Atlanta Braves Morning Chop and Box Score: But if Only!

The Braves dropped their first contest of the season to the Mets yesterday afternoon.  That much you already know.  But how close was it?

The wheels fell off the Atlanta Braves‘ bus in the seventh inning yesterday afternoon, and now they have a full 48 hours to sit and contemplate their baseball lives before getting back into action on Wednesday evening at Citi Field.

Whenever you play a tough opponent, many little things become magnified.  Josh already spoke in eloquent terms about how the bullpen might have been handled better.  I’m going to take a look at a few other aspects.

Tyler Flowers‘ Gaffe

This has been discussed a lot on TV and twitter and elsewhere.  But if you missed it, here’s the video (it’s the third Asdrubal Cabrera hit in this video that’s of interest):

Ender Inciarte needs to be rewarded for that play.  The Braves need to be rewarded for that play.  But instead, Tyler Flowers was out of position and too far behind the plate.

There were two consequences here:  (1) the ball needed to travel further (a small part, but still part of the equation; and (2) Flowers needed to lunge forward to receive it, which put him in a poor position for the tag.  Both aspects lengthened the time taken before the tag occurred.

Had Flowers been in front of the plate or at least adjacent to it, then the ball would have done its work and provided him with time to make an effective tag.  The human will always be slower than the throw, so any body movement will take up precious extra time.

In fact, if you freeze-frame the video, you can see that the ball was caught before Wilmer Flores even arrived at the batters’ box – much less arriving at the plate.  That the play was even close enough for the umpire to (erronously) make an ‘out’ call is surprising – and yet a testimony of just how far Flores should have been out.

So that clearly cost the Braves a run.

The Follow-up

Mark Bowman chased down Flowers later to ask him about the play.

"“If I had been in a conventional [position] in front of the plate, it would have been a tough play,” Flowers said. “You’re talking about an in-between short hop. Maybe I get it, maybe I don’t. So looking back, he would have been out if maybe I had [the ball]. And, if I don’t catch it, we’re not talking about it.”"

[Warning: rant ensues]

First off, Flowers basically acknowledges that he was not in a conventional position.  That’s #1.

He said something later about guarding against the in-between hop.  Well, that’s nice, but home plate doesn’t move.  It’s where the play is going to be – whether you’re there or not; whether the throw bounces nicely or not.

Your job is to be where the play is.  Do you venture out to the mound to get a better hop, then run back to the plate?  No – Inciarte’s job is to get the ball to you.  Your job as catcher is to hang out where the action is supposed to be so that you’re in position to make a tag.

Even way out in Center Field, Inciarte was caught on camera asking Nick Markakis what Flowers was doing behind the plate.

Hopefully – regardless of the public messages conveyed – this problem gets corrected in the clubhouse.  Atlanta can’t afford to just give away runs like that.

Of course, as we’ll see later… this play probably should never have happened at all.