Diaz has hit in eighth, Braves top Cards 2-1

and im also guessing you are yet to hear of ryan franklin. think he is up to 16 innings with 13 k's 3 walks and a 1.10 ERA with only two home runs that i believe were given up in his only blown save and yet he managed to get the win that night

candyman, if you go re-read my comment, i never once talked about how the braves managed to lose, mostly because i was at work and didnt see the game. second nor did i say anything other then who @#$%es about being tied for the best reord in baseball ?? and third I made mention of voting ryan franklin to the all star game. by reading your post i still see that i know way more about baseball then most yahoo readers writers and posters, you make valid points yet they were all not worth mentioning since i said nothing that required you to call me out. sounds like u know a little about the game. however u should try another post and this time stick with what has been said instead of responding about something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything i said

Scoring when it means the victory is what counts.Our team is leading the league in hitting but that didn't show up yesterday.I prefer a guy hitting .298 with 40 clutch hits than a hitting champion with ten.You fans have to be honest.When everything is going fine,every body is happy the hability to analize is usually dull.Even some people believe that is not important if your are not playing well as long as you win.Well, winning is good always but when you are not playing good baseball fundamentals, the problems are going to hit you as soon as "Lady Luck" leaves you.On TLR book, the little things are less important than the long ball.Perhaps those years managing Ron Kittle,Canseco,McGuire,Hendersons(Ricky and Dave)Pujols,Edmonds and other good hitters have led Mr. Larusa to lean on the the hitters power too much and when he faces good pitching and his power hitting is not shown he doesn't recall other ways to adress the fact.He should use his "talent to invent" a little more with the old Knowledge.A lost here and there at the beginning of a season, sometimes means a lot at the end and becomes the difference between watching the post season from a dugout or the stands.

Hey,adam r, the problem with being a fanatic is that you are always looking to the wrong hand when the ilusionist is performing.In the seventh inning Atlanta's manager had the second guy in the line- up bunting to move the runner on first.It was 1-0 St. Louis and they neede a run to tie.Old school: If your team is not hiiting good pitching, go for the little things.(Is call fundamentals)In the eight inning,1-0,St Louis,we put our first hitter on base; next hitter went for the fences as usual.It is a lot easier on a relief pitcher if he is called to defend a two run lead.But no it is very rare to see a Cardinal,beside some pitchers,bunting to move runners.I have say it before : the players win the games and managers sometimes throw them away.Kyle Lohse pitched for a win, and TLR make a bad desicion allowing Mcleland to pitc to Diaz, after he show no command on his pitches.When that happens,the pitcher is forced to take from his pitche and ussually ends up being hurt, a lot of times by a weak hitter.Accept it your gennius manager made a bad move that probably cost the game and don't mention the the team record as an excuse for bad managing in that case.The night before,Larusa was great making the proper changes and even though the lefty Reyes is good pitching to righties,he replace him.There was good managing the game before and lousy managing last night, so cut the crap of the best record in baseball to justify a bad desicion. P.D. Have you notice how often our hitters are called for strikes looking at perfect pitches to be crushed, and strike out or hit poorly, swinging at " pitchers pitches".the opposite teams ussually rip our pitching when, with runners in scoring position, our guys give them balls to punish.And probably another idiot is going to come with the point that the Cardinals as a team are leading the big leagues in hitting.When your team is hitting and your pitchers are performing any manager can win.Is when good desicions have to be done in games that can go either way that a great manager stands up.( Oh Whitey Herzog, how much we miss guys with your wisdom)Go Cards!

"Added St. Louis manager Tony La Russa of McClellan: “'The only thing he did wrong was walk the leadoff man.'" hey tony--what about walking francoeur, who was 1 for 15 the last couple days? was that just good strategy, to push the go-ahead run into scoring position/ And what about you--was it a good move leaving KMac out there after he loaded the bases with walks? hmmm...i guess not

oh, and who @#$%es about being tied for the best record in the majors and ur tied with a team from the god awful NL west. you should be a yahoo sports writer with your weak arguments

st louis fan you have got to be out of your mind. im a braves fan been watching them my whole life, but come on. have u heard of your closer ryan franklin who is 6 for 6 in save oppurtunities with 9 strikeouts and a 0.00 ERA. Im voting for ryan for the all star game if he keeps it up

weaselbaseball.com

St. louis sandlot baseball!

I grew up playing little league with Jo-Jo, and he has always had a cannon on him! Great job man!

