BRAVES POSTCAST: Martín Pérez, offense stumble as Braves lose game two to Phillies LIVE REACTION

0:00This is the Lockdown podcast network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. When you load the basis of the first inning with no outs and don't score any runs, it's not a good sign for the game and it wasn't today. Braves lose four to two to the billies. Let's talk about it. This is the Braves postcast your instant game reaction for the plan of braves. Part of the Lockdown podcast network. More team every day. Yes, welcome on into the Braves postcast part of the Lockdown podcast network. Now the number one sports podcast network. I'm your host Lindsay Crosby, author of the Braves today news letter over at Braves today.com. He's Jake Masciani, host of Lockdown Braves. This episode is brought to you by our friends at FanDuel.

1:01Get $350 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet $5 every day for seven days. Join the action at fando.com to get started. Jake, I want to talk about the Martin Perez outing and Ray Kerr after him. The piggyback you did today, not planned. I want to talk about Ronald Cooney Jr. and the heater he's on. But before we do that, Noble Tiger, it was the thing that turned this game around in the very first inning. Time to reveal where the game was once or most. It's the turning point. It's frustrating enough to get the first three batters on base, have the bases loaded with no outs and not score a run. But to do it, the way the Braves did it. Kyle Harris abandons the approach. He's swinging it everything. He's down O2 and he somehow pops up a ball that is almost on the dirt. A curve ball almost in the dirt for the first out.

2:04Mauricio Dubon strikes out with the bat on his shoulder. You're down to two and you take a borderline pitch that gets overturned to a strike on replay and then Ozzie Albe's first pitch on a center cut fastball flies out to center. Am I right to be like more annoyed than usual at a Noble Tiger because of the way it happened or is it just it's a disaster whenever it happens? It's probably a disaster whenever it happens, but this was the game, right? Especially with the way the bottom half of the inning unfolded to you put up a crooked number there on Zach Wheeler. After you won game one of this series, you're flying pretty high right then. Now maybe what happened at the bottom of the first still happens in the Phillies regained momentum and they win anyway. But when you when you get a Noble Tiger like that and then top of the first inning in an intense game, that suddenly gives the other side so much momentum.

3:08And then our team for us comes out and does what he did, which I know we'll talk about. But you said Michael Harris, I think you said he got away from the approach. That is the approach. I mean, Michael Harris, dude, you go up there and swing it everything. So I mean, he stayed with the approach. You just missed it. And he got a couple of good pitches to hit. I mean, one was a cutter kind of top of the zone and it's not above a four seamer. First pitch was a four seamer kind of middle up, pretty good pitch that he could hit. Yeah, you got to come through with something there. I mean, that ultimately was this ballgame, like I said, you you get on Zach Wheeler who had been scuffling a little bit, you know, who knows how differently things play out for him? Are you able to raise his pitch count up to the 30 plus pitches or so and maybe not him out early? But instead he gets out of that. And I think this is the other frustrating part of it too. You had that great opportunity in the first. And I didn't really feel like they had any other opportunities or rest of the way. They ran into a couple of home runs. Yep. Maybe had a runner on here or there, but you finished the game with five hits, five hits,

4:13two walks, 12 strikeouts. I think that's the other very frustrating part too is not only did you waste your best opportunity and give all the momentum to the Phillies in the first inning, but then you never really put any pressure on the opposing pitcher the rest of the way. Yeah. Because like I said, the only runs you scored were solo home runs. It's not like there was a ton of traffic on the bases. And so I think that is maybe even more frustrating to me is that you never really mounted another rally in this game. You had a runner on in the eighth inning, I believe, and then run into that double play. That was the only point where I felt like, okay, ball one got on. You got the middle of the order here. Maybe they're going to do something, but then you immediately got the double play. So again, just not being able to come through, push across a runner too in the top of the first and then never really doing much after that is extremely frustrating. Yeah. The only base runners there outside of obviously the home runs, they had that single in the eighth, Dom Smith walked in the fourth.

5:14And I think that was like a one out walk and he got stranded. You know, that was it was it was a two out walk and then Austin rally struck out after him. And so he just didn't do anything and like, over three with where I was in scoring position. But yeah, to your point, you only left four on base because you just didn't have a lot of base runners today. You didn't draw a lot of walks half of your hits and half of your walks just under half your hits and half your walks came in that first inning. And that was your opportunity that you didn't capitalize on it. I think the other side of this is the Martin Perez outing. He very clearly did not have his locations. I just he was walking a bunch of guys. He finished this finishes this one. Wow, I'm so choked up on this loss. Three and two thirds, four runs on seven hits, walks four strikes out three. In retrospect, he's kind of lucky. It was only a four run game given the fact that he he put 11 men on base between the hits.

