Braves Opening Day against the Mets

Julio Teheran probably checked the calendar to make sure this was a new year, because that game yesterday probably didn't feel like it. In 2016, Julio barely got any support as he had one of his career best years, but lost game after game to no-decisions due to no offense. Considering the Braves scored a grand total of nothing in game one, I think he's scratching his head yet again this morning.

Three things went really wrong in that game, and those three things added up to one big 6-0 loss to the Mets. Let's recap those 3 things in order of least important to most important.

1. Tyler Flowers didn't get the tag down on a lazer throw to the plate by Ender Inciarte that would have kept the game tied at 0-0. The reason he didn't get the tag down in time is because he was incorrectly positioned behind the plate instead of in front of it.
2. The bullpen imploded for 6 runs. In a move that you better get used to as a Braves fan (because I warned you that we haven't solved the issue in my Bold Predictions) Krol, Roe, and EOF all got lit up for 6 earned runs in a single inning, with 4 walks and a wild pitch. They simply couldn't command the ball at all, and that's not great for relievers. You really only have one job as a reliever, and that's throw enough strikes to either get some timely K's or use your defense to get outs behind you. Nothing will ruin a game faster than late inning reliever walks. Case in point.
3. Matt Kemp was a trainwreck. It's one game so I'm not going to jump on Kemp too hard, but he's absolutely the reason the Braves didn't score in this game, and it's likely the reason that we had to yank Teheran early for the pen. TWICE, Kemp had a runner on third with one out and couldn't even put the ball in play. You can't have strikeouts in those scenarios in a tie game and expect to win. That's just giving runs away. And we gave away at least a 2-0 lead on the Mets that would have changed the complexion of the game.

So that's the end result of game one. Like I said, don't panic over one game, other than the fact the bullpen is still really bad and we're going to need starters to go at least into the 7th inning to have much of a chance. If we're putting in the pen starting in the 6th inning? You can likely turn off the game unless we have a 6 run lead. And maybe not even then. They need to get much better much quicker, or we need to get Coppy to fix the issue with some younger talent by May.

GO BRAVES!