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Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Lack of Stuff, Start of Playoffs

By Alan Carpenter

May 24, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Wooden baseball bats rest in the rack before the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
May 24, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Wooden baseball bats rest in the rack before the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /
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Sep 6, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Williams Perez (57) throws to the Washington Nationals during the second inning at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

The Braves’ offense indeed continued to pound the ball last night, but it was Williams Perez who could not contain the Nationals’ offense – particularly with one batter.

The box score, which you’ll see below, lists the losing pitching from last night as Jose Ramirez.  That’s unfortunate.  While he did see three runs cross the plate while pitching, only one of those was earned.  Also, that meager stat ignores the fact that the Atlanta Braves‘ offense did yeoman’s work just to get back to even after their starter yielded six runs.

I cannot say whether Williams Perez has enough “stuff” to continue as a starting pitcher.  He’s had several solid outings, but last night wasn’t one of those.

Examples:

  • Bottom of the second inning, 7 pitches to 8th place hitter Danny Espinosa with 2 outs.  A 2-2 pitch was eventually hit up the middle for a single, moving a runner to third base.
  • Next batter:  Gio Gonzalez.  6 pitches to him.  The last (also on a 2-2 count), followed Espinosa’s with another single up the middle – scoring Anthony Rendon.
  • Bottom of the third inning:  5, 5, and 6 pitches to Werth, Murphy, and Harper – three ball counts on all.  Results:  3 singles.
  • Then the really bad one:  an 0-2 count to Rendon… but with 3 more pitches fouled off, Perez continued to go back to his sinker… except the last one was missing 2 things:  (a) speed (it was slower); and (b) sink.  Rendon killed that duck into the stands for the decisive grand slam… decisive because that’s 4 batters and 4 runs that the Nationals got because Perez didn’t have enough in his arsenal to put batters away yesterday.

Yes: Perez was getting a number of ground balls, but many were sharply hit for singles.  He wasn’t fooling many, but the deep counts suggest that his pitches were being spoiled – even by the 8th/9th place hitters.

Perez left the mound after a second homer in that third inning having thrown 71 pitches… 51 for strikes.  The control is good – too good, perhaps, for the hitters knew where to swing.  But this pitch-to-contact thing works if there’s enough movement to induce weak or off-center contact.

That didn’t happen, and it raises that question of whether this is just the way Perez’ game is now, of if yesterday was the exception, for good hitters will exploit that – and they did so during the second trip through the order.

Here’s your box score:

Next: Quick Hitters

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