BRAVES POSTCAST: Braves SHUTOUT by Phillies in finale in unexpected pitching duel LIVE REACTION

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. The Atlanta Braves dropped the series finale one nothing to the Philadelphia Phillies and Hazel Sousardo just dominated the Braves but Grant Holmes more than held his own. Let's talk about it. This is the Braves postcast your instant game reaction for the Atlanta 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 newsletter over at BravesToday.com. This game went by so fast he hasn't made it back home yet from from from lunch with his family.

1:05So that's why he's not here today. This episode by the way brought to you by our friends at CalShi for a limited time. Delivered the CalShi app use code locked on to get $10 when you trade $10. One nothing lost to the Phillies. Listen. Am I frustrated that Atlanta could not find a way to do really any of these things? Against Hazus Luzardo in the finale? Yes. Absolutely frustrating. You had a chance to win the series and you didn't win the series. At the same time, Hazus Luzardo has been one of the best starters in baseball and what blows my mind is how Grant Holmes on the results. Not the process on the results battled him. We're going to get to that in just a minute. But first I want to talk about where the Braves ended up losing this one. Not necessarily the reason that I thought they would or the person who I thought would be responsible. Time to reveal where the game was once or most. It's the turning point.

2:10The Braves asked Adier Fuentes to come back out for a second inning. This is the thing they've done a lot in the month of August and now into September is when he pitches he's pitching two innings. He's facing six, seven, eight guys, ideally just six, right? And he looked really good. He gets to two outs in the eighth inning. He gets to a real Muto. I believe it was actually looking on a pitch that they challenged it was touching by maybe a fraction of an inch. He gets Justin Crawford to strike out swinging. Any faces Kyle Schwerber. And Yikes. I don't care how good your fastball is. It doesn't matter if you're throwing 100, 104, whatever, leaving any pitch in the heart of the strike zone to Kyle Schwerber feels like a pretty bad idea. He gets up to two and he goes for a forcing fastball and it is it could not have been any more middle middle had you put it on a tee.

3:19Kyle Schwerber just obliterates the thing 415 feet off the facade of the second deck that ends up being the only run allowed. And this is like to me. This isn't the didier. Flint has stumbled that you would have expected because he was just spamming fastball spamming fastball spamming fastball. He typically throws a lot of fastballs. It is his best pitch. It is the pitch he has the most confidence in. He threw of the 29 pitches 19 of them were forcing fastballs. But when he faced Schwerber, he got a call strike on a slider down in a way. He threw a splitter in the like almost in the dirt for a ball. He got a swinging strike on a forcing fastball middle away. They threw a slider blow the zone for a ball. And then he went back to the fastball. He didn't overuse the fastball to Schwarber. He just threw it in a terrible spot. And Kyle Schwerber did not miss it. I absolutely cannot be again.

4:21Like it doesn't matter how good your fastball is. It doesn't matter, you know, how hard you throw it. You can't leave anything hard of the plate to Kyle Schwerber. And that ended up in a game like this where we got an unexpected pitching duel between Grant Holmes and Hazel Sousaardo. That was the difference. And like it was something where I'm frustrated again, I'm frustrated at what the offense was not able to do today. Braves had two hits in this one. Both of them were singles. I do think Grant Holmes's results look a lot better than the line and we'll get to that in a minute. And at the end of the day, I don't want to say that I'm blaming Drake Baldwin or I'm blaming, you know, like I'm not blaming Drake Baldwin for calling the fastball with the full disclosure of I don't remember specifically where he asked for it. I feel like he wanted it farther up than it was. But it's the location. That happens. Right.

5:25If you're going to lose to the Phillies, it's I guess it's better to lose on a Kyle Schwerber home run than a Derek Hill home run, right. But either way, frustrating. But what I do want to get to will get to the opposite. What I do want to talk about though is Grant Holmes because very, very early in this game. First inning, I thought we were in for a long day. Kyle Schwerber leads off with a ground ball single to left. Trade turner flies out, but then Bryce Harper draws a walk. And it, I mean, it was six pitch walk it. There was some pitches in the strike. So including a cutter down that should have been a strike had the Braves challenge. They wouldn't have challenged obviously in the first inning, but had they challenged that women strike. Will we surprise lines out Alec Bonewalks. Bases loaded and the four walk, like the four pitches for the Alec Bonewalk are nowhere close. And then Bryson stop lines out to center. And I get that point. I was a little like, okay, this is going to be a long day with Grant Holmes. This is not going to go that well.

6:28And Holmes absolutely stabilized from there. And I don't think I saw that coming. We've had a lot of conversation about how Grant Holmes gets hit really hard. We knew this wasn't a great matchup for him. He goes to the second inning, fly out, strike out, ground out. He goes to the third inning. Top of the order for Philly. We know Grant Holmes has problems the second time through. Strike out, strike out, strike out. He strikes out Swarber. He strikes out Turner. He strikes out Harbor. And that's, that's the most frustrating thing about Grant Holmes is you have innings like the first where he looks like he is, you know, a spot starter at best, right. I can't find the zone. It is working through traffic. And then you have outings like the, like innings like the third inning where he faces the top three of their order and he strikes them all out. To me, there's not another starting picture on this roster that has a bigger delta between what they could be and what they actually are than Grant Holmes.

7:37And the first inning and the third inning absolutely showed you that. Grant Holmes ends up not giving up another run until a lead off single in the fifth inning. And then they erase that with a double play. Now he does give up a one out double in the sixth when he faces the top of the order for a third time. He gets out of that. But here's the reason I'm still kind of waiting to crown Grant Holmes as okay, he's been much better recently. He's better, he's fine, right. He's the fact that 17 whiffs, right. All that's good. He allowed an average exit velocity of 98.7 miles an hour. He got, they blasted baseballs against him. 14 battered balls in play. 10 of them were hard hit. And again, like Jake and I talk a lot about this show on process over results. The results were good. The process by Grant Holmes.