Nice pitching Jo-Jo! With just better consistency, he can be a solid #4-5 starter.

Another blown save!!!! Bullpin is a nightmare again! Cardinals could be with only 3lost games if its wasnt for a shotty bullpin!!! this is what! 4 or 5 blown saves already.. Not Good Cardinals management...SPEND some money and get some quality pitchers for the 7 th and 8th and 9th innings....Come on!!

Lets go Braves!!!!!

I have been a die hard Braves fan since the early seventies when I watched Hank Arron bread the Babes recorn when I was a five year old living in Bradention Florida. Here are my problems with what I see from the Braves.
Bobby Cox or the pitching coach seem to be out of touch with the feel of each game. They often make moves well after the fact and allow the team to loose one run games at a alarming pace. Cox makes no attempt to use what speed the Braves posses and rely's on station to station baseball in the post steroids era you would think Cox would send his runners more often to try and put up a few extra runs and stop loosing the one run games. The major league average for succesful attempts is almost 2 out of 3 being succesful in stolen base attempts. Brian Mccan has the only stolen base? I can go on and on about Bobby Cox who i respect but it is time for Bobby to swing on front porch with the grandkids.
Jo Jo Reyes as the fifth starter is a very odd decision when you are in a strong division and you want to stay in contact with first place. Our number one pitching prospect is 22 not 19 and has proven to be absolutely dominant again this year. Tommy Hanson 20 innings 16 hits 29 k's era 2.19. If you are worried about overuse just put him on a pitch count or pull him after the fifth inning like you do every other starter even when they are doing well. The bottum line is winning and Cox has no sense of urgency and only seems to be worried about the players all liking him as much as they would there own grandpa. I am tired of the base running blunders and errors and sloppy ball and Cox sits back and never even challanges his team in the media and this is a very young team not a veteran team which has been here before. Cox rode Smoltz,Glavine, and Maddux for years to first place but in 14 attempts at a World series he was succesful once. He is a stable force but not the guy needed to motivate this young group. Step aside Bobby before the braves land back at the bottum and stay there for 19 years as they did when I was growing up.
Take Kelly Johnson out of the leadoff postion where he does not belong. Kelly is more of an RBI type hitter than a leadoff and he is Batting around 200 at this time. Shaffter is faster than kelly and shows a better eye and should see more stikes batting leadoff instead of 8th. I will save the rest for another time but after 39 years of being a loyal fan I am so close to tuning out for good and I cannot emagine that I am the only one fed up with the mediocre to poor baseball on display.
I understand the ownership of the Braves are milking every last drop of cash profit they can and have cut the payroll every year and allowed great players to walk in there prime. I have predicted that if they did not change course by this year that they would loose the big crowds and not be able to get them back for years and I see it happening. Look what they feed us as fans. We have a bunch of players from our farm system that are all more concerned with trying to hit longballs and get a contract than playing ABC baseball and moving runners and putting the ball in play. To many strikeouts and every time we get runners on base you see big swings and over aggresive approaches that get them behind in the count and whind up popping up,stikeing out or hitting weak groundballs because the are hitting the pitchers pitch. Chipper is the only guy who works the count and has a clue how to do it and he only plays 70 percent of the time so what good is that? If i do not see base stealing ,lineup shuffles, pitchers being yanked before they loose the lead and start seeing right away then you can count one of the biggest Braves fans of the past 40 years as done. Oh yeah Terry P the hitting coach? Francour still falls back into his bad habits half the time, Diaz swings at anything you throw up, Escobar bats second but never goes the other way and leads the league in grounding into double plays, no one can bunt when called on, and we are the cappyiest team in baseball when it comes to working the count and not swinging at bad pitches so when Cox leaves I do not want to hear a damn work about Pendleton taking over. Why isit that Leo mazzone was so great and we replace him with a guy that has never been a pitching coach and this guy never gets questioned? I can count a thousand times where we have a batter down 0-2 in the count and we try to go inside and miss and the hitter gets a hanger or fastball right down the middle. What happened to nibbling ont the outside corner when you get a guy down in the count so that he cannot get good wood on the ball or he goes after a bad pitch? I see high school programs here in Florida that play a better brand of baseball than this load of crap the Braves organization is feeding us. Does any Braves fan have a doubt based on what you are seeing that we will finish 3rd or worsed this year? Or that we will not bring up our pitching sensation until we are more than ten games out? CRAP CRAP CRAP