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Atlanta Braves Lose 4-2, Not in the Cards

By John Buhler

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The Atlanta Braves entered Friday night’s series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals a bit shorthanded.  President of Baseball Operations John Hart made the first of potentially many deals before the trade deadline, sending both UT Kelly Johnson and 3B Juan Uribe to the New York Mets for two Minor League pitching prospects.  So Atlanta only had three bench players available this evening.

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Manny Banuelos didn’t have a great start for the Atlanta Braves.  He was consistently up in the zone and over the plate with his fastball and change-up.  Banuelos allowed 4 ER on 6 hits and 3 walks in 5+ innings pitched.  But given the limited resources on the Atlanta bench tonight, Manny had to go a little longer today than he probably should have.  Remember he is on an innings limit coming off Tommy John surgery.

Offensively the Atlanta Braves could only muster 2 runs on 6 hits in their 4-2 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals.  A.J. Pierzynski and Andrelton Simmons both had two hits apiece.  The other two hits belonged to Cameron Maybin and Nick Markakis.  I’ll give the Cardinals pitching staff credit for the win, as they are the best all-around staff in baseball.  But the Atlanta Braves need to find a way to manufacture runs to stay competitive in this road series.

A bright spot this evening for the Atlanta Braves was again the effectiveness of the bullpen, allowing no runs in three innings of work.  Sure, David Aardsma‘s attempted toss to Joey Terdoslavich at first in the sixth inning was ugly.  And I didn’t enjoy Jason Frasor‘s two walks and a hit in 0.1 inning.  But the Braves bullpen managed to put out its own fire tonight to keep the team in the game until the final at bat.

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I understand that John Hart will likely make more trades between now and next Friday, but I feel that today’s trade with the New York Mets really handicapped the options for Fredi Gonzalez tonight.  When he’s got a decent bench to mix and match with, he’s had success.  Today’s trade put a lot of stress on Banuelos to go deeper into the ball game than initially anticipated.

Tomorrow night’s game has the makings of a great pitchers’ duel between 2015 NL All-Stars Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez.  Martinez has the better record on the year, but Miller has the lower ERA.  Expect a low scoring affair in a game that should go down to the wire.  Looking for a win tomorrow, Go Braves!

Next: Julio Teheran: Are The Atlanta Braves Going to Move Him?

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