Reynaldo Lopez's Shoulder, an Offensive Eruption, and an Atlanta Braves Mailbag

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to episode 79 of the hammer territory podcast I am your host Brad Roland coming to you on a Tuesday evening a day before we often do this podcast together and I'm joined by Scott Coleman and Scott we threw out the rundown for a couple different reasons one of which is not so not so good the other one was a much more positive blowout win on this Tuesday how are you feeling this evening hey Brad in some ways it's very fitting that on the night the Braves win a baseball game 12 to nothing which was their largest margin of Victory all season long they also saw one of their top starting pitchers go down with a shello a shoulder injury stay hot and it's just man I think we're all holding our breath for Ronaldo Lopez but for a team that has been so starved for offense lately the fact they were able to put up 12 runs and win a very Breezy game on Tuesday night after a pretty disastrous and frustrating Monday night loss it has to feel good and hopefully this is a sign of things to come for sure and you and I talked we should plug this now at top of the show you and I did a podcast on Sunday evening so about 48 hours ago as we're talking right now that's still relevant and um worth listening to at this point in time we are also part of f territory so check out the entire network of podcasts please subscribe to this show if you're a new listener just finding us now for the stretch run and hopefully what becomes a playoff run of some kind go ahead and subscribe on Apple on Spotify on YouTube is a good P to push that out as well tell your friends tell your enemies family members Etc we're going to be here all the way through and even into the offseason whatever that happens to be but yeah a lot of stuff going on here and fact we kind of we're probably still going to do this later on in this show actually um we were planning on doing kind of a mailbag today but then we were kind of just pushed into not doing that at the top of the show because of the injury so let's leave with that and I'm glad you brought up the wind to kind of soften it a little bit because it was a nice blowout victory that was a rocking chair kind of win that's been rare this year for the Braves on this Tuesday but ronal Lopez goes down after just one inning of work and that one inning while small sample size did not look very good his velocity was not just a little bit down a lot down he actually averaged 3.6 milph Less on his fast ball where he usually sits and averages like in the mid 95 range he never even reached 94 on any fast ball in the first inning it did not look good to anybody and then as soon as he came out of the game the Braves at least within reasonable time said the official diagnosis is right shoulder tightness so the elbow was what cost him some time earlier this season about three weeks that was kind of a scare ended up not being so bad bad but shoulders are tricky um you know elbow is kind of the most frequent injury for pitchers but the shoulders in sometime in some ways the scariest one um the initial reports as we'll get into in a second are not bad but we're recording this late night Tuesday MRI to come on Wednesday uh what went through your head Scott that's kind of the place to start like where did your mind go was it just another one of those crazy things this season of of a team that's been banged up or were you thinking big picture where did you go when we saw him exit the game yeah I think in the moment I tweeted out the season from Hell continues and it kind of felt like that because if there is one thing that this organization has really suffered from in recent years it's that the starting rotation has seemingly come on hard times with injuries in September and lo and behold Ronaldo goes out there and I mean honestly I thought the radar gun was busted or something like that I think the first pitch of the game was 89 miles an hour and it was like uh oh that that's I will admit by the way I will admit this uh I missed the start I actually had it on DVR I actually saw Stevens screenshot our our colleague stepen tolbert's screenshot of the velocity and I was like uh what and I went back and watched and he' already come out of the game I went back and watched and it didn't look good and it by all accounts it wasn't like a technical issue like he just anytime you see that kind of velocity drop look some guys sometimes guys lose a mile per hour or maybe even two in a start and it's like all right right that's not great but it's September guys are tired Etc when you're sitting four or five M miles an hour down and your first pitch like you said was sub 90 with a fast ball that is uh eyebrow raising to say the least yeah and you know if you're looking for maybe a glass half full or reason for optimism after the visit on the mound Ronaldo did throw a couple of balls I think 93 he got a 94 mph fast ball for strike three to get out of the jam in the first inning and according to Friend of the podcast Justin Tuscano of the AJC he said that after the game raldo seem to be in decent spirits and based on what Brian snitker said we at least know on this we we believe that this is not going to be a catastrophic thing I we I don't know that we no one knows it at this point maybe we'll have some more clarity on Wednesday but to me anytime you have a shoulder injury for a pitcher it is always a concern to clear I I guess there was a little bit of relief that