If discretion is the better part of valor, I\u2019m not sure what the better part of this season is. Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. being back? Drake Baldwin coming up as a result of an injury to Sean Murphy and raking? That stretch in April after the road trip where it seemed like the Braves were going to rebound? I don\u2019t have much else.<\/p>\n
I will, however, use said discretion to avoid recapping this game. You don\u2019t need it. What you should know is that the Braves got out to a big lead (6-0, then 9-3), and they lost. To be clear: they lost. Scott Blewett and Raisel Iglesias combined to give up three homers and eight runs over the final two innings of play, and Marcell Ozuna hit into a game-ending double play in the ninth. There\u2019s not much more that needs to be said, you don\u2019t come to this point, six games under .500, the second-biggest disappointment in MLB, and blow a giant lead while getting a detailed recounting of your success and failures. You just get this, and a discussion of what comes next.<\/p>\n
The Braves can probably do without Scott Blewett at this point. Maybe they could\u2019ve used him to sop more innings, but they can try someone else in the innings-sopping role now. Whatever is going on with the team offensively is maybe over (as evinced by this game), but probably not, as evinced by whatever they\u2019ve been doing all season. Iglesias had a terrible xFIP game (seven batters, one walk, zero strikeouts, one grounder) to go with his array of terrible homer-laden FIP games, and the Braves probably aren\u2019t going to take away his job, but at this point, why not? Throw someone else in that role and see if they become more attractive to some subset of hidebound suitors with some saves on their statsheet \u2014 there\u2019s not really anything else to lose.<\/p>\n
The Braves probably aren\u2019t going to pull a Thursday Night\/Friday Morning Massacre, not on the eve of a West Coast swing, but again \u2014 what do they have to lose? They\u2019ve already lost on the field this season in every conceivable way and now they\u2019re adding once-a-season bullpen meltdowns before even digging out of their other self-imposed holes. At this point, they may as well use the rest of a season as a testing ground to get themselves in better position for the future, because when you lose like you did today to get swept by a team that was struggling as much as you were, it\u2019s not clear what you\u2019re going to do to turn it around.<\/p>\n
Again, apologies if you really, really wanted a real recap, but not today. They don\u2019t deserve it this time.<\/p>\n
To their credit, they did finally show a sense of urgency, removing Grant Holmes after an incoming meltdown where he walked two to start the second time through the order and survived fine… until Blewett, Iglesias, and the defense did their thing. But if that isn\u2019t enough to save the Braves even in this game<\/em>, they\u2019ve basically run out of rope short of a month-long winning streak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m not actually recapping this game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":59802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n