Tag: MLB

Braves Opening Day Series Wrap

With MLB FINALLY back… its time to enjoy some Braves baseball!

The Braves started the 2020 season in New York City against the New York Mets.

Game one: Mike Soroka vs. Jacob DeGrom

This game was an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel. With both teams’ aces on the mound, we expected a low scoring game and that’s what we got. Mike Soroka was excellent on the mound through his six scoreless innings, but one little slip up by Chris Martin gave the Mets’ designated hitter, Yoenis Céspedes a solo home run. This was the winning run for the Mets in the bottom of the seventh inning. Overall, even without a Braves win, it was just good to have baseball back!

Game two: Max Fried vs. Steven Matz

With the opening day loss on the Braves players and fans’ minds… the Braves gave us something to cheer for in this game! Adam Duvall was the FIRST Braves player of the 2020 season to hit a home run. It was a solo shot that hit a cardboard cutout in the top of the second inning to let the Braves score first to make the game 1-0. The Mets ended up taking the lead 2-1, and then Marcell Ozuna came up to the plate in the 9th inning. Down to his last strike in a 3-2 count, he let his bat do the talking. Crushing his first home run of the season to right center field, he tied the game and brought it into extra innings. With the new extra innings rule that the last batter to hit in the previous inning be placed on second, it did not take the Braves long to score. The Braves ended up winning this game 5-3 taking game two of the series.

Game three: Sean Newcomb vs. Rick Porcello

After coming off their first win of the season the night before, the Braves had winning on their minds again! Starting the game off with a bang, Ozzie Albies doubled and scored on a single by Matt Adams, then Dansby Swanson singled, and Freddie Freeman (reached base on a walk) scored to give the Braves a lead of 2-0 in the top of the first. The Braves didn’t stop there! Scoring Five more runs in the third inning, one in the fourth on a Dansby Swanson dinger, and one in the fith on a RBI double by Ozzie Albies, the Braves couldn’t lose. They had momentum, and it kept them hot for the rest of the game! Leading 10-1 in the top of the sixth inning, the Braves still weren’t done. Marcell Ozuna and Austin Riley both homered, giving the Braves a 12-1 lead. Austin Riley’s home run was SMOKED to left field going a whopping distance of 458-feet. And to make things worse for the Mets, Ozzie Albies CRUSHED a two-run shot to straight away center giving the Braves a winning score of 14-1.

This series for the Braves didn’t start out the greatest, but ended it a winning fashion!

GO BRAVES!

Braves 2020 roster perdictions

With Major League Baseball finally starting back, I’m going to share my 2020 lineup, starting rotation, and bench for the Atlanta Braves.

LINEUP:

  1. Ronald Acuña Jr.-RF
  2. Ozzie Albies -2B
  3. Freddie Freeman -1B
  4. Marcell Ozuna- LF
  5. Dansby Swanson -SS
  6. Nick Markakis -DH
  7. Johan Camargo -3B
  8. Travis d’Arnaud -C
  9. Ender Inciarte -CF

With the Designated Hitter coming to the National League I think it gives more depth to the team’s lineup and gives veteran players a chance to play everyday without having to play defense. I think that the braves will play Ozuna in left field to start off the season, and if his offensive numbers aren’t very good they might place him in the roll as Designated Hitter and give someone like Nick Markakis or Adam Duvall a chance to play Left Field.

STARTING ROTATION:

  1. Mike Soroka
  2. Cole Hamels
  3. Max Fried
  4. Mike Foltynewicz
  5. Sean Newcomb

While Felix Hernandez showed great potential in the beginning of Spring Training before the baseball season was postponed, I still think that the Braves will go with Newcomb because he stepped up in his roll in the bullpen last season and improved his walk-to-strikeout ratio. I also believe that, given the time that it has taken baseball to come back, Cole Hamels’ shoulder will be fully healed and he will be ready to pitch for the Braves in 2020.

BENCH:

  1. Charlie Culberson
  2. Adam Duvall
  3. Austin Riley
  4. Adeiny Hechavarria

With the 2020, 60 game season staring off with a 30 man roster, I think the Braves will put Austin Riley on the bench. However, when the roster goes down to a 28 man roster I think he will not be on the bench after that. I definitely think that Hechavarria will be on the bench given his defensive abilities.

At the end of the day, even if my predictions aren’t correct, Braves baseball is back! Even though the games are fanless, and there is no high fiving, the most important thing to celebrate in the MLB is that there will be baseball!

Will There Be a 2020 Season

With COVID-19 still impacting the world, I thought I’d write about my thoughts on COVID-19’s impact to the game and my thoughts on if there will be a 2020 season.

Will There be a 2020 season?

Obviously the MLB organization is trying their best to make a 2020 season possible, even if that means fanless games in Arizona and Flordia. Honestly, if baseball does return it will probably be games in Arizona and Florida with a shortened season of 60-80 games and no fans. But, with no fans I begin to wonder if baseball returning has a purpose?

Obviously the players play the game of baseball because, one, its their job, and two, they love it. But without fans in the ballpark cheering them on and shouting their name every time they step up to the plate, they don’t have that extra determination; that extra push to keep them going through all nine-innings, to walk away with a win.

If I could, given the current circumstances, have decided what the 2020 season would look like and how it was played, I would have every team play 60-80 games and play only the teams in their division. The winners of each division would then have playoffs. It would be a short and “smaller” season, but it would still allow for the game to go on! I would also have fans at the games to give the players/teams motivation to win and play at their very best. But, in the end it’s not my opinion that counts… it’s the commisoner of baseball and the MLB team’s desicon.

But, even if they did let fans in the stadium, they wouldn’t allow everybody because they would all be too close to each other and everyone would be risking everybody else’s safety and health. It seems, possibly, that there really is no good solution for this year.

In the end, I hope that baseball will come back with fans able to go to the games and the season to be as long as possible. I miss my Braves! But right now, I don’t know how much hope I still have left as a fan who’s trying to be realistic about there being a 2020 season at all.

How COVID-19 is Impacting Me as a Fan

With baseball still delayed due to COVID-19, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the impact that the coronavirus is having on me baseball wise.

For Christmas of 2019, I got baseball tickets to go to TWO Atlanta Braves games for the month of April 2020. They were to the games on April 17 against the San Fransisco Giants and against the New York Mets on April 24. Those game were also bobblehead nights. They were for the Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuña Jr. Braves win air high-five.

I was SO excited to not only to be able to go to two Braves games for the the games to be bobblehead games for my favorite player Ozzie Albies (#1) and his best friend Ronald Acuña Jr.

When I first heard that the rest of Spring Training and the start of the 2020 season was going to be delayed I was DEVESTATED. After that it was the only thing I talked about for the next week. I kept thinking how unfair and wrong it was and how the MLB orginazation was overreacting. But as COVID-19 became more serious I began to realize that it was probably for the best (whether I wanted to admit it or not) that they delayed the start of the season till mid May-ish.

My reaction to fan-less games:

Honestly, I don’t like the idea at ALL. Personally I think it destroys the atmosphere of the game and doesn’t really give the players anything/anyone to play for. There’s no real excitement in the game without fans. There isn’t that electricity in the ballpark every time someone hits a homerun with the fans screaming at the top of their lungs jumping up and down with excitement. (Me!!)

Hopefully, within the next month everything will go back to normal and baseball will be back — with the stadium full of fans, and the Braves ranking first in the NL East!