8:40Very concerning. And again, I think he has the potential to be like a really solid number three. He can't seem to put it together. Like I promised in just a minute, we're going to talk about the offense. What's talk about the missed opportunities. What's talk about the battered balls. We'll do all of that next right here on the race postcast. Can we talk about one of the more underrated organs in your body. It's your liver. That's your body's filter processing everything you consume and performing more than 500 functions every day. It's involved in things like energy production digestion, fat metabolism and vitamin storage. So it's doing a lot of work behind the scenes. And that's why given your liver daily support can be an important part of building healthy habits. Dose for your liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement design a support that we live or function. Unlike another capsule or powder, those comes as a liquid two ounce daily shot that tastes like fresh quiz orange juice. It's zero sugar, zero junk and zero calories, making it an easy addition to your daily routine.

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11:51He was five for 44 before that fourth and in single so Matt Olsen needed that hit he got that one. Michael Harris got the other there's again there's good and bad you can take away from the offense most of its bad let's be clear the given what he did. Of the battered balls that Atlanta had they did a good job at elevating the ball against hazel's ardo right they had some balls that were in the air. It wasn't just pounding everything into the ground. At the same time they also absolutely could not figure out the sweeper we know it's one of the best sweepers in baseball and unlike a lot of starters he does a really good job at throwing it to both lefties and righties sweepers have the best platoon split of any pitch and baseball they're really good against the same handedness as the picture they're really bad against.

12:54The opposite handedness and a lot of that's because if you miss on a sweeper and you're throwing to the opposite handedness you're going to hit the guy right. Luzardo did a fantastic job of locating that sweeper and I feel like the difference there was throwing them inside to righties we saw a couple situations where he was able to to get that pitch in on their hands without coming too far in and hitting them. For the game the braves chased 55% of the time on the sweeper. He only threw it in the zone 29% like he wasn't throwing it in the zone that much they just could not lay off of it now some of that was he did a very very very good job of getting ahead of hitters. Hey, Zuzardo threw 24 of 31st pitch strikes and we're going to see this it's going to come up tomorrow on the show when we talk about a j smith shoppers start that's the thing that's probably the biggest thing that will dictate whether or not a picture is able to use their breaking balls to maximum effectiveness is can you get ahead of of batters.

14:08Hey, Zuzardo did a good job of that so braves hitters had to expand. But it wasn't just the sweeper they chased the forcing fastball up they chased the sinker out of the zone. They they did a good job I feel like they did a disciplined job on the change up they didn't throw the change like sorry they didn't chase the change up outside of the zone that often they swung nine times they put four of them into play. They didn't get into hits off of it but they were disciplined against the change up they just could not figure out the sweeper and there were some guys that just it felt like they really struggled break Baldwin felt like he had some very poor at bat today he struck out twice lane Thomas I was hopeful given the numbers that he historically has had against Jesus was are I was hopeful that he was going to have some good at bat today he also struggled against that sweeper. You know like Kim struck out twice Riley struck out twice Baldwin again we already mentioned Baldwin and Thomas both struck out twice.

15:13It was just it was a very frustrating game you can see why he's lose was already was one of the best pitchers in baseball and at the same time I will kind of I will say that going into the series. The thought process is you need to win at least two of these right you need to take two of the four. And it lands a was able to take two of the four so at the end of the day you now have the tiebreaker. Because you've won the series and you now are in a situation where now you get to host them at home and the braves have not been good offensively on the road especially since the trade deadline. But here's the thing going into this I said hey you're going to win games one and three you're going to lose games two and four. You split the series you have the tiebreaker now you get them at home and the bigger thing the thing that a lot of braves fans who are rightfully frustrated about the offense have pointed out here or sorry have not pointed out here.

16:20Filly never offensively really figured out braves pitching right they had some they had a couple home runs sorbure hit homeers in like three straight games which he's going to do that at least baseball and home runs for a reason. Bryce Harper never really got you like we know he's capable of and Philly's offense you never really figured out braves pitching and so when you come home now you get them for three you already hold the tiebreaker you split this the pressure is entirely on Philadelphia I'd argue the pressure was on them this weekend they needed to do more than go to and to. The end of the day this game worked out okay for you was it the result we wanted no it was absolutely not the result we wanted but. The end of the day the series went okay and so.

17:23The idea that the braves are doomed when they get to the post season I've seen people even here in the chat today who are still saying that this braves offense has not been very good and the braves are doomed in October the offense has struggled yes. But. Silly's offense never up against you Milwaukee's offense never up against you L.A.'s offense never up against you these are the kind of close games you're going to play in the post season. And Atlanta in the last couple series against these playoff teams has done enough to at least hold their own if not win I will say they've got to clean up the little things ABS today. It felt like there were a bunch of opportunities where they absolutely could have challenged pitches and did not and some of those change the outcome of that that. But at the end of the day braves went to and to this is what you had to do you held serve on the road now you get to come home where you have one of the best records in baseball.

18:30And before that though you've got to face the raise at home for three age. Misshover versus Freddie Peralta tomorrow. I will be back for a post cast Jake will also be back for a post cast he texted me told me he was sorry he could not make it home in time for this one. He will be back with post cast tomorrow and in the meantime make sure you're subscribed to locked on braves Jake's going to break down everything from this weekend we're going to talk about it over on the braves today newsletter at braves today. Also make sure you're subscribed to locked on sports Atlanta they're talking about the Falcons naming to it as the quarterback today not Michael Pinnix so we'll figure out what's going to happen with the Falcons there. For Jake masher gani Lindsay cross me this has been the braves post cast. 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.

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