Atlanta Braves Minor League Recap: 8/25

Today just sucked for the regular Braves and luckily I was able to get away and see Gwinnett manage to score early but then hold on for a win. And here’s what I saw of their corner fielders tonight.

Glaus

At Bat #1 – whiffed horribly on an offspeed 0-1 pitch but came back 1-2 with a solid RBI single up the middle.
At Bat #2 –lazy fly ball semi-deep to right field.
At Bat #3 – smacked a 1-0 fastball (again) deep to let center for about a 390 foot two run bomb. Once again looked like the Troy of May.
At Bat #4 – trying to keep up with Freddie, he hits a screaming line drive to center that landed about 300 feet from home on the fly and drove in Freddie for an RBI single. Later came home on an RBI double from 2nd and once he got going, really kinda got going down to home and scored easily (he had held up a little b/c the ball may have been caught).

Defensive Play #1 – medium liner hit over his head, and while getting to it would have been impressive, he got no joke about 3-4 inches off the ground max and didn’t really come close.
Defensive Play #2 – pretty hard hit ball to his left that he actually got over to and his feet were there, but he could not lean over in time to get to the ball (this is becoming a disturbing trend).
Defensive Play #3 – attempted to dive for a ball down the line. I say attempted because he sorted just fell down to his right like a beached whale. It produced a good chuckle from myself and then a number of boos from the other 700 or so people there when they realized it had turned into a double.
Defensive Play #4 – what I’ve been waiting for the last three days. A BUNT. And it was not pretty folks, it was a pretty hard hit bunt too that he didn’t have to rush. But he did and the only piece of the ball he got was maybe the tip of his fingers. He really just could not get down for the ball again, and an E5 was the result. Actually the gameday guy probably got a call after the game from the Braves FO to change this to just a bunt single so his stats don’t look so bad because the error was up on the scoreboard the whole game. But wow, this was 100% an error and don’t believe the evil official scorers for one second.

Summary: Very impressive offensive night with 3 hits, (one being a homer), and 4 driven in. But his defense right now is just awful, I mean awful. He cannot bend down to get to balls even if he does get to them, which is a challenge unto itself.

Freeman

At Bat #1 – hit a HR distance foul down the right field line maybe by 10 feet early in the count. Then smoked an RBI double in between center and right.
At Bat #2 – inside out swing that produce a hard tailing away fliner that eventually tailed into the left fielder’s glove on the edge of the warning track in left center.
At Bat #3 – 6 pitch walk.
At Bat #4 – ho hum, another well struck single pulled over the second baseman. Stole second on a play where he probably would have been out with a good throw, but took out the second baseman so he had no shot.

Defense – Triple play in the first – caught a liner, sprinted to 1st to beat the runner who was on 1st, and tossed to 2nd for my first ever live TP!, caught everything thrown his way, took charge on an infield fly that no one was sure who was going to get for a little while.

Summary: 2-3 with a walk at the plate. All three balls he hit were really smoked as usual, and two of them resulted in basehits. Drove one in and scored all three times he got on. Defense was solid and made a very aware, quick reacting triple play.

Tomorrow night I may or may not attend the game, and even if I do, I won’t be working so it’s unlikely that I’d have a full report. I may comment on a few plays though if I go.