it was not the same elbow that was hurting him about a month ago anytime you're talking about a shoulder or an elbow injury for a pitcher of course there's some concern but maybe the fact that it's not that same elbow is a little bit of reason for optimism and we're just going to have to hold our breath on the MRI on that shoulder because we have seen firsthand I mean Kyle Wright Ian Anderson others have had to deal with shoulder injures over the past couple years and they can be really tricky to come back from if there is something wrong structurally I think you just want to talk about Kyle r on the podcast for all time sake that that quote 20 yeah 21 game winner Kyle Wright the I hope Kyle's Health cooperates because uh he had a great story and maybe it won't be with the Braves but I am sure that Kyle Wright listens to all of our podcasts and uh hey Kyle hope you're doing well yeah the only time that you and I ever talk about pitcher wins is when K right comes up because it's a good data point for him that's right when it supports yeah when it supports my initial argument you love the win that's right uh all joking aside though I mean Lopez being up upbeat relatively speaking is good the MRI is the big thing and we will not have that result until tomorrow so um hold your breath until then that's kind of always our messaging when this stuff is kind of looming in the air it's can't do anything about it it just it is what it is snit was kind of non-committal too he did reference to Velocity but seemed like was checking out okay as was the quote from Snicker so um at least it's not a disaster like we could have come on here we waited to record the podcast until they talked after the game simply because there could have been a initial like this is really bad diagnosis and that isn't the case so that's positive if nothing else but and we'll get into it later uh in our next discussion about what happened on Monday and Tuesday but the Braves are set up better than most teams would be for this kind of loss if he is out for a few weeks I mean the timing is brutal because is September and you a few weeks is the season in some respects but the Braves do have uh a better three four five than most teams do Charlie Morton for all of his uh shortcomings and his um relative you know unsex at this point in his career is an overqualified fifth starter in a lot of ways so they're okay there but at the same time Lopez has been awesome this year we we praised him a lot for good reason that's been a great signing and you just have to hope that he's um okay and ready to go for the stretch run because the margin of error is zero Hey ft fam it's Alana Rizo I can't stop talking about vori vori is perfect if you are sick and tired of traditional old workout gear I wear vori in all settings not just in the gym because honestly it's comfier than whatever you're currently wearing no joke I'm wearing bori daily leggings right now they're high-waisted with the drawring and cuffed ankles they look good and they feel great you're going to love them viori is an investment in your happiness for our listeners they are offering 20% off your first purchase get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at vi.com that's V ri.com fou not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase but enjoy free shipping on any us orders over $75 and free returns go to vi.com and discover the versatility of viori clothing well and all of a sudden I we talked the other night about how seemingly every night that Spencer schwellenbach makes a start it's the biggest start of his career well if the Braves are not going to have Ronaldo Lopez down the stretch and presumably even in the playoffs should that situation arise then you're really going to need to lean on schwellenbach you're going to need to continue to hope that Charlie Morton continues to pitch really well and I don't know what they would do Brett I mean they have AJ Smith Scher they have Ian Anderson they have Bryce Elder who would be a distant third I think for me but you at least have three capable arms at varying degrees and none of them can come up and be expected to be Ronaldo Lopez but at least you do have some depth where you're not suddenly having to throw I don't know an an allen wiins to make starts or you know one of those types of Darius Vines um you know no no hate towards those guys but they're just not they're not ready to make SE September starts and potentially even October Bullpen appearances or whatever the situation might be you just have to hope that Ronaldo's fine and even if he is injured it is not necessarily a death blow to this team it's not and we will save some of this reaction and hopefully we won't have to give it if the news is good and he's able to go this will be moot but you're right um you know and also because it's so late it's kind of double-edged Sword if it's an injury that is a couple weeks he'll be gone but also it's only a couple of starts you have to navigate because once you get in the playoffs it's four guys you need at the most to start games um three in that first series the Braves are going to be in the Wild Card series if they get there it's only three game series Etc I know that no one including me even as the Charlie Morton guy I'm not terribly enthused about a Charlie Morton playoff start but again it's a it's a problem that the Braves would have but not one that is like totally unmanageable and we'll uh talk about that in fact right now because uh Morton was the only good thing about