Slumping Braves arrive in South Philly to face hot Phillies

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Mike Soroka takes mound for opener of key weekend series

The first-place Atlanta Braves (60-43) arrive at Citizens Bank Park for a three-game weekend series with the Philadelphia Phillies (54-48) following a Thursday off-day in the schedule for both clubs.

The Braves are struggling a bit, having dropped six of their last eight games. Meanwhile, the Phillies have come out on top in seven of their last 10 games. They have won five of six games for just the third time all season.

Despite those recent results, Atlanta still maintains control in the NL East Division standings. They are 4.5 games ahead of the second place Washington Nationals, and 5.5 ahead (five in the loss column) of the third place Phillies.

The Phillies will enter this series just one game off the pace in the race for the final NL Wildcard playoff spot. In the Friday night opener, the Phillies will be looking for a fourth straight victory for what would be the fifth time this season. They have not yet won five in a row during all of 2019. They will also be trying to win six of seven for the first time all year.

These two division rivals have already met nine times this year with the Phillies capturing five of those games. When last they met at the start of the month, the Braves took two of three in Atlanta. The hosts scored 21 runs in a pair of blowouts by 9-2 and 12-6 scores in the final two games after an Aaron Nola shutout had given the Phillies a win in that series opener.

Averaging 5.22 runs per game, the Braves are the third-most productive offense in the National League. Their collective OPS of .790 is ranked sixth in all of Major League Baseball. But during this recent eight-game struggle, Atlanta’s offense has averaged only 3.375 runs per game.

The Braves are coming off a 2-0 shutout at the hands of the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday. It was just the third time that Atlanta has been white-washed all year. The last time, after putting up a goose egg against Nola and the Phillies, their hitters broke out with 21 runs over the following two games. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again this time.

Phillies head to Atlanta for key early July series with first-place Braves

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The Freeze will be doing his race thing this weekend in Atlanta

The Philadelphia Phillies (44-40) slumped during the month of June, and watched as the defending NL East Division champion Atlanta Braves (50-35) stormed past them to take over the division lead.

With the calendar flipped to a new month, the Phillies hope to make a clean start. They will try to begin pecking away at the Braves five-game lead in the loss column during a three-game series this week at SunTrust Park in Atlanta.

The two teams have met for two series in the 2019 season’s first half. At Citizens Bank Park in late March, the Phillies swept the Braves, setting the stage for the first two months which saw the Phillies hold the division lead for all but seven days.

In mid-June, Atlanta took two of three games in front of their home fans at SunTrust Park, winning the opener in walkoff fashion and then blowing the doors off the Phillies with a 15-1 thrashing on Father’s Day.

Braves walkoff Phillies in series opener at SunTrust Park

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Brian McCann mobbed at home plate after game-winning hit

The Atlanta Braves (41-29) showed a ton of heart, taking the opening game of a key road series by a 9-8 score on Friday night over the visiting Philadelphia Phillies (38-31) at SunTrust Park.

The Phillies led almost the entire night, and appeared to be on their way to an exhilarating victory. But the Braves never surrendered, battling back every time the Phillies tried to open their lead wider.

In the end, it came down to Atlanta having to overcome a two-run deficit with the Phillies closer on the mound in the bottom of the 9th inning. A closer who was celebrating his 30th birthday, and who hadn’t blown a save opportunity since last May.

The Phillies got on the board first, stringing together three consecutive base hits in the top of the 2nd inning from Jay Bruce, Scott Kingery, and Sean Rodriguez against Atlanta starter Max Fried. But in the bottom of the frame, the Braves got that one right back when Josh Donaldson led off with a solo home run.

The tie didn’t last for long. Bryce Harper ripped his 12th home run of the season, a two-run shot in the top of the 3rd inning, to give the Phillies a 3-1 lead. Kingery made it 4-1 when he led off the top of the 4th with a solo homer, his 8th of the season.

Phillies Nation@PhilliesNation

Harper’s homer is his 12th of the season. He’s an equal opportunity blaster: six vs lefties, six vs righties.

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Phillies visit Braves for a June 2019 first-place showdown series

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Phillies visit SunTrust Park for big series with Braves

The Philadelphia Phillies (38-30) sat alone at the top of the National League East Division standings for seven straight weeks, covering every day from April 25 through last weekend.

Losses in eight of their last 13 games, including three of their four games so far this week, opened the door for the Atlanta Braves (40-29) to make a move.

The Braves took full advantage, winning 10 of their last 12 to surge past the Phillies and into first place in the division. Atlanta is now riding a seven-game winning streak.

The two rivals will meet for the second time this year over the weekend, and the NL East Division lead will be directly on the line. The site will be SunTrust Park in Atlanta this time, after the Phillies swept the Braves out of Citizens Bank Park in the season’s very first series back in late March.

The Braves have performed far better statistically in the 2019 season. Their 5.17 runs-per-game ranks fifth in the National League, while the Phillies 4.87 is the league’s seventh-ranked mark. At the plate, the Braves out-rank the Phillies in OPS (4-9), home runs (5-11), and stolen bases (8-15) in the NL.

On the mound among the 15 NL teams, the Braves out-rank the Phillies in batting average against (7-13) and OPS against (9-13), though Phillies hurlers have a slightly better ERA.

The Phillies just got reliever Edubray Ramos back from the Injured List, and hope to have reliever Pat Neshek and outfielder Roman Quinn back for this series.

This is an early gut-check for the Phillies. Struggling for the last couple of weeks, they now look up in the standings at their weekend hosts. They will have to listen to Braves fans doing the obnoxious ‘Tomahawk Chop’ any time the home team does anything positive. How the Phillies respond to this challenge over the next three days will reveal much about their own collective character.

