Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: a Wild Game, plus Back to Baseball!

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Mississippi Braves’ Trustmark Park; photo credit Ken Lund via Flickr.com.

A Wild One in Pearl Last Night

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Hitters feasted; pitchers reeled.

Just to get you back in the mood for baseball, which starts up again tonight vs. the Cubs, we have this: a bizarre game last night between the Jacksonville Suns (Marlins) and the Mississippi Braves in AA Southern League action last night.

New acquisition Andrew Barbosa was absolutely torched:  9 hits, seven earned runs and a walk while only managing to get 5 batters out.  Bryton Trepagnier followed, but didn’t fare well either:  4 outs and 3 earned runs while giving up 5 hits of his own.  It’s a good thing that some of those were hit at people.

So after the top of the third inning, the Braves were losing by a count of 10-0, and people in the stands (yes, there were some left… after all, in was a Thirsty Thursday, and the local patrons were just getting warmed up!) were starting to wonder whether there was a mercy rule in the Southern League (no).

Then Mississippi put 10 runs of their own on the board.  Yeah: it’s now 10-10 after 3 innings.

What Does a 10-run inning look like?

Well, here’s what happened, according to the play-by-play chart from milb.com:

  • Trepagnier (yes, he was still in the game then) singled
  • Matt Lipka reached on a blown FC/double play attempt – all runners safe.
  • Eric Garcia singled – bases loaded.
  • K.D. Kang singled – everybody moves up one base. 1 run.
  • Kevin Ahrens walked – everybody moves up one base.  2 runs.
  • Rio Ruiz singled, scoring 2.  4 runs.
  • David Rohm walked, re-loading the bases.  Still nobody out and it’s really getting interesting now.
  • Levi Hyams singled toward the first baseman – – everybody moves up one base. 5 runs.
  • Pitching change… after an error, 2 walks, and 5 singles.  Starter Austin Brice is out; Blake Logan comes in.
  • Steve Rodriguez makes the first out, but on a sacrifice fly to CF.  6 runs.
  • Now a pinch-hitter for Trepagnier:  Sean Godfrey, who of course grounds out.  Both runners advance, but now it looks like Jacksonville can get out of it with 2 outs.  However….
  • Matt Likpa is back and lines a single to center… scoring both runners.  8 runs.
  • Eric Garcia then puts a cherry on top of this cake: homer to score Lipka.  10 runs.
  • K.D. Kang popped out to third to end it.

10 runs, 1 homer (the only extra base hit), 7 hits, 2 walks, and 1 error.  And we’re tied.

Order was more-or-less restored after this outburst… for a while… as Francisco Rondon and Jason Hursh came in and shut down the Suns over the next 4 innings.

Meanwhile, the Braves ground out three more runs in the bottom of the seventh, helped along (again) by the Jacksonville defense.  So a 13-10 lead is safe, right?

Um… no.

Andrew Robinson couldn’t hold them down, and after he left the mound in the 8th (walk, triple, homer), the game was tied again… 13 all.

But Wait, There’s More!

Mississippi then pushed another run across as Steve Rodriguez doubled in Levi Hyams… and we take a 14-13 lead to the ninth inning… only to see Jacksonville tie it again against David Peterson, partly thanks to his own throwing error, though the Braves did trade the tying run for a double play that dampened the threat.

So now it’s free baseball… but this is a AA league, so most of it is reduced-cost anyway.

Top of the tenth:  Peterson gets Suns out… despite two base-runners.

Bottom of the tenth:  yet another error by the Suns (4th of the night) puts David Rohm on base… where he eventually comes around to score the winning run on a walk-off single by catcher Steve Rodriguez.

Final score:  15-14 Braves.  29 runs, 33 hits, 13 walks, 5 errors.  4 hours and 6 minutes for a game that started with a reported temperature of 96 degrees.  Garcia went 4 for 6 and Steve Rodriguez was 3 for 5 on the night.

You just can’t beat fun at the old ballyard!

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