Monday's game uh we can choose to pass over the offensive disaster and it was arguably the worst performance of the season from the offense I'll ask that question to you in a second but I'm choosing to be positive right now for a moment Scott mtn's been pretty good in recent days and I know I am uh predisposed to liking Charlie more than everybody else seems to but he's now thrown pretty well in six straight starts including a one run performance on Monday how are you feeling objectively speaking don't spare my feelings on the podcast Scott where are you at on the Charlie experience on September 10th yeah I mean I'm going to give you credit Brad because maybe six weeks ago I came on the show and and said that father time had come for Charlie Morton you buried him you buried him on the podcast it happened I'm kidding I mean you did it and by the way I think it was somewhat Justified even if I was gonna take the other side there was a stretch for Charlie that was really bad and you know I think I think a lot of folks were thinking okay is you know is this a hell of her career 40 years old and you know World Series champion multiple times blah blah blah um you know but Charlie's been awesome and you pulled the number here but over Charlie's last six starts which is 34 Innings 43 strikeouts and a 2.88 ER for Charlie Morton that's very good especially the strikeouts is particularly interesting because if Chuck has that strikeout working I I do think there's a world where he could make a potential postseason start should it come to that if he continues to strike batters out that is of course such a weapon to have in a playoff series where not even just runs but base runners are at a premium so credit to Charlie he has really turned it on in the second half of the season and even as the offense has wavered more times than not Charlie has given the Braves a chance to win every single time he goes out there and that's I mean you mentioned that he is effectively their number five starter I mean that that's really impressive and a luxury that basically no other teams have right even putting away my kind of bit about Charlie I do think that I I believe this and it's backed up by the numbers that um you may not argue he's the best fifth starter in the league but he is certainly on a very short list of if you compiled every team's number five starter he would probably be number one for me and certainly in the top two or three so it's a good guy to have there uh we'll leave it there hopefully he won't become you this high-profile guy yeah I I think that it would not be comfortable for anyone if you threw him in a playoff game but if you did it so with a short leash you can kind of monitor what he has when he does it because I will say about Charlie there are times where he has it and he looks like old Charlie and then you can kind of tell when he doesn't have it and he's not missing bats I will say it's kind of funny uh it was not his fault in any way they lost the game on Monday because they just couldn't score runs but um I thought it was deeply ironic for our podcast that the only Runner that scored was hit by Charlie by pitch yeah on brand on brand to the end it is not America's favorite game when it ends up being the game-winning run let me ask you Brad and I think I know your answer and I think most people listening would share the same answer but I am curious if game three of the Wild Card round was tomorrow would you start Charlie Morton or would you start Spencer schwellenbach oh man uh it's funny because we had we got a mailbag question that we kind of were gonna throw out about a game three starter because it was we got it before Lopez's injury and it was basically going to be Lopez versus swen moach uh I think you have to go to Spencer if he looks like he's looked for the last couple of months um and I say that as the Morton guy um I do think that there is three weeks left and Spencer was not his best in his last start and maybe he hits a wall that's definitely possible Charlie's also a thousand years old but um provided that they don't know anything that we don't know about special schen box slowing down or being worried about him he's been the better pitcher so I think you go with him I think you got to have a plan behind him because he's a he'd be a young guy making his first playoff start you got to be ready for him to have his best stuff but um even as resident Morton guy it's still schw for me yeah okay yeah I mean that's the way I was leaning I think most folks would feel that way but hey we all are very bullish on swollen boach but if if his next three starts go poorly and the Braves still find themselves in the post I mean it then it is at least a conversation and at least I mean let's hope that Ronaldo Lopez is fine you know maybe they maybe they skip his next start just to be safe and or what ever the prognosis is but it is a conversation worth having as there are I think 17 baseball games left in the regular season we are very yeah we're very closely getting to October yeah and hopefully October matters for this team which is uh for for not a lock unfortunately for anybody involved um we talked around it we don't have to dwell on it but it was really brutal offensively on Monday they got two hits both were singles by Matt Olson who's been pretty good lately and got one walk from Marcel Zuna and while Nick Martinez is having a pretty good year um my note was that he's not Zack Wheeler so it was one of the worst we don't have to litigate the worst but one