Catcher’s Blog

This is my review of the day game in Atlanta on June 25, 2008. It was good trip, it was a very, very hot that day, and we played a good game. I got decent footage and pictures below. The footage is a little shaky and I apologize for that. That would be from me not being able to hold my camera still hardly at all. I can’t sit or stand still, so that’s probably why. The footage was clearer on my computer before I uploaded it to photobucket, so know that it wasn’t my camera. The only bad thing about that day was that it felt like it was 100 degrees, literally, with no shade hardly at all and the seat digging into my leg the whole time, resulting in my leg becoming almost numb when I did finally get up around the 8th inning. I’ll save the rest for the review. The review is under a cut for length purposes.

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Tonight kicks off a very crucial series in that we play the first place Phillies for three games. The Phillies have not had a great go at it lately, so this could be our chance to gain some ground on them. Will we sweep them? I doubt it, but it’s nice to think about. The Phillies can always find ways to knock the Braves around, no matter how bad the Phillies are playing. Sometimes we even help them do it, too, and that’s the sad part. I know half of our bench/team is out of commission right now, but hopefully we’ll get relief from somewhere. If we have good pitching and our offense is clicking on all cylinders, then we should have a pretty good chance. But since this isn’t always the case, we’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best. Tonight Charlie Morton faces Kyle Kendrick in what should be a decent match-up.

We’re halfway through the season already and it doesn’t seem like we should be. Why does baseball season always go by really fast? With all that said, BravesBlast.com is doing a mid-season review series on the NL East. They started from the bottom and reviewed the lowly Nats, who no one seems to even remember exist unless they’re playing them. The review is pretty good and thorough, so I’d recommend reading it if you have any curiosity on what the Nats have (or don’t have) to offer right now. It’s not a bashing review either, it’s done in an unbiased point of view, which usually makes for a better read unless it’s something to do with the Braves.

I wasn’t going to post at all until I finished my review post of the game I went to, which I’m still working on, but since I received this in my inbox today reminding me that Mac still needs more votes to go to the All-Star game with only two days to vote, I thought I would post it. It’s way too cute not to post.

That would get me to vote for anything that has to do with Mac. I don’t think it would matter what it was for, just because of that face, I would vote for or support it. This will always be how I think of Mac, even when I see pictures like these. There’s not a thing he could do to change my mind of his cute, teddy bear-like appeal. Well, okay, I can maybe think of a few things, but I doubt he would ever do those things, or at least so no one sees him doing those things.

vote for Mac!

But joking aside, Charlie Morton needs to come out and pitch better than Jo-Jo did last night. And our offense needs to come back to life. Tonight it’s Charlie Morton facing Dave Bush, who beat us last time we saw him in yet another one-run game. Can we please do well tonight and tomorrow?

Tomorrow I will not post because, as I’ve mentioned, I will be going to Atlanta to see tomorrow’s game against the Brewers. Tomorrow is Brian McCann Bobblehead Night Day, so I’m hoping to get one of those. I will take pictures of this statuesque Bobblehead as well as the game and other things. I will make a post with pictures and some possible footage with some commentary and review of my trip on Thursday or Friday.

For now though, I leave you with a video I made last night. It’s the first one I’ve made in a few years, so I’m sure it pretty much sucks. But you can view it anyway. I might add onto it as the year goes on and I get more pictures and footage to use, just depends. The footage is from FanFest in January, it’s not very viewable because of the lighting and the effects that I used, but excuse that please. I might post it without the effects since I can remove it if I wish; I just thought the effect went with the song I added to it. I also added in some pictures from FanFest of McFrenchy and some KJ from Braves Live and a Spring Training game from TV as well. All comments are welcome, so feel free to do so.

While the first game of the Mariners’ series looked like it was going to result in a sweep by the worst team in baseball, we came back and won the last two in great fashion. Teixshy seems like he’s gaining confidence at the plate and all us fans really hope he is coming out of his long slump. We knew he started off slow, but we weren’t thinking it was going to end up being this slow. If he heats up, maybe he can make up for the absence of Chipper in the lineup and keep us going in a good direction.

And how awesome is Mac? He is single-handedly leading this team right now, while Chipper is out, with his awesomeness of a season he’s having. He’s up to 14 homers and he had only 18 total last season. He’s hit .300+ for most of the season and I think he’s only going to get better. He is catching a majority of the games and he will, but usually his second half is always better than his first. I don’t know how much better he could do than he is right now. He busts his butt out there every game he plays to try to help this team win and it shows. I’m not saying other players aren’t, but he’s out there every single day that he plays, every single inning giving 200%. I think he’s more of a leader than Frenchy at this point, since Frenchy is having some kind of funky time as of late or most of the year rather. Mac really does deserve to be the starting All-Star catcher.

Tonight the Brewers come in for three games. As you probably remember our first series against them in Milwaukee was not that great, having two one-run losses that were heart breakers and one lopsided-scoring game, which seems to be the norm with this team. Jo-Jo has pitched well his last few outings and if he can keep this up, good things are to come for him and the team. Hopefully he keeps it up again tonight against the Brewers ace, Ben Sheets, who is 8-1 with 2.74 ERA. If Jo-Jo pitches well and our offense shows up tonight, we should be able to get a win.