#9 Strider Out, Riley Hustling, Raisel, a Bullpen Day and Rain

[00:00:01] How we doing today? Nice little winning streak going on right now for the Braves. Good win last night, locked into a tight one and then they blew it open and then it got a little bit too closer, too close for comfort there at the end. But really nice win. Cardinals again tonight. We don't know yet at least as I'm taping this what the pitching plan is going to be. There have been some roster moves. It sounds like it's going to be an opener situation and then looking maybe at a bolt guy we'll see Scott Blewitt, a guy that they just picked up, is a good multi inning guy. He's put up good numbers so far in his big league career. That might be the guy that ends up pitching the most today or the guy that called up today and Nathan Wiles. We will find out soon enough but it'll be an interesting one that's going to have to work hard to manage what is ultimately going to be a bullpen game. And why? Because we got the news yesterday that Spencer Strider is is going to the IL dealing with a strained hamstring, which is really unfortunate because I thought that first start went pretty good. Maybe they pushed a little hard and tried to get a little more out of him that last inning, but didn't take away from the fact that I thought his stuff looked really good. He means a lot to have him in the rotation but he got hurt yesterday playing catch in the outfield and sounds like he may have knew it right away that it was going to be a problem. So just another hurdle to have to get over. It's part of it, right? We saw it so much last year and it's happened a little bit this year. Ronaldo Lopez, Spencer Strider, we'll wait on Ronald to get back. It's just, just the way it goes in our game. So kind of stinks that Strider had to go to the IL but next man up mentality. And because it was on such short notice we don't get to see AJ Smith, Shalver Hurst and Waldrip or anybody else in the minor leagues. Any of the prospect starters that could come help. It gets a little complicated too because you do have that early day game tomorrow and Bryce Elder is set to start. So you know you're going to use the bullpen a decent amount tomorrow. You never know. Bryce Elder absolutely capable though of giving you six, seven solid innings. That would be welcome tomorrow for sure. But first we're going to get through today. So that is going on with the pitching. We'll dig in. In the open today a little bit more once we have a better idea what the plan probably will look like. Austin Riley yesterday, the huge home run. And that was a big one, obviously. Not just because it drove in a couple, but also literally a big one in how high he hit it. We had a little fun with that yesterday. But the big story with him was of course, the infield single. And Austin Riley's not necessarily known for having great speed. That's not the biggest part of his game. But the hustle was there and it ended up making all the difference in the world. With one out, what was originally ruled it out goes to replay. He beat it by. I don't call it eighth of a step. I mean, it was that close. Bang, bang play. They got it right. That rule, that change. It used to be that the baseball had to be in the cylinder of the glove. Now it has to be in the back of the glove under the old rules. He's probably out. So nice to see that they got it right to see him busting it out of the box. He eventually scores on a base hit. That was huge. That was a big deal. And this is why you got to bust it every single time out of the box. You never know what's going to happen. Make no assumptions about routine plays. Austin Riley deserves a lot of credit for setting a good example. Exactly what you want from everybody on your squad. Run hard every single time. You never know how it's going to end up. So he was terrific. Yesterday we had a conversation about Ozzy's. What was ultimately was an error was that line shot right at him at like 112 or 113 miles an hour and looked like he might have lost it for a second. Ball was absolutely smoked in and out of his glove. Ultimately was ruled an error and not a big deal. We talk about the fielding errors. That's just two on the season for this team. But I think that's one of those ones I think could have gone either way, maybe have been a hit. But other than that, the defense has been really good for this team. We've talked about it a bunch and it's. It's been good to see. It's been an important part of what's going on. Stan's talked about it repeatedly, talked about it from the beginning. But the defense once again showed up. We brought up the outfield alignment change for the St. Louis Cardinals yesterday and I think it ended up being a really big factor. Jordan Walker, who's a local kid, he's got a big Time arm. His highest throws have been up to 98 miles an hour from right field, but they took him out. They put Scott in right, also a local kid. They put Ziani in in center. Scott's got a decent arm, but nothing close to what you get from Jordan Walker. Austin Riley ended up scoring on a base hit and Jordan Walker wasn't in right field with that big arm. So I think that made a difference. I don't think anybody's throwing out Eli White when he ultimately scored in that sacrifice off the bat of Michael Harris. But either way, you took out your best arm and I think it showed up yesterday for the St. Louis Cardinals. So that was, that was one that certainly worked in the Braves favor, the decision that was made by Ali Marmal. He got kicked out of the game yesterday and he got kicked out of the game while he was going to make a pitching change. And I thought it was interesting he still got to make the change. I should have brought it up. At the time I didn't think about it as much, but I was watching replay when they, when he got booted, I was like, wait a minute, he's. If he's out, why does he still get to go talk to his players and make that pitching change? At that point, he probably should have been told to make a U turn and go into the club. It's not a big deal, but just kind of something that caught my attention. Ricell Iglesias ran into a little bit of trouble yesterday. No, he was up and looking like he was going to be pitching in a tight game. And then Sean Murphy had the big home run and kind of blew it open. And it was no longer a safe situation. But they decided to leave Ricell in which I was perfectly fine with. You totally understand it in that moment, however, he has pitched quite a bit. And this guy is as selfless as it gets. When you're talking about relievers, you know, he just doesn't ask for days off. He'll talk his way into games. He did it earlier this year, so that originally said he was down after pitching a back to back days, he ended up throwing three days in a row because again, the Ryel that we know is a guy that's going to say, no, no, I'm good, I can give you whatever you need today. And it's well appreciated by everybody involved, teammates and fans and coaches and everybody. These are the kind of guys you want on your team, these selfless players. At the same time with Rycel, he had pitched twice. He was up, yes, two days ago, didn't pitch. But he basically been hot three days, pitches yesterday. Now it's hot four days in a row. He should be down today. It'd be great if somehow you can find a way to get him two days off. Going into the off day, that's probably not going to happen. Good chance that they're playing some close games. Of course, you just blow the Cardinals out for a couple. That would make life easier for everybody. He's given up four home runs already, including two yesterday. He only gave up four home runs last year, the entire season. So we keep an eye on that with Rycel again, who's just an unbelievably selfless teammate. But he's been pushing pretty hard and a couple of days rest would probably serve him really, really well. You can probably tell it's raining. This is early. It's 1:15 right now when I'm taping this. I'm going into the ballpark early today to do my radio show. That'll be two to five Eastern time on MLB Network Radio. And hopefully, hopefully we're not dealing with rain today. I know the forecast is not terrific this week, which for me, for a couple different reasons kind of stinks. Obviously, our Braves games are really important and my son is supposed to pitch Wednesday, which is nice that we had the 12:15 game. They start high school playoffs. He is a junior. We're getting a start in the postseason and I guess they call playoffs, but we call it postseason. But I'd like to go watch him pitch tomorrow night after we end up finishing off this sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. So we got some work to do before we get there. Let's hope this rain holds off and let's hope I do a better job of driving and merging over next time. All right, we'll see you all tonight.