of the worst performances of the Season offensively it was their 10th shut out of the year we'll come back to in our mailback portion of the podcast but uh there's been a lot of consternation about the lineup and we'll tackle that but I thought it was also deeply I don't know if funny is the word that they followed up their maybe worst showing of the Season offensively with with one of their best with 12 runs on Tuesday 12 nothing they scored 10 runs in four games coming into Tuesday and then they scored 10 runs in four Innings on Tuesday yeah incredibly on brand for this team which seemingly nobody can figure out yeah I mean I had I had Monday Night Football on the television and I had the Braves on the iPad on Monday night and thank God there was something else to occupy my mind and my thoughts because I mean just talk about a pathetic showing offensively on Monday especially after you had all of the highs and the emotion of that comeback walk-off win on Sunday afternoon what do you do but you follow it up with probably the worst showing of the Season maybe at least bottom three and the fact that we we probably can't even distinguish what is the worst showing of the last couple of weeks probably says quite a bit about the current state of the lineup yeah they had this one hit game against Boston back in June but uh the fact that they have so many options to discuss For Worse performance is not what you want to see um but again to dwell in the more positive briefly before we get to some mailback questions um explosions really all around eruptions whichever one word you want to use on Tuesday big game for Michael Harris two home runs uh sha Murphy hits a home run arcia hits a home run a bunch of doubles from Solair and olssen and laurano Etc um and obviously Lopez leaving the game leaves a stink that they would probably trade in a second if they be able to save 10 runs for tomorrow they would have done it but they ALS it also gave them the luxury and it's not it's not you could argue it's a small thing but it's not that small of a thing that when you lose your starting pitcher in the first inning and you can navigate that game without burning your Bullpen it is a great sign and they got eight combined innings from their three I don't want to say worst but worst objectively pitchers on the roster and did so but to their credit they they pitch great that's that's also helpful but being up 12 nothing makes it to where you don't have to worry about at all getting someone like a glacius or jenz up at the bu oh tonight's win was huge for for many reasons I mean the offense was one thing but you're absolutely right the fact that you could cover nine innings well eight Innings with Jesse Chavez John breia and Luke Jackson and never have to sweat is like no small thing because there's there's a world where the Braves score two runs again tonight and Brian Snider has to go to his big four to cover the last few Innings so blowout wins and to a lesser degree blowout losses but especially blowout wins are very very important over the course of 162 games it gives everybody a breather it was a very rare one of these for the Braves I mean you could probably count on I mean you could definitively count on one hand the number of these kinds of Victories the Braves have had in the second half of the Season where everybody just kind of packs it in and and just walks to a victory so the fact that the offense showed up was great the fact that the bullpen picked up and injured teammate was huge in many ways it was just a very easy breezy win and for the offense to score 10 runs in the first four innings was I mean it was almost like Am I Dreaming am I you know is this real because it has been a sight for sore eyes to see the team put up crooked numbers not just in one inning but multiple Innings at a time okay Scott let's go to the mailbag unless you have some extended thoughts on Tuesday and uh and Monday's games and I don't think you do I think we're probably out of we we could go deeper but we we don't have to on today's podcast uh do you want to talk about the underachieving lineup question we got because it's one we could probably spend an hour on we'll try not to do that but I got a pretty interesting question actually came to me so apologies um to everyone for answering my own question but it came from Ian a listener to the podcast who said can you elaborate on what you said meaning me about all the lineup underachieving other than Ozuna this season it feels like a one in a million chance for that to happen season to season and for some context before I give it to Scott what I tweeted was and I I mean this and I've said it on the show I think at some point in recent days but that Marcel Ozuna is quite literally the only regular opening day player like projected member of the core team this year on offense who has met what I would say reasonable projections for that player were coming into the season I did give the caveat on Twitter but I'll do it again now that I did not include Travis darno because he's technically the backup catcher although he definitely would qualify here if you want to include him then that's fine Shon Travis very very good player best back catcher in the league probably but I wasn't including him but number one before we dive into this Scott am I do you think I'm right about this or do you want to disagree with anybody no I mean I agree with you wholeheartedly and I think baseball just kind of naturally is a a sport that has a lot of variance year-over-year