The Crane Pool Forum

Mets head to Atlanta and their crumbling and ancient 2-year old park for a big (?!) yes, big! 4-game set starting tonight against the 7-4, tied-for-first Braves.

We line up Matz-Wheeler-Vargas-deGrom. Braves.com only confirms one-time Oriole prospect Kevin Gausman as tonight's starter, the others are currently listed as TBD as they were rained out last night and probably trying to figure out how/if to shuffle. Gausman has had only 1 start and he shut out the Marlins over 7 innings. Tonight, he'll face a real offense. Other dudes in the rotation we are likely to see include old foe Julio Teheran, Kyle Wright (their #1 pitching prospect), and lefty Sean Newcomb, another highly thought-of young arm.

Their lineup should look mostly like this:

Ender Inciarte CF
Josh Donaldson 3B
Freedie Freeman 1B
Ronald Acuña Jr LF
Nick Markakis RF
Dansby Swanson SS
Ozzie Albies 2B
Tyler Flowers C

Freeman is being Freddie Freeman and hitting a cool .400 with a 1.095 OPS.

Young studs Acuña and Albies are off to slow starts, as are old studs Donaldson and Inciarte. Donaldson signed a 1-year $20-something million dollar deal, so he'll be allowed to suck for a good while, I imagine. Lets hope that continues through the weekend.

I see a couple of bloated ERAs in their bullpen, so maybe they've been as shoddy as we've been. Closing duties are supposed to be shared by righty Aroldis Vizcaino and lefty AJ Minter.

Note: Dansby Swanson is not the name of a woman Marlon Brando is trying to bed in a Street Care Named Desire, nor is it the name of a fancy cocktail you order at the Kentucky Derby. Dansby Swanson is a baseballer for the Braves.

Now you know thine enemy. Let's kick the asses of thine enemy.

Wow, a KTE, it's like seeing a classic car with fins. Nice work bruddah.

Is the KTE a long dead thing? I need to pay some attention round here.

What in-division KTE morphed into in recent years was sort of a year-long thread on each of the four teams with new info getting thrown into there whenever a new series came up - as opposed to six separate KTEs, sometimes only a week apart depending on the schedule.
The out of division KTE are the ones that fell by the wayside which is kind of a shame as those are often the ones we need most of all.



Braves are one of three NL East teams sitting at 7-4, although they got there after getting swept in their three-game opening series by Philly.
So they're 7-1 since vs the likes of the Cubs (3-0), Marlins (2-1) and Rox (2-0 then a snow-out on Wednesday)


This series:
Gausman vs Matz - 7:20 Braves moved their starting times up to 7:20 from last year's 7:35 (still the latest of any team) at least partially as a nod to Atlanta traffic even though the team is now some 20 miles outside the city
Friday: Wheeler vs TBD - 7:20
Saturday: Vargas vs TBD - 7:20
Sunday: deGrom vs TBD - 7:00 as ESPN moved their SNB telecasts (the only baseball games played that they really care about) an hour earlier, at least partially as a nod towards combatting late arrivals for the next series

The 'TBD's for Atlanta pitchers is probably uncertainly following Wednesday's snow-out in Denver. Rookie Kyle Wright has followed Gasuman so far this season but they might use the extra off day to skip him and go with:
Sean Newcomb, Julio Teheran, and Max Fried for the remainder of the series. Or, if they stay with Wright then we'll likely miss Fried on the back end.

Wright is a 23 y/o rookie and a former #5 overall draft pick (2017 out of Vanderbilt U) who made the team out of ST after just 4 relief appearances last season.
Two starts this season: 5 runs on 7 hits over 10.1 IP 12 BBs in those 10+ innings has been his problem vs 13 Ks
Newcomb has had two good starts in '19; Teheran 1 good but 2 bad; Gausman's been pretty good since being dealt to the Braves from the Orioles at the deadline last summer:2.57 ERA in 10 starts in '18 + 1 so far this year.

Fried (7th overall draft pick in 2012 by the Padres from a California HS); Gausman (4th, 2012, Orioles, LSU); and Wright (5th, 2017, Braves) are all not only 1st round draft picks but all top-10 guys
to go along with Newcomb who was taken 15th overall by Anaheim in 2014 out of U of Hartford

Hot damn, Ozzie Albies just signed an extension for $5M a season. For real. 7 years, $35M plus 2 club options ($7M each). I wonder if he'll be happy or pissed tonight.

They gave Acuna $100 million only a week or so ago to buy out all his arb years and into FA-gency
Both guys are only like 15 years old..

Ozzie is 22 and pretty well established. That deal is crazy friendly for ATL.

Braves closer Adroys Vizcaino: out for the season.

He pitched four times in the opening week but had already been DIL'd by the time we faced them last weekend.
Apparently they were just awaitin' on the prognosis which turns out to be shoulder labrum surgery with a lengthy recovery period.

Atlanta has already been one of the teams linked to talks with former Brave Craig Kimbrel.