Uggla's Revenge

I was watching the Braves score runs but stepped away and all of a sudden it was 9-2. Then I drove to Old Milton to fetch M. When I returned it was what 11-7 and I saw Uggla's triple.

When Uggla went down 0-2 in the 9th I began to wonder where Grilli would put his next pitch: high, low, inside, or outside. The announcers were wondering too: curve or fastball. As soon as the pitch left Grilli's hand I knew it was trouble: a meatball right down the middle. Grilli knew it too. I was headed upstairs to bed before Uggla made it back to the dugout.

The home run didn't bother me as much as the opposite field triples. What took Uggla so long to go to the opposite field? Why did he never do that with the Braves? Did he think the Braves would never cut him?  Now that his career is on the edge of a cliff Uggs is finally willing to take advice and become a little more of a hitter and less of a slugger/crusher/free swinger. I'd heard he might be cut once the Nationals had someone return from injury. Now after these past two games Uggla's career might be taken off life support. The injury to Yunel Escobar didn't hurt.

That said, it was nice that so many came to Uggla's defense when the Atlanta crowd showered him with boos. DOB, Chipper, Freddie, Glavine. DOB likes to pull chains on Twitter, but yesterday he was in rare form. As the announcers said last night: the more the fans booed, the more Uggla hit. Served them right. Typical 2015 all or nothing no patience what have you done for me lately sports fans.

Can the Hawks get past New Jersey? As most fans would say, GAME FIVE IS A MUST WIN! Will was still home Monday night and forced Ceil to change the channel from her beloved The Voice to watch the last 2 minutes of the Hawks. Ceil actually got into the game.

ROB: When the Nats kept chipping away and scoring runs, I had a bad feeling about the game.

I am not ready to pronounce Uggla's career revived.  He had a good game, but last year in 145 PA's, he had the 1 good game in Philly where he hit the 2 HR's.  Even if the concussion/vision thing is fixed, the reality is that he is a 35 year old player who did 1 thing well during his peak years.  When Rendon comes back, I would be surprised if Uggla is still on the team.

I still think the Hawks will put the Nets away.  Obviously Coach Bud knows the game better than me, but I just don't think all of the resting and coasting we did over the last quarter of the regular season has served us well in this Brooklyn series.  (I keep wanting to type New Jersey).

ME: Same deal with Francoeur having a decent series last weekend. Earlier noted author Dan Schlossberg predicted 24-30 home runs from Frenchy since he was playing in the Philly bandbox. I haven't been commenting on Schlossberg's posts, but that time I had to disagree. Jeff was below .200 at the time.

Last Thursday night M studied over at one girl's house. Friday night he and another girl went to a concert. Saturday night he went over to a third girl's house. This weekend he's taking a fourth girl to prom. I enjoyed watching his small group leader's hockey game in Sandy Springs. He was good (scored a goal) and the play was decent.