Good Bye Blaine Boyer/ Game Recap

Two days ago the Braves designated Blaine Boyer for assignment, allowing him to join the likes of Dan Kolb, John Rocker, and Chief Nokahoma, as promising Braves that just never lived up to their potential.

The Braves dropped another one early this morning, and we can't blame the bullpen. We can't blame any of the pitching really. Lowe wasn't outstanding, in fact he didn't have good stuff at all. But to not have the stuff he didn't have last night, 6 innings and 3 runs was a great outing and the Braves had a great chance to win that game. And the Bullpen did their job through the rain and rain delay to not allow any runs.

Sometimes you drop 1 run games to inferior teams; in 162 games schedule it's going to happen. If you're going to blame the loss on someone, let's blame it on the ridiculous non-call @ 2nd base when David Ross was plunked in the head by a throw from 1st trying to double him up after Lowe's second terrible bunt attempt. After getting hit with the throw, Ross should have been able to cruise into second and sit in scoring position with one out for the top of the order. Instead, Nat's shortstop Guzman collided with Ross knocking him down, then tagged him out once the throw came in from the outfield. For those of you who don't know baseball, that's textbook obstruction. When a fielder prevents a runner from advancing to a base by making contact or altering his route, the runner is entitled to the base he would have obtained had the fielder not been a moron. Yet on this night, the moron was third base umpire Brian O'Nora (who was covering the play at second thanks to the crew being a man down--MLB games usually have 4 umpires, last night we had a 3 man crew). And don't let the "man down" be an excuse, this is a play that any little league umpire working in a 2 man crew could have made. There is no excuse for a professional umpire (how awesome would it be to make a damn good living umpiring professional baseball) to miss that call.