Braves fall to Padres and lose series
One series down in this west coast trip for the Atlanta Braves as the San Diego Padres series came to an end on Thursday night. Braves move on to the Oakland A’s for a weekend series and the final games prior to the All-Star break.
The Braves were blanketed on Thursday evening by a young starting pitcher who hasn’t had that much success this season…until last night.
Dinelson Lamet is the pitcher the Braves saw last night. Heading into the game he held a 6.60 ERA in six starts in the MLB during the 2017 season. Last night, he either had the best stuff of his life or the Braves just weren’t ready for him.
“I’ve never seen him, I’m not sure if none of us had seen him. His breaking ball was really good,” Brian Snitker said of Lamet. “He was just really good.”
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I sometimes question why the Braves struggle so badly against young pitchers or guys they don’t have a lot of video on. Maybe they rely too much on footage or maybe just go into the game with confidence they can hit these pitchers…I don’t know.
Whatever the case, the Braves couldn’t get the bat on the ball. Atlanta ended the game with just four hits. Our offense went three up and three down in five of the nine innings. That’s probably never good.
Really the only threat we had all night to score any runs was in the 5th inning. With one out, Kurt Suzuki walked and a batter later (after Dansby Swanson struck out) Johan Camargo singled. First and second, but with the pitcher up. Jaime Garcia grounded out to end the inning. Should Braves manager pinch-hit there? Possibly. But at that point, the Braves were only down 3-0.
Speaking of Jaime…he showed promise in a few innings, but the 3rd and 5th innings were kind of ugly. He lasted six innings (pitched into the 7th inning, but was removed after a leadoff walk), giving up seven hits and six runs. He also walked three batters while striking out six.
Brian Snitker on Jaime Garcia’s outing, an impressive Padres rookie arm and more from #Braves’ loss in S.D. pic.twitter.com/a4bdYVltrs
— Bally Sports: Braves (@BravesOnBally) June 30, 2017
Garcia’s problem though on Thursday was the long ball. And when I say long ball, I mean extremely long balls. Garcia gave up two home runs to Wil Myers in the 3rd inning and Hunter Renfroe in the 5th inning. Both were moon-shots.
Braves lose 6-0 and lose the series to the Padres 2-1
In the past seven series against the Padres at Petco Park, the Braves are 4-17. Atlanta has been outscored 102-55 and out-homered 22-9 in those 21 games. U-G-L-Y.
This is baseball though, and we’ll move on to the next one.
Atlanta flies to Oakland now to take on the A’s. Probable pitchers for tonight are Mike Foltynewicz for the Braves and Sonny Gray for the A’s.
There have been rumors floating around that the A’s are shopping Gray and that the Braves are interested. I’m guessing GM John Coppolella and company will be at the game tonight scouting Gray.
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The game starts tonight at 10:05pm ET at the Oakland Coliseum.
It’s questionable if Matt Adams or Tyler Flowers will be ready for tonight’s game…both are still day-to-day. Freddie Freeman is flying home and will begin his rehab assignment on Saturday with the Gwinnett Braves.