Marching to Atlanta -- IGT 5/28, Game #1 of 2

[Frayed Knot]

Well they're probably flying to Atlanta rather than marching (Sherman, after all, didn't start way up in Wisconsin) but go there they will to meet the first place Braves for four games in three days.
Of course all of that is conditional on the weather cooperating which it almost certainly will not as tropical storm Alberto is approaching the state of Georgia from the gulf as I/we type/read.

Los Bravos are coming off their own 3 losses-in four vs a 1st place club, starting the series by losing the first three in Fenway which caused them to lose their hold on 1st place temporarily.
They avoided the long sweep on Sunday by beating Chris Sale and co. which, coupled with Philly's loss, got them a 1/2 game on top again.
But Sunday's win was tempered by Ronald Acuna's awkward step while crossing 1st and sending him into a tumble which resembled a slightly less violent version of Bryce Harper's hyper-extended knee last year.
No official word yet on (the somewhat cooled-down recently) Acuna's condition.

Braves have actually fallen off the lead in NL offense (to our next opponents, the Cubs) but are still both scoring and preventing scoring at better rates than us.
Part of their advantage is that they essentially run the same lineup out there every night. Only 3rd base and their brief experiment with trying Jose Bautista there (wonder what became of him?) has been a
shifting position for them this year.
Kurt Suzuki and Tyler Flowers essentially share the catching position, w/Freddie at 1st and Albies at 2nd have both started every game this season. At SS Dansby Swanson is back following a two week outage
and Johan Camargo is now re-established at 3rd while Markakis/Inciarte/Acuna have started every game in the OF since Acuna's call-up on 4/25 (Damn, that must be nice!!) even if Acuna's dance step today
will probably break that streak (or does he possess extra-quick healing powers seeing as how he's only 13 years old?)



Game 1: 1:10 -- deGrom vs Max Fried

Fried (pronounced: FREED) is a 2012 1st round/7th overall pick by the Padres out of sports factory Harvard-Westlake HS in Los Angeles. Dealt to Atlanta in the Justin Upton deal (Dec 2014) the now 24 y/o
lefty (well he's always been lefty but has just recently turned 24) made 9 appearances/4 starts for the Braves in 2017 -- including one start vs the Mets: 5.1 IP, 2 ER, 7 H -- and is being recalled tomorrow
to make his first start of the season after relieving in 4 ML games earlier this year.



Needless to say, a lopsided series in either direction will have a big effect on the team's (and our) psyches over the near future, a future which includes their [u:34cj71v6]third and final trip[/u:34cj71v6] to Atlanta just two weeks from now.

[nymr83]

How else would you pronounce Fried? I've never met a person whose name sounds like they were cooked in oil, and I know a lot if Frieds!

[Frayed Knot]

Nymr83 wrote: How else would you pronounce Fried?

Hey, yaneverknow: Koch = Kotch/Coke; Levine = Laveen/Lavine, etc.



On the NYM side, Plawecki is likely to be activated tomorrow with Nido shirley being the odd man out. It would be nice to have a somewhat stable catching situation for a while.
While the Braves, for instance, have had their main two guys start 42 of their 51 games this year and all of them since 4/25 (Flowers was on the DL for first two weeks of season), the Mets have started
five different catchers, none of whom started even 1/3 of the time and the guys who began the season in 4th and 5th place: Lobaton = 14, Nido = 13, Mesoraco = 11, Plawecki = 7, d'Arnaud = 4
Not exactly how they drew it up to start the year.

Also likely to be active for at least one of the two games sked for tomorrow is PJ Conlon and Hansel Robles. Between Ramos heading to NYC to get his shoulder (and maybe head) checked out and the added
roster spot during DH days, those two pitchers flew ahead to Atlanta and it's possible that Conlon will start game 2 on Monday depending on all sorts of factors from deGrom's performance and bullpen needs
in Game 1 to the rain coming in ahead of tropical storm Alberto.

[bmfc1]

So they have to: 1) add a 26th player for each game, including a starter for game 2
2) possibly replace Ramos
3) activate Pawlecki
4) possibly replace Wilmer.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Inciarte CF
Albies 2B
Friedman 1B
Markakis RF
Flowers C
Tucker LF
Camargo 3B
Swanson SS
Free P

[Guest d'Kong76]

Nimmo RF
Cabrera 2B
Conforto CF
Bautista LF
Bruce 1B
Mesoraco C
Guillorme 3B
Rosario SS
deGrom P

[bmfc1]

bmfc1 wrote: So they have to: 1) add a 26th player for each game, including a starter for game 2 2) possibly replace Ramos 3) activate Pawlecki 4) possibly replace Wilmer.

1. Bautista/Conlon
2. Robles back (yeesh)
3. Nido down
4. Evans up.

[Guest d'Kong76]

On the radio pre-game before they mentioned that it's been forty years since
the Mets played a doubleheader on Memorial Day. I thought it would be interesting
to go back a re-visit those two games.

Here's Game One, courtesy of our friends at Shaefer and Ultimate Mets Database!

[Edgy MD]

DO IT AGAIN, DEVIN!

[Edgy MD]

Keith says to give Meso a green light 3-0 with the bags juiced.

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

And Mesoraco walks! Yes! Let the guy beat himself!

[Edgy MD]

Braves in first and have a leftfielder named Tucker. It's like old times!

[ashie62]

Guillorme & Mesoraco

Who woulda thunk it.

Amazin!

[Edgy MD]

You have to roll the ball to the far reaches to score Mesaraco from first. NOT a graceful runner.

[Guest 41Forever]

I like Guillorme.

[Edgy MD]

Bases loaded, one out.

Go get 'em, bulldog.

[Edgy MD]

Blows Tucker away. Two out.

[Edgy MD]

And Camargo goes down as well!

[Guest 41Forever]

de Grom is amazing.

Edgy, you're in Baltimore, right? You guys affected by the flooding?

[Guest 41Forever]

We need to go to baserunning school.

[Edgy MD]

Most of the flooding has been in the suburbs. The beautiful historic downtown of Ellicott City got violently submerged after previously drowning in a "once every thousand years" storm just two years ago.

[Edgy MD]

Hey, deGrom's back out on the field.

[nymr83]

This game is lining up perfectly for the bullpen to fuck it up

[Edgy MD]

Not feeling good about seeing Freeman up there against Lugo with a runner on.

[Edgy MD]

Damn.

Wondering if they brought Gonzalez in for firstbase defense, he would have made the play on Gsellie's wide throw.

OE: Or cut off the throw from Nimmo and thrown out the trailing runner.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Another game, another starter robbed of a potential victory.

The Mets keep finding ways not to win games started by DeGrom and Syndergaard. They seem to consistently waste good starts by the only 2 reliable starters.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Mesaraco goes Kaboom again.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

The best move Sandy Alderson has made in the past few months was unloading the malcontent, Matt Harvey on the Reds for Devin Mesaraco.

[Edgy MD]

Mesoraco Baldelli.

[Edgy MD]

People bunt wrong.

[Edgy MD]

On the other hand, stealing 0-2 with two outs is a great play.