Catcher’s Blog

As it has been announced, Chipper will indeed be the starting third baseman in this year’s All-Star game, and deservedly so. Mac will be one of the backups to Geovanny Soto, along with Russell Martin. Here’s one of the stories from SI.com on the whole NL catcher’s deal:

And how do the National League players snub Atlanta catcher Brian McCann, instead putting L.A’s Russell Martin in as rookie Geovany Soto’s backup? I love Martin and his game, and I’ll admit that this is a tough call. But you have to take McCann’s power over a few more walks, don’t you? Merit-wise, I mean?

Now they’re saying Mac got snubbed as a backup? Geez. He should be starting, end of story. At least he’s going period, I guess, but this makes three straight All-Star games for Mac in a row and it’s just his third full year in the majors. How awesome is that? I won’t get to watch either way because I’ll be camping at Hunting Island, SC all next week and won’t have access to a TV more than likely. Hopefully someone, somewhere will get some footage of Mac playing, if he even plays at all. Congrats Chipper and Mac, though, on receiving this chance to be in the Mid-Summer Classic at Yankee Stadium; it is very well deserved.

In other news, Frenchy has been recalled after spending three days in AA ball, after being sent down Friday to work on his swing. In this promotion of Frenchy, though, we’ve had to put more players on the DL. Bennett, Acosta, and Infante will be replaced on the roster by Frenchy, Vladimir Nunez, and Brent Lillibridge. The Braves will only play with eleven pitchers, but opted to promote another infielder because the All-Star break is only a week away. I’m sure they promoted Lillibridge because of Escobar’s recent injuries as well and uncertainty that he’ll play tonight, or in the event that he’s out a few more games than expected. Why is that when we finally get some players healthy and off the DL, we have a few more that have to be put on there from more injuries? It’s just unreal.

Trade rumors are starting to fly around about the Braves trading Teixshy. Here’s a take on this situation from John Donovan of SI.com:

With C.C. Sabathia now off the trade table after his weekend shipping to Milwaukee, we should probably turn our attention to the big slugger on the block, Mark Teixeira. Will someone be able to pry the switch-hitting first baseman away from the Braves for a pennant run? My guess: No. The Braves face the Dodgers and Padres before the All-Star Game, which means they’ll probably hit the break closer to the NL East lead than they are now (six games at the start of the week). With Teixeira, they have a chance at stealing the lackluster East. Without him, they have none.

My take is that we won’t trade him while only being six games back the week before the All-Star break. My hope is that we play well against these two West Coast teams and dwindle our way back toward the top of standings. But realistically, if we can take both series (4 of 6), that would be great. Hopefully we can feed off last night’s huge win and play some good baseball.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight kicks off Interleague play with three games against some of the current Braves’ former team, the A’s. I really don’t know much about them because I don’t really watch any other baseball besides the Braves, but I’ve read some things about them in this Talking with the Enemy over at Talking Chop. And with my curiosity, I’ve looked at what Yahoo! has to say about the team, well, from a statistical perspective anyway. (It sounded good anyway.)

Chipper will hopefully be back in the lineup tonight after sitting out last night’s game as a precaution. Some of the guys in our lineup have not faced the A’s before, but the one’s who have, have mixed BA between good and bad. Only question I have about this is, can we please not play Infante tonight for KJ, even though it’s a lefty on the mound for the A’s? In a total of 78 ABs against the A’s, Infante sports a lowly .192 BA. KJ’s faced the A’s in three ABs and has two walks with one strikeout. I’d put my money on KJ with this one, but that’s just my opinion.

Jurrjens will face Dana Eveland, who has a career ERA of 13.50 in 1.1 IP against the Braves, but so far this season is doing reasonably well with a 3.23 ERA. Jurrjens will pitch on short rest, so let’s hope he has his stuff after only throwing 69 pitches in his last start. Let’s start Interleague play off well and please let’s not have a repeat of last year’s Interleague play.

Also, there will be a McFrenchy appearance on This Week In Baseball. It’s set to air tomorrow at 12 pm EST on FOX where I live. Check your local listings to see when it comes on in your town. Be sure to catch it if you can. I know I will.