Forecast for Atlanta on Friday. High 59 with a 60% chance of showers. Could be a Friday rainout. Thinking game 3 will be Saturday. Game 4 Sunday and game 5 Monday.
I love Alvarez and Tucker but part of me still wishes we had Springer, Marwin, Reddick and the rest of that 2017 team. It would be great to win it again with those guys and stick it even further to the haters.
Framber's average fastball clocked in at 92.3 MPH, but like most pitchers, he can pull out an extra MPH or three in the playoffs. This isn't talked about enough, but Lance McCullers and Framber Valdez are mirror images of each other. Framber is a 2 1/2 pitch pitcher at this point in his career. Like Lance prior to this season, Framber is better against opposite handed batters than same handed batters, thanks to his disgusting curveball. For Lance, thats good enough to be a MOR starter on a contender, even after Tomas Juan. Lance's mid-career addition of a slider turned him into a TOR guy, and made him elite against RHP while still strong against LHP. If I'm Framber. I'd beg Lance to teach him a slider. Framber's already really good aginst LHP (.225/.354/.363), but I feel like a second breaking pitch would make him unhittable. If a 2nd breaking ball turned Lance into a TOR guy, imagine how it would benefit Valdez, who's arguably already a TOR guy?
I get going with Urquidy in game 2. You never want to give up HFA in a series. Look at the Braves' lineup, their two best bats are LHH. Jose vs LHH? .190/.235/.339 for the season. He's by far our best pitcher against LHB. Garcia struggles against LHB, but hopefully those mechanical changes stick and what we saw in game 6 becomes the norm. That, and I'd rather have Brantley over Alvarez for chasing down all those fly balls. I still feel that Jose as a FB pitcher is better used in Atlanta over Houston.
I've watched the "Love is the Weapon" video twice today. Goosebumps both times. I'm so freaking amped for tonight...
