's going to happen when he's not going to play nearly as much with Sean Murphy back and while he's a really good hitter and it's got great strike zone recognition, would that keep up? Would he lose a little bit of a feel not getting consistent at bats? And that really hasn't been the case at all. It's been kind of amazing to watch. He is leading the team right now in exit velocity which is pretty impressive over 96 miles an hour. I know it isn't nearly the plate appearances but still that is noteworthy. It's not a nice little six game hitting streak where he's hitting an even.400 couple of doubles in that home run in there. So we told you it was coming based on the quality that bats and now we're starting to see it. The playing time is still going to be somewhat sporadic but there will be moments for him late in games to pinch it the way that he is done and so lots of different ways that he can help. So that was really good. Michael Harris I think needed that night pretty badly. He has been scuffling, he's having a hard time getting on base. I think I like him hitting near the bottom of the order now here for a little while. No matter what happens with Alex Verdugo hitting leadoff or if Ozzy does it once in a while, I think probably giving Michael consistent plate appearances, of course he's going to get them. But sliding him down closer to maybe the seventh spot in the order might be good for him right now. But he was huge yesterday. Of course you need that as well. I was expecting a huge year for Michael. I was saying in spring training off to a slow start. The chase hasn't been great for him. Never going to be a huge on bass guy. It's not really his game. But that was good. That was good to see Yesterday and hopefully the beginning of something that's going to be really good, a nice run for him. De los Santos was good and quietly has been good in the Braes bullpen strikeout percentage is really good. He's got 11 strikeouts at only one walk so far. [00:02:25] Guy that was put on waivers last year let go, put on a couple of different teams. Not saying he's going to be the setup guy now. I know that seventh, eighth inning is still kind of up in the air and it hasn't looked as solid maybe as they would like it to look. De los Santos has been good. His fastball's been okay, it's been hit a little bit. But the slider and the change up have been really good for him. So I think that is really important as the bullpen is trying to get stabilized right now. So really good news that De los Santos has been getting it done. How about this for the Braves? You know all the struggles early on offensively and I saw this note today, 17 home runs over their last 10 games is tied for the most in baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That is what has been the calling card of this offense. We didn't see it as much last year. Obviously historic a couple of years ago. You got to have it. You got to have it. Especially now at the Michigan is not as solid as it was a year ago. They have plenty of guys in the lineup that could hit home runs and it's good to see at least here now over the last 10 that start that's starting to happen a little bit more. So that is also some really good news so far for the Minnesota Twins. They've only had two starts against left handed starters. With Crystal going tonight. They've lost both of those games. They've only scored run, one run. They are by far from a batting average standpoint and it's not even close. The worst team against left handed pitching in the league. They're hitting 118. [00:03:50] That is brutal. Let's keep it that way. With Chris Sale on the mound tonight we'll talk about his velocity. I know he wasn't happy with his last start in Tampa. There was a couple of four pitch walks. Very atypical of him. But his velocity was up over 96 miles an hour on average. He only did that once last year in a game in June that he was able to hold his velo that deep and average better than 96 miles an hour. So we'll look at that as a good sign. Good matchup for him against the Twins. A team that he has seen a lot in his career. [00:04:21] Think guys like Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa, he has faced quite a bit and has had some pretty good success against them. [00:04:29] So we'll expect a good performance tonight from Chris Sale, hopefully building off of some, again some of that momentum with the big win last night. I brought this up a couple of broadcasts ago and it still holds. The Braves have not made a fielding error all year long. They're the only team in baseball. This is far and away the longest streak that they have ever had in franchise history to start a season without making a fielding error. We can track that back to 1920. I don't believe in the jinx. We'll continue to talk about it. They do have six errors. They're all throwing errors. That's been it. So that part is. It's been nice. The defense has been good. No fielding error so far this season. Paul Bird is back tonight. I know everybody's really, really excited about that. I am as well. Paul Bird has been a friend of mine for over 20 years. We were teammates here in 2004. We live close to each other up in Cherokee county, although he might actually be Fulton county, but somewhere up in that area. But he's real close, right on the county line. And we played a bunch of tennis this off season and it's just me great to have him back. I've never actually worked with him and doing a game, so I'm kind of looking forward to that as well. I've watched him plenty over the years. We talk broadcasting, have been talking broadcasting a bunch over the years and this is going to be a treat for me. I know it's going to be a treat for everybody as well. But the big goal of the night is to win. Why yes, you win the series. We talked about that a lot. But just to win back to back games. Do you have any idea how long it has been that the Braves started a season, have gotten 19 games into the season and haven't won back to back games? I'm going to tell you on the broadcast, but I will give you a little bit of a hint because it's kind of amazing. The answer is in my full name. [00:06:22] Chew on that for a little while and see if you can figure it out. Tonight's going to be fun night. Great crowd. It looked like last night I watched caught the tail end of it. Watched the beginning a little bit while I was also watching my sun pitch which wasn't easy to do but the crowd looked amazing and that should be another fun one tonight, but let's go ahead and get that win. Paul Bird is back.