6:16Obviously one of those was a home run from Schwarber, which I've been telling people like, you're not going to hold Kyle Schwarber down forever. The goal is just to not have guys on base when he gets it. He got it. It just feels like like this is sorry again, I'm choked up over the loss. This is the flip side of the rotation strategy the braves are running with now, right? When you don't have guys who have really good swing and miss stuff, which the non-Crisale guys just don't really have great swing and miss stuff, you have to nail your locations. You have to keep the ball down and you have to take the sting out of the swing. I feel like Martin Perez struggled in all those areas today. 94.2 an hour average exit velocity. The average on all of his pitches on the battered balls was like over 90 miles an hour. It's not like he was getting soft contact on just the changeups. The five changeups in play were 98.1 mile an hour average. He's not missing bats.

7:17He didn't have the locations. He wasn't keeping the ball down. He wasn't keeping the sting out of the swing. It no surprise that it was a short outing. Now my concern here is he would have lined up probably to start next week against Philly. Can you do that now? Can you throw him against Philly or do you have to do something else? Yeah, I know we talked about it. Off air yesterday. Can I remember when we talked about on air, when we talked about off air, but it might depend on how the rest of this series plays out, right? If the race split or especially if they win, maybe you don't worry so much about pushing a Chris sale back to start in that Philly series. You also have Ronaldo potentially coming back next week. Do you give him a start? I mean, you can't go with seven man rotations. So I mean, somebody's got to got to come out of there. You're a starter. You're a starter. Yeah. Look, Martin Perez has been great. Like yeah, better than great this year. Better than Wheeler entering this game. Yeah, I mean, at 3.25 ERA on the year after this game, just didn't have it tonight.

8:22And the four walks, you know, in that first inning, just tell you something was off, whatever the case may be. I think you guys kind of chalk it up to, Hey, it's Martin Perez. He can have a bad start every now and then. It shouldn't shock you. But no, it does go to the point because I talked about this, did a podcast a while back. Talking about pictures who have stuff and that's what you really want in the post season. And Braves don't have a lot of starters like that. They got some relievers and Chris sale. But this is somewhat your concern come post season time as great as Martin Perez has been and Bryse Elder has been at times and Grant Holmes has been at times. Those guys really have to rely on great command around the strike zone. It is a very thin margin. It's not like Chris sale where you can accidentally put a slider over the middle of the plate and a guy might either miss it or get on top of it because it's got so much movement. These are guys that live very much on the margins. And if they're not sharp and the slightest like you saw tonight, it can lead to a very bad

9:24outing. And look, at the end of the day, I mean, he did kind of somewhat work his way out of it and kept the team in the game. And I think the bullpen, you got to give him a lot of credit to I mean, Kerr did a fantastic job, Brent Souter. I mean, they kept the team and the game and gave them a chance. Like at the end of the day, Perez was bad. I still kind of put this game on the offense a little bit like what I talked about a minute ago. I mean, four runs. That's the hard thing. And I told you last night, I said, five runs. You probably got to score at least five runs to win this game. There you go. You would have won the ball. They couldn't do it. When we come back, let's talk about the bullpen guys real quick. Let's talk about the offense. I've got a question about Matt Olson. We'll do that next right here on the Braze postcast. A big thank you to our friends at Amazon for this limited break. This back to school season spin less on your kids with Amazon. We all know how crazy the back to school shopping experience can be. Starts with a few items on the list and then all of a sudden you're shopping for supplies, clothes, lunch gear, technology, and like 10 other things you didn't see coming and it

10:25adds up fast. The big thing for me is when the teacher's supply list arrives and somehow every item feels completely reasonable on its own. Supplies, clothes, lunch gear, headphones. That's a big thing now. It just keeps going. And then you add everything together and realize just how much stuff one kid needs for one school year. And that's why finding low prices on all the things you need makes such a big difference this time of year. So remember, with Amazon's low back to school prices, just spin less on your kids because every dollar you don't spend on them is a dollar you haven't spent on them. Up back to school with Amazon and spin less on your kids. Final few minutes of the race postcast here, Lindsay Crosby, Jake Masteryani. Matt Olson goes over three. He does draw a look but strikes out twice. And I'm starting to wonder now and I think I guess we should go ahead and we should play the video on this.

