Joey Wentz was good, but the Braves did nothing against a Kansas City bullpen shuffle
The Braves and Royals played a matinee on Wednesday, with the Braves sending Joey Wentz to the hill and the Royals deploying a bullpen game. Though the earlier games in this series featured a bucketload of runs, this one was scoreless through regulations, and ended 1-0 when Salvador Perez lined the second pitch he saw into right field for the game-winner.
The Braves aren’t really playing for anything at this point, so the loss is fairly irrelevant. But, it was nice to see Wentz continue his great run since coming back to his original team. Wentz pitched 6 2⁄3 innings of 7/3 K/BB ratio ball, with just one hit finding grass against him in the process. That hit actually came in the Royals’ first PA of the game; Wentz did walk three, but that was it in terms of baserunners against him. Moreover, one of the walks was erased on a double play ball on his final pitch of the afternoon. Another was erased on a pickoff, so basically Wentz faced just 22 batters while getting 20 outs.
The rest of the pitching slate was Pierce Johnson, Dylan Lee, and Raisel Iglesias, who also breezed through the lineup. Iglesias didn’t hurt his trade value in this one, so that’s marginally positive as well.
The lineup, well, it was the usual story against a procession of Kansas City relievers. They basically did nothing all game. There was a two-on, two-out situation that ended when Eli White struck out. They got back-to-back singles to start the sixth with Matt Olson, Austin Riley, and Michael Harris II due up, and all three of those guys hit into outs. In the ninth, facing closer Carlos Estevez, Riley connected for the only barrel of the game… but it was an out (barreled out barreled out barreled out). Harris followed by crushing a pitch, only for it to Madden 2004 PlayStation 1-era physics its way right into Estevez’ glove.
The Braves could have theoretically scored in the tenth, after Ozzie Albies singled to put runners on the corners with none out, but strikeout-strikeout made it unlikely, and then Luke Williams somehow hit a pitch 100 mph with a 17 degree launch angle… but it went right to the left fielder. That only made the subsequent sequence funnier: facing Daysbel Hernandez, Perez hit a pitch 101 mph at a 15 degree launch angle, but since he hit his not to a fielder, the game ended. Baseball!
At this point I think the story of “how much sillier (in a bad way) can the season get” is way more interesting than anything else that could happen, so we’ll keep watching to see what the answer to that is. The Braves already entered this game with the worst BaseRuns underperformance in MLB, and this game will only further that. Not to mention, they’ve hit well enough lately to yoink their team xwOBA back into the top ten, but… they’ve lost something like eight of nine (I don’t know, it’s something like that), so it’s just funny all around.
They now head to Cincinnati for more misery and probably another blown chance to mess up a pseudo-contender.