So far in May, we’ve covered a lot of offense. Most recently, we celebrated the anniversaries of some rollicking comebacks, both of which featured 19-run games in which the Braves walked off on their tenth run. Baseball isn’t all offense, though. Sometimes you just get a nice, calm, sub-three-hour game in which there are only a few runs. Not all the time. Just sometimes.
The gist: Russ Ortiz, Chris Reitsma, and John Smoltz combined for a shutout of the Dodgers. The game was fairly tense, as the Braves scored lone runs in the seventh and eighth, and the Dodgers got the tying runs on in the ninth, but tense isn’t the same as dramatic.
Box scores: Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs
The set-up: The Braves were starting slow, coming into this Friday series opener at 18-21, four games out of the NL East lead and in third place. The Dodgers started the season at a blazing 22-10, capped off by a six-game winning streak. But then, something bizarre happened — they immediately followed that spree by losing seven in a row. Luckily for them, they’d gone from three games up to just a share of their division lead.
The Braves would be facing an old mate in this game: Odalis Perez, who had an insane breakout year (4.9 fWAR) immediately after being traded to Los Angeles before the 2002 season, and then followed that up with a less interesting, perfectly adequate (2.2 fWAR) year. The Dodgers would be facing an old rival, Russ Ortiz, whom the Braves had acquired prior to the 2003 season. Perez was on a good run thus far in 2004, with minus stats in the high 80s; Ortiz had a bizarre minus stats slash of 121 ERA-, 96 FIP-, 115 xFIP-. Actually, Ortiz was having a bizarre season altogether, as he had made eight starts, gotten destroyed in three of them, and been really good in the others.
How it happened: It happened mostly peacefully, really. If the Braves were watching Ortiz closely for signs of an impending self-immolation, he really gave some mixed signals. After a one-out single in the first, Ortiz managed to get out of it courtesy of a strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play where Milton Bradley (a family company) got caught looking at strike three while Johnny Estrada threw out fellow catcher Paul LoDuca on the basepaths. After Perez retired the side in order, Perez let the Dodgers load the bases with one out (single, strikeout, single, walk), but then got Alex Cora to hit into a first-pitch 4-6-3 double play. So, through two innings, the Ortiz question was not yet decided.
After Perez mowed through the Braves on seven pitches (groundout, J.D. Drew single, first-pitch 4-6-3 double play off Estrada’s bat), things became perhaps a bit clearer as Ortiz went 1-2-3 for the first time. The Braves wasted a leadoff double in the third as Mark DeRosa got picked off of second base. Perez ended up facing the minimum his first time through the Atlanta order.
Ortiz strung together a second consecutive perfect inning, including back-to-back strikeouts of Bradley and Adrian Beltre, and Perez matched him with another 1-2-3 inning of his own. A two-out walk to Cora was the only blemish in Ortiz’ fifth, but that brought up Perez, who struck out swinging. Perez then exacted his revenge on the Braves with yet another clean inning, striking out Andruw Jones and Drew and then getting Estrada to ground out on the second pitch.
Through this point, Perez had a rocky start and a satisfying follow-up, but the sixth got very uncomfortable. Now facing the Los Angeles order for a third time, Ortiz started the inning with a six-pitch walk to Cesar Izturis. After LoDuca fouled out, Ortiz lost his control and walked Bradley on four pitches. He couldn’t win the battle with Beltre either, walking him to load the bases on the seven pitch. That brought up Shawn Green, not quite the dominant hitter he was in 2001-2002 (148 wRC+), but still a quality bat (118 wRC+ in 2003, 101 coming into this game) and one doing most of his damage against righties. Since you already know this game was a shutout, though, you can probably surmise what happened next: Green hit into a 6-4-3 double play, meaning that Ortiz escaped a three-walk inning during his third trip through the order unscathed. A faster runner may have legged it out, as shortstop Jesse Garcia had to go to his knees to snag the ball and then make a flip on to second, but Green was far from speedy at this point, especially compared to his 1997-2001 span in which he stole double-digit bases each year.