11:25I think there's a lingering question here about what to do right now with Matt Olson. This is what you'll be talking about. In the last 30 games, he's hitting 191 with a 262 OPS. He's got six home runs in that span, but they're all in game almost all in game 16 to 30. Last 15 games, he's hitting 150 with a 436 OPS. You're not going to bench Matt Olson for a day and give him a mental break. He's got that Iron Man streak. Do you D.H. him and give him a half day? Do you move him down in the order a little bit? What do you do with Matt Olson right now? Because he's very clearly going through it at the plate. He looks tired and he's just not playing to his normal standards. Yeah. I mean, the problem is you can't move everybody down, right? Like somebody's got to hit at the top of the order. Are you going to overreact to a hot start or not a hot start, but a hot week from Sean Murphy

12:29and move him up at the top of the order? Are you going to move Mauricio Dubon up there? Like Austin Riley has a 580 OPS over the last two weeks. Who are you moving him down for? I guess is my question. Maybe you do put him at D.H. Like I said, I mean, I know you're not going to sit him. I think you always have to have this question too with Matt Olson. Is there something that's really bothering him and he doesn't want to say or make a big deal about it? I don't think it'd be a pride thing necessarily that it would just hurt the streak. I just think it's a guy that he's going to play like no matter what, like unless something is broken or he just can't get out there, he's going to play. He just has that type of mentality similar to the Braves former first baseman. He's seen him go through stretches where he was dealing with something that didn't tell anybody and you saw him struggle for a little bit. Don't know that that's what happened with Matt Olson right now. I know he had that awkward slide in the second base a couple of weeks ago.

13:30I don't know if there's something going on there, but he is really bad right now. There's no denying it last 12 games of 477 OPS. You talked about it going on even further than that. You can try shuffling the lineup around a little bit. If you want, like I said, I just don't know who I really trust to move up there. You could go Michael Ronald Drake, Ozzy Olson and push him down that far. I think that would be okay. But you got to get bottom line. Matt's going to play. He's got to figure this out and get going. Whatever you want to do with it, move him down, put him at D.H. Either way, he's got to figure this out. He's been so great and consistent all year long. He's allowed to have a little bit of a down stretch, but it's turning into a worrisome down stretch. Yeah, it's a little longer than the two or three weeks that you were like, you kind of understand everybody's going to slump for two weeks, right? It was a little bit past that. Okay. I do want to give, and you mentioned earlier, I do want to give flowers to Ray Curren,

14:32Brent Souter. They combined for four and a third, two hits, one walk, three strikeouts. I was really curious also questioning what Ray Curr would do when he faced a lot of these lefties. Five whips on 21 swings, but average ex of loss of 84 miles an hour on 10 bad and balls. You feel really good about that. Brent Souter was his normal, very quick working self, although it takes up 27 pitches for one inning. I guess in the day, it's hard to get too mad about losing to Zach Wheeler. I do think maybe the way that it happened is the frustrating part, but I think had I told you coming into the game, hey, you're not going to win the Zach Wheeler start. You'd have been like, yeah, that's probably right. So I think that's kind of where I am right now. It's like, I'm frustrated about the way it happened, but it's hard to get mad about

15:33just losing the Zach Wheeler started in general. It's more of a sort of way it happened. Just like the pitching matchups on this one coming in, you probably would have said games one and three are the ones where you feel like you have the best chance. I thought this one was actually a toss up just because of the way that Wheeler had been pitching. And like I said, if you get to him in that first inning, who knows? It may be different. It's a whole different ball game. And you knock him out earlier and you continue to get to him. I don't know. I just really think it comes down to that top of the first. Having able to score shifts it everything to Philly, Perez comes out, walks everybody. And that a lot of the little small things, right? The throw it third that Austin, like Austin, the ball beats Shorber there, but he beats the tag. I mean, so another tag, just like the little things Ronald slipping in the right field corner on the clay and also kind of slip to where he might have had a play at the guy at home, but then has you just take the out at first. Yeah, just like things there too. All the little things and over time that kind of adds up on you and you hate that. All right. Tied one one. I'm going to do it tomorrow. 110 PM, Tyler Malley versus Aaron Nola.

16:36We will be back for postcast after that quick heads up on this one. This is a peacock and NBC game. This is not on Braves vision. So when you're looking at one 10 tomorrow to watch your Braves, please know they're not going to be available on Braves vision. But we will be here to do a postcast for Jake Mastery on Wednesday, Crosby. This has been the Braves postcast. Thank you. Thank you for making locked on your first listen every day for your second listen. Find the all night locked on MLB game night. Every game every night until a world series champion is crowned. Get local analysis on a national scale. Find MLB game night on locked on MLB on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.