Atlanta Braves News: The Morning Stop, Chop, and Roll/Aug 2

Yes, this is the Morning Chop. But after last night…we just gotta call it something different, for this was the ugliest loss on the season.

And it should have been much, much worse.

The Padres held batting practice last night as the Braves dropped their 4th game in a row, losing 10-1 and yielding twenty hits and three walks in the process. Eleven Padres were left on base during this sloppy debut of Emilio Bonifacio, who was playing right field in place of the still-gimpy Jason Heyward.

Mike Minor had nothing tonight… again.  He gave up 5 earned in five innings to raise his ERA to 5.42 for the year.  Juan Jaime followed and seemed to do well – locating his fastball on the lower outside corner, yet getting no calls from umpire Chris Segal.  But he got blooped and dinked into giving up a run.  David Hale yielded 3 on six hits in under an inning, and David Carpenter had to finish – 3 more hits and another run.

Meanwhile, the offense, which beat up on starter Eric Stults last week, couldn’t muster anything significant against him out West:  2 hits (4 overall) and 1 run – unearned.  Nothing fell in, as Stults only struck out 3.  Chris Johnson, who eats lefties for breakfast, got 2 of the four hits.  Obviously that wasn’t enough to get anything resembling a rally started.

The superlatives for San Diego are still rolling in.

Even Jeff Francoeur (batting .118) got a hit.  I’m actually wondering if Fredi Gonzalez was considering putting him in to pitch… for Atlanta.

So instead of the Braves box score… let’s see the other side this morning:
 

Yes, that’s a team OPS of 1.230 for San Diego last night.  Wow.

With all of this, I have but one piece of truly good news from Friday night baseball: The Nationals lost to the Phillies, 2-1… in part, thanks to a guy that surprisingly didn’t get traded on Thursday: Marlon Byrd. Huh.

Braves Stadium Concepts Include Giant Pool, Integrity

JULY 31, JOSH GREEN (atlanta.curbed.com)

Come 2017, a trip to the Atlanta Braves ballpark might include … kayaking? Swimming? Waterside reflections on 1990s championships that never were? Well, maybe. New renderings for the Cobb County sports mega-complex throw an interesting spitball against the wall: What if the stadium had a huge water feature beyond the outfield stands, like a smaller, man-made version of the harbor outside San Francisco’s AT&T Park? These images by master planner The Jerde Partnership are basically placeholders to give state officials an idea of the project’s scale — both the stadium and adjoining $400 million mixed-use accoutrement. While the renderings are still very much conceptual, they hint at an aesthetic that’s less Atlantic Station and more High Museum, with a dash of Roman Coliseum.

Editor’s Note:  more stadium concept photos at the link above.

Another Note: I’m still waiting on that quintessential Southern/Atlanta touch… not seeing that in any stadium renderings thus far.

So Long and Good Luck, Jordan Schafer

AUG 1, DAVE O’BRIEN (AJC)

SAN DIEGO – Part of me hated to see Jordan Schafer DFA’d, because I like him and still believe he’s a good player who can help a winning team. But for his sake and the sake of the Braves, today’s move was the best one, and now we’ll find out whether another team has seen enough of him to claim him off waivers and give him a shot at the playing time he wasn’t going to get here because of contracts and commitments to others.

He’s still young enough (27) and still has game-changing speed and strong defensive skills. Works hard, wants to be a really good player, and just needs to get back to the sound hitting approach he had when he was playing regularly in the first half last season when B.J. was hurt and others got nicked up, before Schafer also got injured (broken bone near his ankle on foul ball) and spent six weeks on the DL. After that, he was never the same and didn’t get the playing time to have much chance to get right.