and it's a pretty fine margin for what constitutes a okay season vers a good season versus a great season sometimes it can come down to you know literally fractions of a millimeter of hitting a baseball One Direction or the other and instead of a warning track fly out it's a three-run homer and it's same thing for relievers right you you have two bad appearances over the course of an entire season it can completely skew your numbers and so on and so forth but um yes in terms of basically everyone in this lineup other than Marcelo Zuna struggling significantly from their career Norms it it does feel like kind of a one in a million situation yeah it's wild I pulled these numbers before the game tonight so they would have changed a little bit probably in the positive direction which is good um but ozuna's actually been better this year than last year he was really good last year too so that's been awesome hat tip to him really good year um I would say Riley has been the closest to being his normal self but even that it was a slow start and he got picked it up that he got hurt and by the way a lot of these guys have been injured too we spent a lot of time I know both of us and also Stephen and Sean I've just said this but just to for any new listeners they've also had injuries it's injury and not injury or but injury and underperformance so I'm not ignoring one when I highlight the other but it's it's both for instance like Ronald aunia has been out for a long time he also was not Ronald aunia before he went down he was a good player but not a MVP candidate Matt Olsson has been good lately but still for the season well below what you would have projected Shawn Murphy well below ozie hurt and well below same with Murphy by the way Michael Harris hurt and well below expectations I won't give all the numbers because it's a podcast but arcia all these guys are 15 20 30 40 50 points of WRC plus lower than they were last year and yes you could turn around and say last year was an outlier but honestly this year is a bigger outlier than last year in my opinion does that sound crazy to you because I don't I don't think think that it is I think this year and granted last year's offense was arguably by the Numbers only the best offense in the history of Major League Baseball which is crazy to say out loud but the numbers did support that or at least on the very short list and yet this year is pretty clearly the outlier for most of these guys not just not compared to last year but compared to their career baselines even guys who like I have argued that yeah aunia and Olsen and we said this this winter on our on our old podcast got a lot of guys we would have projected to be a little bit worse than last year aunia Olsen among them that's fair regression was probably going to be coming for those guys but not this this is this is an outlier it just is yeah it is and yes last year was like a 99th percentile outcome for the offense as a whole it was historic everybody had anywhere from a good to a career best season and you can't expect that from your we'll call it the Big 10 hitters for the Braves they're eight position players you have darno and then Ozuna you cannot expect your 10 top hitters to all have career years every single year and maybe that happened last season but I think the point is is that if I asked you coming into the season for these 10 players how many of them are going to exceed expectations how many are going to meet expectations and how many of them are going to to fail to meet expectations I I think logic and reasoning would would be like a third a third and a third right like three guys exceed expectations have great years three of them are ho hum and they do what they usually do and then three of them fall short for whatever reason maybe it's injury maybe it's maybe it's bad luck maybe it's their swing gets out of whack mechanically who knows but the fact that last year basically all 10 of those hitters had career best seasons including the MVP who has missed 80% of the year and a fourth place finisher in MVP is Matt olssen is having maybe his worst offensive year of his career you add those you add in the injuries you add in I mean Shawn Murphy looks lost at the plate I know he had the home run tonight but I mean Shawn Murphy was a really good hitter in his final couple years with the Oakland A and even at times last year and he looks bad aie alz is having a down year I mean you go down the list I don't think anyone could have realistically expected the Braves to repeat what they did a year ago but the idea that basically everyone other than Marcelo Zuna and maybe Travis darno have significantly failed to meet expectations is something I would have never projected and even the most pessimistic Braves fan probably wouldn't have expected yeah no one could project this and the one thing that I would push back a little bit to what you said is I I really think that last year this is old news of course but I think I really think last year the biggest thing about last season wasn't that everyone had career years like there were guys in the lineup that had good Seasons that that were not their absolute best for instance like Michael Harris orando rcia actually had better years the previous year for instance the real thing about last year's team sneakily beyond the top level of aunia and Olsen being MVP candidates was that there was no one that had a bad year and that's what you can't project to your point to two you know last year that was the outlier for