Catcher’s Blog

Longtime Braves announcer, Skip Caray, has passed away today. He will be dearly missed by Braves fans all over and even in areas throughout the game of baseball. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. R.I.P. Skip Caray. ♥

There are few things I thought that were worth mentioning, so see below for different articles, pictures, etc.

• As most of you have heard, Corky was desginated for assignment with the promotion of Chuck James last night. Corky was hitting .093 for the season, and with Mac being cleared last night to catch in an emergency and pinch hit, clearly Clint Sammons was here to stay. I think the Braves only kept Corky around until they knew Clint was ready or they found another option. He’s not expected to get claimed by anyone off waivers because of his batting average, and thus will go to the minor leagues. Clint will continue to catch for the remainder of this weekend against the Milwaukee Brewers and Mac should return on Monday to his starting duties.
• The Braves and their wives, in their Christmas in July promotion, went to visit and deliver toys to patients in three children’s hospitals. Visiting patients is a really great thing that they do every year and it’s apparent that the kids at the hospitals really enjoy it. I think the players enjoy it just as much as the kids do. There are three different galleries of pictures: one, two, and three.

  I’m not sure of everyone that went, but the pictures include players, wives, and broadcasters such as Mac, Frenchy and wife, Catie, KJ and wife, Lauren, Boyer and wife, Ginsey, Gonzo, Blanco, Ring and wife, Tricia, Brian Snitker, Chip Carey, Joe Simpson, and Fernando Palacios, who is one of the Spanish broadcasters.  And a quote from tough-guy closer, Gonzo, about his experience:

  “This was an unbelievable experience, man,” Gonzalez said after the two-hour visit. “It’s pretty much why we do this, why we’re proud to be big leaguers and see the smile on these kids’ faces.”

• Huddy might have to have Tommy John surgery. His MRI results showed that he had a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. Both Dr. James Andrews and a Braves physician recommended that he have the surgery done. Huddy would like to avoid having the surgery at all and is going to try to “tough it out”, as stated in a text message. He’s going to try to take the Peter Moylan route to try to avoid the surgery, but no one is sure that it will work. We’ll have to hope it does, but it might just be better for him to go ahead and have the surgery since it might become worse down the line if he pitches with it.
• The Braves may choose the option of trading some players still in the month of August to get other players that can be used in the future and will be younger. Kotsay may be on a different team by the time September rolls around, and even some of the other regulars we see on the field everyday. Terrence Moore says fans should not to be surprised to see the Braves put some of their players on waivers to see what kind of return they can get for them. Putting someone on waivers isn’t risky in that that team can pull him off if they decide not to trade that player after all. Apparently, some still think Frenchy won’t be a Brave by the time the season concludes, but we’ll have to see how things go.

Here is the transcript of the live blog covering the deadline. Any other news will be posted below with the time and source.

Tomorrow is the Trade Deadline and I’ve been hearing and reading a lot of different rumors. I won’t even think about posting them all. Now that Mark Teixeira has been dealt to the Angels, everyone keeps asking “who will be next?” to themselves and everyone else. We shall see within the next 24 hours or so.

When reading this blog by Braves writer Mark Bowman, it is safe to say that Frank Wren isn’t done by any means and will be pretty active tomorrow before 4:00 pm. Tomorrow I will make a post with the trades that do occur with the Braves and any other significant ones that I think should be posted that peak interest. It will be like a chat/live blog sort of thing. Readers will be able to leave their comments if they wish to do so. The post will probably be put up tonight but the chat won’t be started until sometime tomorrow, probably around 12 pm since I usually sleep in. I will try to post any trade rumors that seem credible as well, but I’m not sure yet. Be on the look out for it, though.

Today I was sent an article in one of my alert e-mails from SI.com writer John Donovan and he brings up a good point about the NL East when he says it’s the toughest division in baseball. But this particular part caught my eye and I agree:

Right now, the Phillies are staggering. The Mets are playing their best ball of the year. The Marlins are sticking around. The Braves, the one-time king of the division, are … I don’t know. What the heck are the Braves doing?

Every Braves fan seems to be asking that very question to themselves and other Braves’ fans. What the heck are the Braves doing? This past series seemed to be looking good in the first game and that we were picking up where we left off before the break, with almost everyone contributing, getting hits, and stealing bases, but the last two games in the series were played by a completely different team altogether. I really don’t know an explanation for any of it. How do we play well the first game and then the last two we act like we have no clue as to what we’re even doing out on the field? How on earth do we let a last place and current worst in baseball team beat us like it was merely batting practice? And former cast-off Braves at that. And why in the world do we sit arguably our best hitter right now in Brian McCann, especially right after the All-Star break? I just do not get this team sometimes.

The AJC made a good point that Mac is playing with urgency and getting fired up when it seems no one else on the team will. I have noticed him playing with a lot more fire underneath him than the rest of the team seem to want to play with. I just don’t get why they don’t get it. Something needs to happen or we won’t even get a sniff of the post season. We’ll be sitting right at home like the past two years, watching other teams play in the post season. It’s just stupid. The team and players say they want to win and they say it’s frustrating to lose, but if we really wanted to win, we would find ways to do it. No matter what it took. I just don’t see us doing that at all. We seem like we’re playing because we have to and that’s not how it should be at all.

The next two series against the Marlins and Phillies will set the tone for the second half and if the Braves want a shot at the post season, they better start playing better baseball. No one is going to hand it to them or roll over and die. They need to play and they need to start to doing it now.