Perez got into the spirit a bit, too, issuing his first walk of the night with one out in the sixth to Nick Green. After Ortiz (batting for himself, for some reason, after a three walk inning, despite being at 96 pitches) struck out, Perez balked Green to second. But, Garcia, hitting leadoff for the Braves, grounded out on the next pitch. Ortiz came back out for the seventh, allowed just a two-out single to Cora, and then struck out Perez again to end his night. There’s a question there about why Perez was allowed to hit for himself in that situation, but I ask these questions in hindsight a lot, and baseball was far less of a bullpen-y game even as semi-recently as 2004.
In any case, maybe the Dodgers would have been better off not letting Perez continue, as the Braves broke through in the very next frame. With one out, Chipper Jones turned around a Perez pitch and sailed it into the left-center gap for a solo homer, opening the scoring. Andruw followed by pulling a pitch into left for a single, and then stole second. With a base open, Perez ended up walking Drew, but recovered to strike out Estrada and get DeRosa on a grounder to end his night.
Both starters had enviable lines. Ortiz threw seven scoreless innings with just nine baserunners total. The concerning part, was, of course, five walks, but he had seven strikeouts. It was his first scoreless outing and second seven-inning outing of the season, though it probably wasn’t as good as an earlier outing in which he had a 7/0 K/BB ratio and allowed a run in 6 2/3. For Perez, who allowed the solo homer and a 6/2 K/BB ratio, it was another strong outing in a very good first half. His season kind of went off the rails in July and August, but was dealing through June.
In any case, the Braves now had a lead, and they turned to Chris Reitsma, who had good run prevention and peripherals yet negative WPA in his first seven weeks or so with his new team. (Reitsma had been acquired in the offseason from the Reds.) Facing the top of the Los Angeles order in a one-run game, though, Reitsma did just fine. He needed just 10 pitches to get through his three batters, getting the first two on groundouts and then striking out Bradley. That was actually Bradley’s hat trick strikeout of the game, and his only other PA so far resulted in a walk.
With Perez gone, the Dodgers turned the ball over to Darren Dreifort. Let’s take a minute here to briefly note Dreifort’s incredibly strange career. He was drafted second overall in 1993 (right behind Alex Rodriguez), and became one of the few players to go straight from the draft to the majors, skipping the minors altogether. He was used in 1994 as a reliever, but then sat out a year due to injuries, and relieved for two more years before transitioning into a starting role. In his first year as a starter, he was great (4.2 fWAR in 180 innings), but then followed that up with two fairly generic years (combined 4.1 fWAR in 372 innings). Despite those two meh seasons, agent Scott Boras was able to convince the Dodgers to give him a really hefty (at the time!) deal of $55 million over five seasons. This backfired horribly in a fairly obvious way — Dreifort was okay when healthy but also pretty injured in his first season after the deal, missed the entire next season, only made 10 starts the season after that, and by the time we got to 2004 (the fourth season of the deal), he was limited to a relief-only role. You kind of feel for the guy, as some counts suggest that he’s had as many as 22 baseball-related surgeries total.
In any case, Dreifort was a fine middle reliever for the Dodgers, but he gave the Braves some unneeded insurance in the eighth. Green led off the inning with a leadoff double, and a pinch-hit bunt from Rafael Furcal (not starting this game) turned into a single that moved him to third. On an 0-2 count, with the infield in, Garcia hit a ball to Izturis at short. The resulting throw home was high, allowing Green to score. Furcal was nabbed trying to take third after Green scored, and right after, Garcia got caught trying to steal second. The eighth really just dragged on from there. Dreifort walked pinch-hitter Julio Franco, and was replaced by Tom Martin (who’d be traded to the Braves later in the year). Martin walked Chipper after an eight-pitch battle, and then departed in favor of Duaner Sanchez, who finally got Andruw to ground out to end the inning.
