Braves News
Boston Comes Back From 5 Down To Beat Braves
For the first 4 innings of the game, things were looking pretty good for the Braves and pretty rough for the Red Sox, who looked to be well on their way to an 11th straight loss. In fact, the Braves had a Win Expectancy of 96% when the game was 6-1. Then, the Red Sox scored 5 runs off of Ervin Santana with 2 out in the top of the 5th, and following a rain delay, the Sox scored 2 more off of Ian Thomas to go up 8-6 and eventually send a sizeable portion of the fans at the Ted home happy, with the fans of the home team trying to figure out how this team figured out a way to blow a 5-run lead in only 1 inning.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A beautiful <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23MemorialDay&src=hash">#MemorialDay</a> scene at Turner Field. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TroopThanks&src=hash">#TroopThanks</a> <a href="http://t.co/BavfDAre8s">pic.twitter.com/BavfDAre8s</a></p>— MLB (@MLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB/statuses/470991520703586304">May 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Jonny Venters threw a side session on Sunday, and just as he did following the last session that he threw in, the reliever felt pain in his elbow following the session. This is yet another setback for the lefthander, which means that we probably won't be seeing Venters make his long-awaited return to the bullpen in June, at least.
J-Up Is Setting The Ted On Fire
Although there aren't any press boxes on fire like there were in 1993, a Braves player is on fire at home, and that guy is Justin Upton. The AJC's article doesn't go advanced with the stats, so I will: Justin Upton is currently hitting .376/.459/.774 with a .463 BABIP, a .518 wOBA, and 240 wRC+. The Olympics may have been held at the Ted 18 years ago, but the flame lives on in the form of Justin Upton, because the man is on fire at the stadium.
Loe Is Back In The Braves Organization
After being acquired by the Braves in the 2nd half of the 2013 season as an extra bullpen arm and spending the early part of 2014 bouncing between the Giants in Spring and the Royals organization in the regular season, Kameron Loe has found his way back to the Atlanta Braves. Loe will be on a minor league contract and will be pitching for the G-Braves. Although his services were needed in 2013, it appears that he'll probably be organizational depth this season.
League Wide News
Ellis Gets Injured While Celebrating Beckett's No-No
It's happened again: Someone in baseball did something awesome and a guy got injured while celebrating the achievement. A fortnight after coming off the Disabled List, Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis went right back on the DL with a sprained ankle. He suffered the ankle injury by jumping and landing onto discarded catcher's gear as the team celebrated Josh Beckett's no-hitter. At least it wasn't a season-ending injury like in the case of Kendrys Morales, when the former Angels 1B broke his lower leg while celebrating a walk-off grand slam.
Following Another Collapse, Mets Release Valverde
The Mets were up by 1 on the Pirates in the top of the 8th. Then Jose Valverde came in the game. When he came out of the game in the top of the 9th, the Mets were down by 2. This has happened too much for Mets GM Sandy Alderson's liking, and Jose Valverde is no longer a member of the Mets. That's an open-and-shut case there, Watson. Also, they fired their hitting coach, so a couple heads rolled in Queens today.
The Cubs Finally Win A Game For Samardzija
If there's a pitcher in baseball who deserves better from his team, please point him out to me because poor Jeff Samardzija has been going through it this season. It's Memorial Day, and the Cubs' ace who is currently sporting a sparkling ERA and FIP of 1.68 and 2.78 finally got credit for his first win. He went 7 innings and had 10 strikeouts, and also had 3 earned runs. In the past, that would have been a death knell for the Cubbies, but as Al Yellon points out, things were very different on Monday:
Those eight runs [scored by the Cubs against the Giants] were 40 percent of all the runs the Cubs had scored in all of [Samardzija]'s 10 starts this year combined before this one.