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No afternoon games...I'm bummed.

Girlfriend is staying over tonight..guess I'm watching Star Wars

Picks to Click-

Hitter- Victor Martinez
Pitcher- Jimmy Nelson

Picks to Brick-

Hitter- Any Mets Hitter (sorry Alan!)
Pitcher- Vince Velasquez

Going to the Braves game tonight (yes, somebody gave me tickets/box/parking pass! ). Seeing Velasquez and Blair. Should be interesting...at least as interesting as any 2016 Braves/Phillies game....

Edwards Kings wrote:Going to the Braves game tonight (yes, somebody gave me tickets/box/parking pass! ). Seeing Velasquez and Blair. Should be interesting...at least as interesting as any 2016 Braves/Phillies game....

Always great to go to the park even if have a terrible team

The moment Yankee fans have been waiting for ... Chase Headley has tied Bartolo Colon in home runs!

Mike

Bronx Yankees wrote:The moment Yankee fans have been waiting for ... Chase Headley has tied Bartolo Colon in home runs!

Mike

Congrats to Yankee fans everywhere

Tonight is bad Ubaldo. Somewhat fortunate to only be down 3-0.

Blair seemed to never get his command going tonight. Without being a big K pitcher, he has to have it.

Wayne - curious to hear your thoughts on Blair. Tonight and the rest of the year.

Wow. Keuchel. Total garbaj.

I believe it's time to recognize Wainwright for what he is. I'm going to have to part ways I do believe.

Philly High Hopes wrote:Blair seemed to never get his command going tonight. Without being a big K pitcher, he has to have it.

Wayne - curious to hear your thoughts on Blair. Tonight and the rest of the year.

Well, the Phillies should be a helluva lot more excited about Velásquez that the Braves should be about Blair. Not that the Braves are necessarily a good measure this year, but Velásquez really seemed to be showing some good "stuff". I was in a box down the right field foul pole, so really seeing the pitches was not an option. However, until the seventh, nobody got anything solid off of Velásquez and the first two times through Markakis, Inciarte, and Freeman, Velásquez struck them out collectively five times. And the bastard seems to run pretty fast too!

On Blair, I like him. Phillies manufactured a run in the first where a walk to Herrera to lead off the first came around to haunt him (stole second, advanced on to third on a single, then scored on sac fly). Gave up a hit to Velásquez in the second on a dribbler but no hard hit balls. Gave up another single in the third that was wiped out by a double play. Only real mistake was to grove something to Galvis in the fourth after walking Howard (i.e. object lesson to the young pitcher as both his walks came around to score...not that walks are good for a batter...walks are bad, very bad, worse thing a batter can do! ).

The Galvis HR ended up right in front of me. I was not amused.

Three things:

1) Not sure if the Braves saw something in the fourth or not, but though the pitch count was high, it was not so high (77). Fredi pulled him and went to the bullpen. And O'Flaherty had been warming up for a while. After three innings Blair had given up the lead off walk and three singles, one of the infield type. Not exactly getting crushed, so the early hook was a bit of a surprise, the Galvis HR notwithstanding.
2) The Braves defense and Aybar in particular SUCK. Did not help Blair or any of the other Braves pitchers much as at times they looked like the Three Stooges from second to third. Aybar was replaced rather early in the game with Castro I think after he went to second to get the lead runner on a routine grounder and the runner beat the ball. Just seemed lackadaisical. Would not surprise me to see the Braves cut bait on him soon. Beckham (who really had the only hard hit ball off Velásquez but it was a smoked double) didn't cover third properly and allowed a runner to advance. Kelly Johnson tried to glove-pitch a ball to Freeman on an infield single and ended up sailing the ball over Freeman's head. The opposite of a clean defense.
3) Again, I could not judge Blairs pitches from my vantage point, but the Phillies (sorry, but another team that is not really a good one to judge a pitcher against) had a couple of decent strokes off him and one (the Galvis HR) really hard one. Supposedly he has a decent FB with movement, a slightly above average curve, and an ok change up. Nothing to blow anyone away and will probably not be a better than average K-source. Middle to end of the rotation type probably. Biggest problem last night within his control was his control. Lots of big counts.

In short, Blair is a decent young pitcher playing on a bad team. His 2016 promises to be uneven at best.