Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: the controllable starters

Seldom do you see a major league team look over-matched against another.  Last night was one of those games.

The Houston Astros are hitting full bore on all cylinders right now.  In fact, they were hitting virtually everything that the Atlanta Braves threw at them last night, even Newcomb’s hammer curves.

It’s actually hard to believe that – coming into the 4th of July meeting – the Braves had the better record since June 1st:  18-9 vs. 18-11.

But last night was all about a 57-27 team flexing its muscles.

Sean Newcomb (1-3) took the loss, though it didn’t seem that it would have mattered which sacrificial lamb had taken the hill.  In fact, of the 5 pitchers used last night, only Ian Krol escaped without major scarring:  a perfect 8th inning.

Everyone else gave up at least 2 runs.

• Home Runs:  George Springer, Jose Altuve, Josh Reddick
• Doubles:  Springer, Marwin Gonzalez, Yuli Gurriel (2), Alex Bregman (2), Altuve

19 total hits.

Defense… not in the box score

One of those doubles was a shot down the third base line that just escaped the glove of a diving Freddie Freeman.  Maybe another day he would have stopped it, but even so, it would have been a temporary lull in the Astros hit parade… and still almost certainly would have been a single.

In fact, the only real defensive lapse that might have mattered was a slowish grounder toward Brandon Phillips in the third inning.

It’s listed in the play-by-play as “Altuve reached on infield single to second.”  Had Phillips charged it at all, he would have gotten the speedy Altuve… and changed the inning – probably allowing the Braves to be down only 2-0 at that point.

Instead that became 5-0 and the rout was on.

The box scores had not been posted yet on baseball-reference, but you probably didn’t want to see the details about that carnage did you?