Braves win three of four against the Blue Jays, but we won’t remember this series because of that
Plan and simple, the Atlanta Braves got their ass kicked Thursday night…can we say that here? Sure, why not.
All day, we all talked about wanted some retaliation by the Braves for what happened Wednesday night. We knew it was coming, we didn’t know when, but we knew something was going to happen.
Well, it did. But it completely backfired on the Braves.
With one out in the top of the 1st inning, Jose Bautista walked to the plate to face Braves starting pitcher Julio Teheran. Teheran threw the first pitch inside, but missed Bautista. Pitch two didn’t miss. Teheran hit “Joey Bats” right above his left knee.
BAM! We showed him!! Right? Nope. Jays would laugh next and continue laughing into the darkness.
Kendrys Morales singled to left. Darrell Ceciliani followed that with a double to right which scored Bautista. Chris Coghlan then doubled which scored Morales and Ceciliani. Braves down 3-0.
Jump to the 3rd inning, Braves still down 3-0. Remember that Bautista guy? He led off the inning with a double. Morales then singled to score Bautista. Follow that with a Ceciliani homer. Yup, down 6-0.
A quick heavy rain came to SunTrust Park to delay us with two outs in the 3rd inning. We resumed play around 9:00pm ET.
Let’s get to the 4th inning. Luke Maile led off the inning with his first home run of the season. Then Marcus Stroman hit his first career homer. Teheran then walked Ezequiel Carrera. Teheran’s night would be over after that walk, but Carrera later scored so that was Julio’s run.
Julio Teheran’s night ended with three innings pitched, eight hits, nine runs, one walk, two strikeouts, and three homers. The 26-year-old threw 46 strikes in 69 pitches, but the majority of those strikes, the Blue Jays hammered them.
He’s now 0-4 with a 13.00 ERA in his past four starts at SunTrust Park. In 18 innings pitched, he’s allowing 30 hits, eight homers and 26 earned runs. Ouch, fantasy baseball advice, don’t start Teheran when pitching in Atlanta.
“I don’t know, it’s just one of those games,” Brian Snitker told the media. “Have to put it behind you.”
The beauty of baseball though is that we’ll forget about this game and move on to face the Washington Nationals.
Braves lost 9-0 in game four of this away/home series with the Blue Jays. Atlanta took three of four from Toronto. We’d definitely take that, but it’s what we lost that will hurt us the most leaving this series.
It was announced prior to the game that superstar first baseman Freddie Freeman will be sidelined for at least eight weeks…they’re thinking 10 weeks…after being struck by a pitch in Wednesday night’s game.
You have to think about Freeman’s absence from the lineup and the issues it will cause. It looked as though we came out flat and sluggish Thursday night and it could have stemmed to the Freeman injury.
Next: Braves could have drafted Marcus Stroman in 2012
“An emotional hangover” – Tom Glavine
Glavine said this late in the broadcast and I have to completely agree with him. It will take some time to recover from the news that we’ll be without Freddie for 10 weeks, but we’ll move on. Not necessarily forgetting, but just carrying on with baseball.
“It’s been a tough day, Snitker told the media. “when I met with Freddie, he was in good spirits, but it’s not a good feeling for all of us.”
Braves offense had seven hits and one walk. The lineup also struck out 11 times. Stroman was on his game and was extremely strong on the mound.
One positive, I guess, everyone in the lineup except Rio Ruiz and the pitching spot had a hit. No one had two hits though.
“It was rough,” Snitker finished up his media presser with.