Rival Braves make big moves to put pressure on Phillies

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The Braves announced Josh Donaldson as one of two free agent signings

If I’ve seen it once then I’ve seen it a hundred times or more as the days roll along in this current MLB off-season. When are the Philadelphia Phillies, publicly self-proclaimed as wanting to spend big and heavily-rumored as a link to most of the big names, going to actually make a move?

Well we don’t have to wonder that same thing about the defending National League East Division champion Atlanta Braves. Already loaded with young talent, the Braves struck twice today to improve their lineup.

First, Atlanta brought back long-time catcher Brian McCann as a free agent. McCann will turn 35-years-old just as he is due to report for the club’s final spring training in Kissimmee. He’ll then join them as the Braves later move to their new spring facilities in North Port, Florida.

McCann slammed 176 home runs during his first run with the Braves from 2005-13. One of baseball’s most dangerous offensive catchers during the 2000’s, he was an NL All-Star for six straight and seven overall seasons and won five Silver Slugger Awards, including four in a row at one point.

In December 2013, McCann signed as a free agent with the New York Yankees. In 2015 he won the AL Silver Slugger Award at catcher.

The Yankees dealt him to Houston in December 2016 for a pair of prospects, and McCann helped the Astros win the first World Series championship in franchise history in 2017. He caught every inning of that Fall Classic as Houston won in seven games over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It is expected that the lefty-swinging McCann will form a LH-RH catching platoon in 2019, teaming with the righty-hitting Tyler Flowers. McCann missed two full months in the middle of this past season after undergoing knee surgery but is said to be 100% ready to go for the 2019 campaign.

Later in the day, the Braves struck again to shore up another weak spot in their lineup. This time Atlanta announced the signing of third baseman Josh Donaldson.

Donaldson will turn 33-years-old in December. He was the American League Most Valuable Player in 2015 as a third baseman with the Toronto Blue Jays after starting his career with the Oakland A’s as a catcher. In addition, he finished among the top 4 in AL MVP voting twice, was an AL All-Star for three straight years, and won a pair of Silver Slugger Awards.

McCann returns to Atlanta, where he was one of the top catchers of the 2000’s.

The Blue Jays dealt Donaldson away to the Cleveland Indians this past August 31, enabling him to be placed on the Tribe’s postseason roster. He would go just 1-11 as the Indians were swept out of the ALDS by Houston.

Like McCann, Donaldson’s 2018 season was injury-marred. He missed three-and-a-half months due to an injured left calf muscle. He appeared to be healthy once activated by Cleveland in mid-September, slashing .280/.400/.520 with three homers and seven RBI over 60 plate appearances in 16 games.

Both McCann and Donaldson are aging veterans who are injury risks playing past their prime. However, the Braves got each on just a one-year contract, so there is no long-term commitment involved.

If either or both play healthy and closer to their career norms it will add just that much more firepower to an already solid Atlanta lineup that includes first baseman Freddie Freeman, three-time Gold Glove center fielder Ender Inciarte, and 2018 NL Rookie of the Year Ronald Acuna.

The Phillies and the rest of the National League East Division are on notice. The defending division champions have every intention of not only repeating, but they intend to improve on their 92 victories registered in the 2018 season.

Originally published at Phillies Nation as "Braves start applying off-season pressure to Phillies and rest of the NL East"

Astros threaten to make a mockery of AL West race

The rampaging Houston Astros are threatening to make a mockery of the American League West Division race, and we're only six weeks into the 2017 Major League Baseball regular season.

The Astros have jumped out to a 25-11 record through games of Friday, May 13. That is the best record in baseball, and leaves the club eight games in front of their nearest divisional rivals.

Since their Saturday afternoon matchup with the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium was rained out, Houston will take that mark into a makeup day-night doubleheader on Sunday.

Part of the equation in building such a huge lead has been that their chief expected challenger for the AL West crown, the in-state rival Texas Rangers, have been decimated by key injuries.

However, that takes nothing away from what Houston has been able to accomplish of their own accord. With 173 runs scored, the Astros are third in the American League. The cumulative pitching staff Batting Average Against is just .226, the best mark in all of baseball.

2016 Winter Meetings: Houston Astros

When the Winter Meetings open in National Harbor, Maryland next week, look for the Houston Astros to be one of the big players in free agent deals, big trades, or both.

A new Collective Bargaining Agreement could soon be announced between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association. If that happens, the Astros could strike even more quickly.

The two biggest free agent names tied to Houston at the moment are a pair of veteran bats, Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Beltran.

Yankees Should Keep on Selling

In the run-up to the 2016 Major League Baseball non-waiver trade deadline the New York Yankees dealt away a pair of premier relief pitchers to help replenish their minor league system.

On July 25, New York dealt Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for a four-player package that included shortstop prospect Gleyber Torres. Then on July 31, the Yanks dealt away Andrew Miller to the Cleveland Indians in exchange for a four-player package that included prospect pitcher Justus Sheffield and outfielder Clint Frazier.

New York then kept wheeling and dealing. They sent away veterans Carlos Beltran and Ivan Nova to the Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates in August. Toward the end of September, lefty reliever Phil Coke was dealt away to the Pirates.

A PAIR OF ICONS RETIRE

On August 7, former All-Star third baseman Alex Rodriguez announced that he was retiring, and played his final game less than a week later.

Also retiring was first baseman Mark Teixeira. ‘Tex’ walked away at age 36 after spending the last eight years of his 14-year career in the Bronx.

The Yankees would finish in fourth place in the AL East Division, nine games behind their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox. They were also five games behind the division rival Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles for an AL Wild Card berth.

The Yanks are trying to get younger while still contending, always a tough task. But they are doing the right thing, and still have a handful of players who the club would be smart to try to trade while they still have real value.