Series Preview: Marlins @ Braves

The Braves come into this series against the Marlins 4 games back on the Washington Nationals but headed into a cup cake schedule. The Braves’ next 13 games come against the Marlins, Astros, Phillies, and Mets. Two of those teams are selling off everything they can, the Astros are the Astros, and the Mets are finally starting to play like the Mets should have been playing all year. The only bad thing is that the Nats pretty much have the exact same schedule with Washington getting a 3 game series against Arizona instead of New York being the only difference.

Game 1 – Monday 7:10 – Mark Buehrle vs. Tommy Hanson

Well I’m sure a lot of you know my feelings about Tommy Hanson and if you don’t let me just tell you that he is a… frustrating pitcher. Easily the most annoying of any in the starting rotation and arguably the luckiest (as far as run support and getting wins), he is going to have to find the zone with his fastball or else all of his breaking stuff is useless.

Game 2 – Tuesday 7:10 – Ricky Nolasco vs. Kris Medlen

As excited as I am to see Medlen get back in the starting rotation, it just gives us more of a reason to not expect a legit top of the line starter headed to the Ted before the trade deadline. I would be more disappointed if the bulldog wasn’t so good. He’s not going to be as effective as he has been from the bullpen (for fairly obvious reasons) but previously as a starter he has done well. Ricky Nolasco shouldn’t hold the Braves back offensively either.

Game 3 – Wednesday 7:10 – Carlos Zambrano vs. Ben Sheets

Well Ben Sheets is 3-0 so there is no way he can lose this one right? Of course not. In all seriousness the only thing we can hope to see more of from Sheets is innings. It would be awesome to see him stretch it out a bit more and pitch into the 7th or more, even if he is giving up a run or 2 more. Zambrano has been dreadful lately and has been walking batters left and right. Your welcome Dan Uggla.

The Braves have to take advantage of the soft schedule they are going to be having over the next couple weeks. The Nationals are going to have a stroll as well and losing any more ground could eliminate any hopes of taking the division. It still is possible, especially with Stephen Strasburg getting closer and closer to 160.

Now on to some things that I think should be mentioned…

Lay off Paul Janish

Yesterday a ton of people started ripping Janish because he got out with the bases loaded after swinging at the first pitch. First of all, if the bases were empty no one would have said a word, and secondly we were already up 6-2 late in the game. Chill out people.

The biggest thing that annoyed me with all of the complaining was the fact that Janish is playing great defense for us right now, the only thing we really cared about when we got him. With Simmons out we needed some one to be able to handle short stop defensively. That’s it. If you can remember back when Simmons was called up, we also only wanted him to play defense. His hitting was just a bonus.

Since coming to Atlanta and playing in 126 innings with the Bravos Janish has made just one error. He has also made some pretty sweet plays like this one. He had another one last night as well but I couldn’t find the video for it.

So do everyone a favor and tell your friends that Janish is here to play defense, and he’s doing a solid job of it.

Google + Hangouts?

I have been pondering this for a bit but wanted to get some more feedback on it first. What would you guys think about maybe doing some hangouts to talk Braves and baseball? Of course it sounds awesome to me but it would be no fun if nobody else thought it was a good idea. Also, Google + is awesome and we need to get more people involved in it.

That’s all for today guys, have fun watching the Braves spank that “baseball team” from Miami not Florida.