They weren't. They knew what was coming and swung for the fences. They were hacking without a care in the world, knowing Herrera wasn't going to throw inside. The fact in this game was that the Braves wanted to hit home runs to win the game... and the Royals were trying to hit singles all game.

Herrera rattled quickly.

I mentioned it in that game where he closed the sweep against the Twins. He came in during that save situation and man, when he stayed within himself his stuff was as filthy as anyone you'll see.

But every 3-4 pitches or so he'd just uncork one. And that was with a 3-run lead. I wondered at the time if maybe he wasn't putting a little too much pressure on himself and if he needed to relax a little.

Today was the same thing. He gave up a HR on what was really a pitchers pitch (I mean c'mon - Heyward had no business getting that ball out) and as a result he started overthrowing.

And Sal could learn a little bit from that as well. I think it was someone in this thread that mentioned he looked a little over-amped after the Heyward bomb. If you can see it, Perez can as well. It might not have hurt for him to take a trip to the mound to calm his young pitcher down.

I said it when he gave it up - the Braves are good. There's no shame in losing to these guys. And 2 great young players you guys have can learn a lot from it, IMO.

Not if they don't give a shit. Like I said, most of the guys on the team are there to simply cash a paycheck. Perez saw Herrera shitting himself and showed he didn't care. Hell Ned didn't give a **** either, he just wanted to get home and sleep in his own bed. Maybe someone will sack up from the Royals and not let this turn into an 0-8 roadie, but I doubt it. I saw a lot of quit tonight. The Braves look like a good team, but not a team that should hit 4 home runs within a couple of innings and blow a game wide open.

I think you're being awfully hard on a young team.

There's no tougher position to really learn than catcher. Look at the history of teams starting rookie catchers - it's generally pretty awful. The Giants have bucked the trend, but I remember when the Cards were breaking in Molina after letting Matheny walk in 2005; I don't recall the numbers, but essentially teams were all but giving up on a legitimate playoff run if they were starting a rookie catcher.

It's just such a tough position to really learn the nuances of. And if you have a cannon like Perez, you get a little cocky back there and think that the big arm makes you a big swinging dick of a catcher. Those guys get a little complacent until they mature a bit (Pudge Rodriguez is a classic example of this; guy couldn't call a game for shit until he went to Florida and finally started trying to learn how). I don't think Perez didn't care - I think he simply didn't realize the gravity of the situation.

I've never thought that Moose, Escobar, Gordon, or Cain were jaking it either. Frenchie...hell, I don't know. Hosmer, OTOH, you may be onto something with. I always get the feeling when I'm watching him that he's a kid that will float until a contract year and then turn into a machine for a season before he sees his baseball mortality creeping up on him in his late 20s and dials up his effort (the Adrian Beltre model).

It's a young team. It's going to be a good team. Even now it's a team that fell to .500 by losing to the best team in baseball after going toe to toe with them for 7 innings. Seems a little hysterical to quit on them already.

A good 10 game losing streak would do them some good. Would knock any sort of cockiness they might have right out of them. I don't know why this loss irks me so, but I see the writing on the wall and that the lack of caring to hit is shining through and it will get them blown the **** out in many of these games.

I'm going to Atlanta in May. I'm going to take a shit there.