me this year the outlier is everybody going the other way you would expect some balance there but even compared to like just to be putting this out there I we're not really comparing this year to last year exclusively like it's it's good to use that as a data point but like I pulled these Zips projections which are really the ones that I like the most from Dam zorski at Fan graphs preseason projections they bake in everything not just last year they break in history age all these things and again every single one of these guys every single one is significantly below their projection not just last year their objective non-biased projection they're below it every single one of them other than Ozuna and darno and that just you know what what are you supposed to do I'm I'm shrugging as we're talking people can't see me that I'm shrugging yeah man it if anyone knows like if anyone definitively knows in a scientific lab and figure out what on Earth is plaguing basically every hitter in this lineup please tell us because it has been yeah it has been so on a nightly basis it has been so frustrating to watch not only because of the production but because a year ago and even prior to that where there were a lot of same players in the lineup in 2022 2021 we know how good this team has been offensively over the years and to be in this situation now where if you cherry pick your dates like this has legitimately been a bottom three offense in a lot of categories since parts of May and June and again even the most pessimistic Braves fan on the planet I don't think would have told you this was going to be coming back in March and April as the season began definitely not and if I was writing this instead of talking about it I would throw a lot more just data out there it's hard to do in podcast form but um I will shout out Ivan who works over at battery power um has been tracking this all year long about how the Braves have been both bad and frustrating and also unlucky and people have sometimes have a hard time separating those two things like they think if you say that a team is unlucky that means that you're excusing it which I'm not doing you can be both bad and unlucky you can be you can have bad approach and also be unlucky it's possible to do both and the brace have done that this year so that's just magnified it it's made it worse I mean it they still be performing based on just approach stuff and like the raw data the expected stats all that all the nerdy stuff at statcast they're still below where they probably should be but it's been magnified by the by the lack of Good Fortune which which I know trust me I know that nobody wants to hear that I promise you I understand that it's just kind of my job to kind of stay levelheaded and be like by the way unlucky too on top of everything else right I mean I I know folks some folks have questions about stat cast and yeah it's fine yeah toally I get it not everyone has to love every new you know saber metrics used to be like the buzzword in Major League Baseball about a decade ago um you know I I'm sure we have listeners who eat up every single stat that Fang graphs and baseball Savant provide and I'm sure we have listeners who are old school and like batting average and in the more traditional stats and that's fine man that that's I think one of the coolest things about baseball is there are so many ways to enjoy the game and to evaluate players and when you talk about this Braves team and and this is kind of a great segue into our next mailbag question yep I wonder behind closed doors and behind the scenes if there is something organizationally that is causing these players to have issues across the board because just even with the randomness of baseball in the year-over-year variance it's hard for me to believe that all of these very established professional hitters are all having really bad Seasons all at the same time and frankly all of their issues are a pretty similar across the board yeah so this is where it gets interesting because we got a question that you segue beautifully into from Lewis who just says this is sites are getting fired I don't know how much more of this I can watch if you don't know who that is it's Kevin CER as the hitting coach for the Braves he's been around for a very long time uh I will admit longer than I remembered I looked I looked it up he was hired in October of 2014 so we're coming up on 10 years of Kevin citer being the batting coach for the for the Braves he replaced Greg Walker if you were my age or older you might remember that era but just for reference he's been around longer than Brian Snicker as far as Snick as the manager he was hired under Freddy Gonzalez and was under Freddy for about a year and a half before snit was promoted to to the inter manager title so look what I what I'm not and I know you're not either we're not people that jump to fire soand so when things go wrong you know we've had our quals with Snicker over the years Etc but we're not like the solution is to fire the hidden coach guys but this is one of those Seasons whether he deserves it or not quote unquote I'm using the giant quotes there where when this happens when your team is built to be fantastic offensively and look he should get credit for this too he last year he gets credit because whether it was his fault or not or his credit or not they were Uber Elite last year and he has to get credit for that but the same thing happens this year where yeah there were injuries but when this lineup performs this