After the game had momentarily slowed to a crawl, it was time to slam the door. John Smoltz came on, and pretty much did just that. First, he struck out Beltre on three pitches. Green went down on the first pitch, flying out to Chipper in left (yes, Chipper was still in left so DeRosa could play third...). Smoltz then fell behind the next two batters, giving up an infield single to one and a liner to center to the next, putting the tying runs on base. But, Cora hit a routine grounder to second, and that was that. It was the Braves’ second shutout of the year and the second consecutive game in which the Dodgers had failed to score. The Dodgers’ losing streak was now at eight games, their longest since 1992, when they lost ten in a row.
Game MVP: Russ Ortiz, who was masterful in some innings and sequenced his way to great fortune and run prevention in the others.
Game LVP: Shawn Green, who went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and hit into that key inning-ending double play in the sixth.
Biggest play: Chipper’s homer, the only run needed, as it turns out. Apparently, Chipper had had trouble hitting Perez’ changeup, which had fooled him into striking out and flying out earlier in the game. As he recounted after the game, he made a distinct point of moving up in the box to give him a teensy bit more time to get on the changeup before it collapsed, and it worked, as he sussed it out and creamed it.
The game, in context of the season: The Braves improved to 19-21, but their place in the standings didn’t budge — third place, four games back. You probably read this story before in past recaps featuring 2004 — the Braves mostly faffed before reeling off a 40-14 mark in July and August. They went 60-26 in their last 86 games after a 36-40 start. The Dodgers, meanwhile, really scuffled through around June. At one point in late June, they were just two games over .500. But, a 14-1 stretch in July set them up for a division lead they’d never relinquish. They finished with 93 wins, their first playoff appearance since 1996, and their first division title since 1995. They also won their first playoff game since 1988, though they wouldn’t win another playoff series until 2008, 20 years after their ‘88 World Series victory.
The Braves would take this series from the Dodgers, but lose the middle game, allowing Los Angeles to snap their skid.
Perez had a good year, finishing with 2.9 fWAR. Ortiz did not, finishing at 1.6 after three straight years of 2.9 or above. For both pitchers, 2004 was the breakpoint before the end. Ortiz was a free agent at the end of the season, signed with Arizona, and basically lost all effectiveness. From 2005 through 2010, he totaled under 320 innings and compiled -0.4 fWAR. Perez’ decline wasn’t quite so dire, but after a good 2004, he never cleared 1.6 fWAR again. Work ethic and attitude challenges interfered with his on-field production. As a capstone, Perez’ career ended not because he was entirely ineffective, but because he had no interest in vying for a roster spot on a minor league deal.
It was also a bit of a breakpoint for Shawn Green, who finished 2004 with 2.2 fWAR. As his defensive limitations became a greater and greater impediment, his bat, which generally stayed above average, just couldn’t compensate enough. Green’s subsequent, post-2004 fWARs were 1.2, -0.7, and 0.1. He retired after the 2007 season.
This Dodgers team was largely carried by Adrian Beltre (9.3 fWAR in 2004), who went 1-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts in this game, but couldn’t save his team from prolonging their losing skid.
Video? Too old, I think.
Anything else? Mark DeRosa doubled in this game, but came into it with a 32 wRC+. I’ve noted this before, but it’s completely baffling that the Braves gave him the third-base job despite a sub-replacement level season in 2003 and stuck with him for as long as they did. He finished 2004 with a horrific -1.9 fWAR.
Something completely random: Dale Murphy was a guest in the broadcast booth for this game. During the game, he proposed, on air, on behalf of his son Chad. The broadcast then picked up Chad’s call to Dale, letting him (and really, everyone) know that his girlfriend had said yes.
Baseball is dead to me, tell me something else cool about May 21: Literally cool — on this day in 1937, the USSR established the first manned station on Arctic drift ice, with the very uncreative name of “North Pole-1.” (No, they didn’t name it that in English, I’m translating. Still uncreative.) The station operated for nine months. Everyone involved was probably cold.
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