Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Balls ‘Wisled’ into the Seats
Braves’ starter Wisler could not keep the ball down Monday evening. Cincinnati’s Great America Ball Park is not a good place to have that issue.
It wasn’t so much the control… Matt Wisler walked just 2 hitting over 5 innings. It was the location — specifically in the fourth inning — as 3 balls up in the zone ended up in the seats in that frame, accounting for 5 earned runs of 6 yielded.
Erick Aybar didn’t do Wisler any favors either, as he took a routine double play grounder and threw wide right. The sixth run was the result.
Throw out that 4th inning, though, and Wisler did well – but one again, the Braves were unable to sustain much offense regardless, save for Adonis Garcia‘s 3-for-4 night (with a homer) and Nick Markakis‘ 2-for-4. Jeff Francoeur added an RBI.
About 15 inches higher and Anthony Recker might have changed the tone of the game in the 5th: he missed a line shot home run by that margin, but ended up with only a loud single for his efforts… and he was stranded.
But that’s 18 homers in 18 starts for Wisler over just 111.2 innings. If he can corral those lapses, that 4.67 ERA would look a lot better.
But then we could have said the same about Mike Foltynewicz recently, too: 11 homers in 10 starts… but none after his 4 homer game on July 5th. Now he suddenly is looking like Clayton Kershaw.
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