I had the privilege of attending Citi Field for the Sunday night game featuring the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets. It was Military Appreciation Night and it was awesome. Having attended both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field (twice, now), I’ve got to say I prefer the ballpark-y-ness of Citi. The workers there are genuinely nice, likeable even, and there’s no conservative usher to be found to hush the drunks in the back row yelling at Jason Heyward fully aware that the Right Fielder can’t hear them. It feels like a ballpark and it’s clean. The next step is to get people into the stadium and create a buzz so that the operators of the big screen can stop with terrible celebrities pleading the 5,000 Mets fans there to say “Let’s Go Mets!” in unison (As if that has some affect on anything other than nearly ruining “LETSGO!!” for me).
Still, I got free tickets for knowing someone who works for the Mets and in the process of picking up those tickets, I learned something awesome that the Mets organization does. Apparently, they give out military tickets regularly for cheap. If you served in the military, they’re gonna take care of you.
As for the game, I came away entirely unimpressed with the offense. It was one of those nights where they set the opposing pitcher’s career high in strikeouts (Shawn Marcum had 12), but were ahead 2-1 in the eighth, behind a strong Julio Teheran start, and a LOOONG home run from Dan Uggla. It was a typical Braves game. The offense looked anemic at times and then someone got on, and then someone hit a home run. Then something weird happened.
Cory Gearrin came in in the 8th inning of a 1-run game to preserve the lead.
The Atlanta Braves over the past three years have had one of the best bullpens in baseball. Jonny Venters is out with Tommy John. Eric O’Flaherty joined him with the same procedure. Fourth guy Jordan Walden has been out for two weeks now. Cory Gearrin is the set-up man. Cory Gearrin! Cory Gearrin sucked and the Braves lost. Nothing against Mr. Gearrin, but at this stage in his career, he’s a very good 6th inning guy or matchup right hander. Not a set up guy destined to face both righties and lefties.
Now, with two top guys down because of season-ending injury, it becomes obvious that the Braves need to make a move for somebody they can trust. I’m not sure the available market out there for set up men right now, but a move needs to be made sooner rather than later.
Possible names to consider for the Braves need are headlined by former Braves relief pitcher Mike Dunn and
My final anecdote is one that might stick with me for some time: We were picking up those tickets and a guy walks into the reception area. He’s in a hurry as only New Yorkers who are late for something can be. He hands off some tickets to the guy working there and says “give them to a soldier or a kid.” That random act of kindness will not soon be forgotten, even though I didn’t get the tickets and really don’t know if they were any good. Happy Memorial Day everybody.
-Sean Morash
Stat of the Day: I head to Germany on Wednesday night and really don’t know what lies before me as far as having time to write, or time to watch enough baseball to blog with any semblance of knowledge. That said, I plan to keep writing and (separately) I plan to chronicle my day to day happenings in some corner of the blog. Surely my German antics will be entertaining. There’s no dollar sign on piece of mind.
