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BRAVES NEWS
Braves Keep Marlins At Bay With 9 Runs
After getting off to a big lead early, the Braves basically spent the rest of the game trying to beat back the Marlins with a stick. A five run lead was eventually whittled down to 1 run by the 8th inning, but a fantastic relief appearance from Shae Simmons preserved the lead, and a comedy of errors from the Marlins in the 9th helped to spread the lead to 4 in order to give the Braves win #30 on the season.
Oh yeah, yesterday was Shae Simmons' first day in the majors. A couple of hours after the Braves victory on Friday, Tom Hart of all people broke the news that Simmons would be called up while Ian Thomas would be the one going down to the suburbs in Gwinnett County. Simmons had microscopic ERA and FIP numbers at AA Mississippi, and that was mostly due to all the heat he threw. Although he only faced one batter yesterday, it appears that the skills may translate well to the big time.
Kimbrel Now Tied With Smoltz For Franchise Saves Mark
Craig Kimbrel recorded the 154th save of his career. Obviously, all 154 of those saves have been collected with a tomahawk on his chest, and 154 is currently the record for saves, which is held by future Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz. Smoltz's record is surely about to fall, however, and it's pretty easy to see that Kimbrel is probably going to put the mark far out of reach once he's done here in Atlanta.
Heyward Going Full Speed Ahead At The Plate
Do y'all remember the bad ol' days of April and early May when the only thing that Heyward had really going for him was his defense? Well, it's June now, and not only has the defense stuck around, the bat is starting to come around as well. While some of the other guys on offense have started to slow, Heyward's picked up steam at the plate, htting .324/.400/.479 with 3 HRs and 150 wRC+ since May 11th. In fact, his 2.1 fWAR for 2014 is only 2nd on the Braves behind Justin Upton's fWAR of 2.5. That is lovely.
LEAGUE WIDE NEWS
Cardinals Call Up Tavares And He Delivers In 1st At-Bat
Highly-touted Cardinals prospect Oscar Tavares got his hotly-anticipated call-up to the Majors on Saturday, and he marked his debut in special fashion: In the bottom of the 5th, Oscar Tavares not only got his first hit, he did this:
Great way to debut, right? Anyways, the solo homer put the Cardinals up by 1 and they eventually beat the San Francisco Giants 2-0.
Sawx And Rays Continue To Squabble Like Children
The rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays has been extremely hot as of late, and it boiled over on Friday night when the Red Sox were forced to use 4 managers due to everyone getting ejected. David Ortiz is convinced that this is a "war." Does David Price, who was the linchpin of everything that happened on Friday night, think the same way? How about "nah."
After comparing Ortiz's statement to Kellen Winslow's infamous "I'M A SOLDIER" interview, he put to rest any notion of anything close to a war between the two, "You're not a soldier. This is not war. We have troops fighting for us that are in a war. It's not a good comparison."
The Mets beat the Phillies 5-4 on Saturday in 14 innings. Amazingly, this was the 2nd night in a row where the Mets and Phillies went 14 innings (Philadelphia won on Friday night). The thing that was even more amazing was that RUBEN TEJADA HIT A HOME RUN. This was Tejada's first homer in 552 at-bats and the 3rd homer of his career for the Aaron-esque slugger.
So Nelson Cruz is currently mashing the ball for the Orioles. Baltimore ended their losing streak with a 4-1 victory over the Astros on Saturday, and Cruz marked the occasion by hitting his 20th HR of the season. As our friends at Camden Chat pointed out, this is 1 more home run than Chris Davis had at this point last year. In fact, Cruz is currently hitting .315/.383/.675 with 20 HRs, 52 RBI, and 185 wRC+. Dude is hitting.