That’s a bit more like it.

Monday’s game still didn’t feature effective pitching, but the offense started showing signs of life. I missed most of the game due to meetings, but I saw it on mute and definitely got the gist of it.

Tuesday’s game featured Acuña waking from a relative cold streak to make the difference in the 5th, putting the Braves up 1-0. That would be all they’d need thanks to a second consecutive excellent start from Ian Anderson, who looks like he’s started to figure something out. Just for good measure, though, the rest of the offense got on and got ’em in to win 5-0. An especially nice sequence was in the 8th. Ozzie led off with a rocket of a double to left-center (from the left hand batter’s box, especially encouraging). d’Arnaud did something useful for once, as while he still made an out he moved Albies over to third. Dansby then got ’em in, hitting a solid single to right.

The Braves are now 11-12. We’re almost 15% of the way through the season.

That was the worst display of baseball I have seen out of this franchise in years.

Well, I think the Braves could use some more blowouts, but I’ll take it.

Ynoa pitched six solid innings, and the usual suspects came out of the bullpen to hold on to the lead, though thankfully Ozzie’s homer in the bottom of the 7th added what proved to be the decisive insurance run.

After the shortened 2020 sprint, I have to remind myself it’s still April. There’s a long way to go and the NL East is still wide open. Freddie Freeman probably won’t hit .220 on the year. Hopefully it won’t take me another month to internalize that.

It was a split in the Bronx.

Both games still featured some mostly disappointing offense with Acuña out to rest his abdominal muscles. But! There was definitely more to like on today’s game. Ian Anderson pitched into the 7th (a first for any Braves starter this season), and the bullpen didn’t leak too badly. Austin Riley had a good game, walking twice, and adding a base hit and a homer, taking advantage of the short porch in right at Yankee Stadium.

Thursday’s another much needed off-day for this beat up team, where they’ll attempt to keep it rolling against the Diamondbacks over the weekend.

Some days, it is your day.

The Braves turned it back on the Cubs today. The margin again was 13-4, except this time it was the Braves with 13. (Amazingly, but perhaps not that amazingly because this is baseball, this was the second time this had ever happened with this scoreline, first turned by the Phillies and Cardinals in 1936.)

Guillermo Heredia should have probably been the story of the day, but unfortunately Acuña leaving the game early will (and has) dominate the Tweets instead. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

By the way, we’re now 9.88% of the way through the season. So there’s still a long way to go. To wit, 10% of a regular season in other major American sports is:

• Until this coming season, sometime in the 3rd quarter of the second game of an NFL season. (Afterward, about 3 minutes left in the third quarter.)
• The first quarter of the second game of a college football season
• A little over eight games into an NBA or NHL season
• Three and a half games into a MLS season