Atlanta Braves fall flat in fourth consecutive loss

Note: Tonight’s recap of the game between the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals will the debut offering for our newest staff writer, James Niemeyer. James will be joining us moving forward in full capacity shortly, but without further ado, here are his thoughts on Monday’s contest. 

At this point, the only people watching the Atlanta Braves play are the fans of the opponents and people who write about them.  The on-field product is simply abysmal.  The most entertaining part about the game on Monday night was the odd, backwards K strikeout that led to the ejection of Fredi Gonzalez and Freddie Freeman.

Freeman struck out looking on a ball that was easily 8 inches outside and decided it was the bats fault and turned it into kindling.  As bad as I make it sound, the Braves actually out hit the Nats and made a late flurry in the 9th (ended by a lack of hustle from B.J. Upton), but it was too late for the game and its getting awfully late for the season.

I’d love to give credit to Strasburg for pitching a great game (and he did), but it doesn’t take much to pitch well against this Braves offense. The Braves are 1-7 in their last 8 and have only scored 15 runs in those 8 games. Atlanta did have some chances against Strasburg, but the offense couldn’t get it done, and that is a familiar refrain.

Jason Heyward lead off the 5th with a single and made it all the way around to 3rd on a Strasburg pick-off throwing error, but he would advance no further.  It was a pretty accurate snapshot of the season as they continue to get runners in scoring position with less than 2 outs and fail to score them. It’s hard to watch.

It appears that Frank Wren is locked in with the players that he has on the field now, and if that’s the case, we should start with adding number 10 (if willing) to the manage the hitters.  You can’t continue doing the same thing over and over and expect different results but that’s all next year. With 12 games left in this campaign, the only saving grace is that we still have 4 games left against the Pirates. At this point, it looks like the Braves need a sweep, but I don’t like our chances.