way for this long people are going to look at the hitting coach yeah and I wonder what what that even says like just hasn't worked at all and the approach stuff I'm not an ex look we we watch a lot of baseball we analyze baseball I'm not a hitting coach I can see I can see some things but I won't purport to be someone who can fix somebody's swing but I will say there have been many many many nights many moments many plate appearances where it's like guys is there a plan here and that's the kind of stuff that will push it P I would say push the focus more toward the approach side and that when the approach side is more in play you're talking about the hitting coach yeah I mean I you took the words out of my mouth there are some nights where I have sat on my couch and watched the game and like said loud to my dog or my wife or whoever will listen to me what are they doing and I think that was something the last couple of years that the Braves seemingly had this great plan in the Batters box every single night some nights they were really aggressive some nights it looked like they were genuinely going out there against a good pitcher just trying to foul off a bunch of pitches to get him out of the game after five innings and it worked because the Braves won 100 plus games in both of the last two years so the fact that they have gone from this offensive Juggernaut to this borderline unwatchable team offensively is I mean it stumps me I I really don't know Brad I mean I I think to answer Lewis's question is Kevin sitzer getting fired I'm going man I mean I don't I don't know to be honest I would say we can't we can't possibly know just to give that caveat like we're not even if we're not on the be I doubt the beat guys know either but we're not in the clubhouse every day we we don't know I we're just G to give our uh semi-educated guess sure say that out loud to me I think in sports there are moments where like everybody in the world knows a coach is getting fired like you know it's week 18 the NFL team has quit and the team is 2 and 14 like everybody knows that coach is getting fired um I I don't man it to to not cop out I would say it is 51% likely that sitzer is back next season but I don't say that with any conviction and frankly the next three weeks and I mean let's say this Brad what if the Braves make the postseason and they win a couple of rounds and the performs pretty well you know but but at the same time to to be on the other end of that argument let's say the Braves continue to not score any runs in the last three weeks of the season and against the Mets which is probably going to determine the playoffs the Braves play New York three games at truest Park the second to last series of the year if the Braves go out and score two runs in those three baseball games mean I it feels to me like the next three weeks will probably decide whether or not sitzer is brought back for 2025 yeah I tend to agree and this is a very very loyal situation where like Brian Snicker is not gonna be someone that's G to be actively trying to fire one of his key lieutenants like that's the rep that snit has and it's what he's earned that Steady Hand has done a lot for the organization um so that's that's part of this too and again it's really hard to do in a vacuum because it would have been insane Scott if we if we put the odds on Kevin CER being fired at the end of the season in March what would the odds have been it would have been ininal yeah 5% 2% I mean nothing so the combination of it would have had to go this bad for it to even be a question and even then we still don't know so I I do tend to agree with you and it sounds like a comp I'm sure about whether it'll happen uh wake me up and ask me in a month is the real answer because I think that that the Braves could erase some of this stuff and it's a results based business if they hit at the right times if they get hot if they keep winning um and make a run of some kind then you know you can credibly look at your roster and your and your coaching staff and be like all right no changes and again I believe he's their longest 10e coach I mean besides snit of course sn's been on on the roster on the organization forever but yeah uh weird situation and one that's hard to answer and we talked around it I know you brought it up and got yelled at before and I I don't think you're crazy at all for bringing it up there's this whole subplot right now as well I don't know if you want to dive into this or not um Chipper Jones gave an interview this week expressed some frustration with the organization it seemed like or the players or maybe it's just about Modern Baseball through the lens of the Braves with Cory clubber he talked to him about that um chipper always comes up in conversations because he for all of Chipper's chipper uh is a base is a hitting Savant always was and he has gotten some credit for fixing guys or tweaking some stuff and he hasn't been around the team um I for one and I'll let you respond I for one think that's that's overblown I do I don't think that the reason the Braves are not hitting this year is because chipper hasn't been around that seems insane to me but it's also fair to be like hey it's a maybe it's a factor like he is he is a genius of a hitter so what do you think about that whole situation it's it's a subplot but it's something it's worth talking about yeah and if folks miss this chipper was on Cory cubber's podcast and I believe it's on YouTube as well just talking about offense in general and I