The Braves just won Max Fried’s worst start of the season without breaking a sweat.
Fine, there was a little bit of a sweat in the eighth. Just a few dabs of perspiration on the forehead, if you will. Will Smith took a towel and quickly wiped it out with a pair of strikeouts in a clutch spot.
The most delightfully jarring part of the game was how much it felt like a lot of the games against the Marlins over the years. Fried stumbled with his slider command, but Red Sox players not named Alex Verdugo couldn’t really take advantage. I never for even a millisecond thought the Red Sox would win that game; even when the Braves fell behind by a run in the third inning. And after the final out settled into Ender Inciarte’s glove it was more a feeling of “Yes, that was supposed to happen.” rather than a surprise.
If you had told me two years ago the Braves winning at Fenway Park would feel normal and anticlimactic I would have assumed it was because the Braves were the greatest baseball team ever, but the Red Sox falling off a cliff — and by that I mean trading the best player the franchise has had in 50 years — will suffice.
Positives:
- Even the most fanatical Nick Markakis supporters didn’t see this coming. You would have to have Biff Tannen’s almanac to predict Markakis opting out of the season only to opt back in and carry a 1.025 OPS into September. All he does is hit baseballs. Nelson Cruz and Edwin Encarnación are proving this is the season for the old guys to rake, and Markakis is flying that flag in the Senior Circuit right now.
- Austin Riley took a shot at hitting the shortest home run a player can hit anywhere in baseball. He had to “settle” for a three-run triple off the wall, but you have to respect him playing the percentages and taking a shot at the Pesky Pole. Riley picked up four more RBIs tonight and had two hard hit outs on top of it. This is the Riley we spent all offseason craving.
- Freddie Freeman has a 14-game hitting streak. It almost feels like old news because he has been hitting so well for so long, but it still deserves a shoutout.
- Five innings of two-run baseball is a disappointing start for Max Fried now. Five strikeouts and two walks is an underwhelming ratio. Surrendering five hits feels like something went wrong. His ERA is now up to 1.60. Yeah, up to 1.60. Seriously, he is pitching at a Cy Young level and even without his best stuff tonight he gutted out five innings to give his team a chance to win.
- Speaking of Fried, it has now been 67 innings since one of his pitches left the ballpark. That brings his total to 1,018 consecutive pitches in the yard since Corey Dickerson took him deep for a first inning home run on September 10th, 2019 at Citizens Bank Park. One thousand and eighteen pitches. One. Thousand. And. Eighteen. It’s a mind-boggling number that you will have to enjoy while you can because I almost certainly just jinxed it.
- There is nothing in sports quite like the sound of a line drive slamming off the Green Monster. Marcell Ozuna provided those sweet acoustics with an absolute rope in the fifth inning.
- Adam Duvall immediately picked up Fried after his lone really egregious mistake of the night. Fried balked in the go-ahead run with two outs, and was on the wrong end of the scoreboard for one of the only times all season. The very first man to step to the plate with the Braves down was Duvall, and he made sure he would be the only Brave to step to the plate trailing all night with a home run that landed somewhere in New Hampshire. Fried was able to immediately put his mistake in the past and just keep pitching in a tie game, and that was crucial.
- Alright, selfish endeavor time to round out the positives. The Red Sox are arguably the worst team in baseball. The Bruins were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in double overtime tonight in what some believed to be their last chance to win with this aging core. The Patriots are going into a season without Tom Brady for the first time since the Clinton administration. The Celtics…I guess they’re still playing pretty well right now.
Still, three out of four Boston teams are having big problems and that just might be the only positive development of 2020. Go Raptors.
Negatives:
- Ronald Acuña Jr. was out of the lineup again. Like I said yesterday, don’t trust the Braves with injuries until you see the player in question back in the lineup.
- Max Fried balked in a run for the first and hopefully last time of his career. It didn’t matter, but balking in a run has to be one of the most frustrating things as a pitcher.
*️Quietly strolls away while whistling*️
- Riley’s big triple and the Red Sox just being generally terrible masked a lot of it, but the Braves were 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position. It remains an Achilles’ heel for a very good offense.
- Will Smith struggled again, allowing three singles and a run in the eighth. Right now it’s a blip, but it can’t become a trend. Hopefully he is just finding his footing a little bit as he rebounds from his COVID-19 positive test. Not everyone can shake off the virus as effortlessly as Freddie Freeman seems to have.
- Ender Inciarte added four more grey hairs to your head. Just dig around a little, you’ll find them.
Former Brave Of The Day:
The Angels lost 2–1 to the Mariners today, but one man did all he could for the cause. An elite power outfielder, and one of the greatest players in baseball history who always seems weighed down by his team. I am of course talking about Justin Upton, who hit a solo home run for the Halos today.
Quote Of The Game:
“I’m shipping up to Boston, whoa!”
— Dropkick Murphys
Tomorrow’s Goal:
Don’t let Ryan Weber become tomorrow’s Former Brave Of The Day.