you know the first couple minutes I kind of it sounded very JN Smoltz like where chipper was just like completely crapping on everything about Modern Baseball oh yeah there was a lot of that in there yeah there was and I get it man like these guy J Jon Smoltz Chipper Jones played in a different era they are phenomenal baseball players and I think they're really sharp baseball Minds even if they don't necessarily agree with what the Braves preach and chipper talked about that and the fact that organizationally Alex anthopolos and team really praise slugging and getting on base and chipper had some interesting comments about situational hitting and Bunting and it it is worth a listen to be sure I think my takeaway is I absolutely love every time Chipper Jones is around the Braves I would trust him with any hitter on this team truly like if if anyone's in a slump go talk to chipper hell bring in Chipper Jones's dad who's apparently like a hitting coach genius as well I think Freddy Freeman talked about Chipper's dad helping him out one time but at the same time man I mean I I love chipper I wish he was around but the idea that chipper not being around the team is the reason they have gone from a historic offense to this very painful to watch offense I I mean I just don't think that is the common denominator here yeah and this is almost like our third and probably final mailback question for the day is like we got a lot of questions about chipper uh and this offshoot of the podcast and all that stuff and I do think it's interesting he's obviously a Hall of Famer and a huge name and um I would be interested to get true serum on the brave side of what they think about chipper saying what he said on this podcast and U what that relationships like right now but uh yeah it's just interesting especially in the midst of this conversation about citer and the conversation about their offense not being very good for a long period of time now and all that all that stuff has rolled into one but uh we didn't fix everything on this podcast Scot but we did uh manage to answer some questions and talk about the offense in a more comprehensive fashion like I said before we were gonna do a lot of mailbag and then Lopez got heard and we kind of had a pivot but hopefully that was that was good enough for today to satisfy that we do light mab question so if you want to ever send any in you can do so especially via Twitter SLX we're at Hammer territory as a podcast we're also individually on there I at BT Rolland Scott is at Scott col 55 also Sean and Stephen are active on Twitter SLX as well and we also have an email address if anybody ever wants to use it it's Hammer territory gmail.com Scott before we sign off do you want have any thoughts on the almost want to call it a finale I guess it's a now because it's the last game against the Nats all season long on Wednesday night yeah you know for a club the Braves have really struggled against this season let's hope that the Braves can go out there and sweep this mini two game series in Washington Max freed is gonna be out there Max has been really really good lately and he'll be opposed by Jake Irvin who has been awesome against the Braves in recent starts although Irvin has been pretty bad otherwise maybe that's not a giant shock but you win this big game on Tuesday night let's hope they get good news on Ronaldo's shoulder if you can win on Wednesday then you're off on Thursday and come right back home for a very important four game series with the Dodgers so let us all hope the Braves can take care of business on Wednesday night keep the momentum rolling especially on the night when the Mets lost and are playing a blue jays team that's still fighting as we saw over the weekend let's hope the Braves can keep the momentum and then get ready for a talented even if injured quite a bit Dodgers team for I mean man four games at home against La is about as important of a series as the Braves are going to play this month you're right about that for sure and to back you up Jake irvan three STS against the Braves this year 17 in the third Innings 1.04 yay so he has been uh ace likee against Atlanta and pretty midling against everybody else but we will see uh what happens when Wednesday Wednesday I I will still say objectively speaking freed versus irvan is an advantage to the Braves so we'll Circle that maybe maybe I'll sound crazy a day from now but I will uh I will stand on that for now all right we'll have more coming up later on this week on the podcast I believe our friends Stephen and Sean have plenty to add to the discussion in between uh appearances from us you and I will are scheduled to be back at some point over the weekend to discuss part of the Dodger series but uh one more time got anything to share before we sign off today nothing to share I hope everybody out there is doing well and we always do we sincerely mean it when we say we appreciate all the support for the show take care everybody and uh yeah we'll have plenty of shows coming on the feed this week that's right please subscribe one more time one more plea from us to smash that subscribe button on Apple on Spotify multiple times if you want to uh overcast Amazon music I believe we're on there we're now on YouTube if you want to find us there ratings and reviews very much appreciated follow us across social media Twitter Instagram Facebook Etc Hammer territory thank you so much for listening to the podcast today stay tuned for more this week and we'll see you all next time