Nice performance by the Braves last night, including a solid start from Horacio Ramirez, who gave the team seven innings that the tired bullpen desperately needed, and a significant spark from Furcal and Giles, the engines that make the offense go. All that is forgotten in the late-inning fireworks, which included an interference call on David Wright that was obviously correct, despite Wright's protestations to the contrary, and another dreadful performance from Dan Kolb. In the realm of ludicrous statements, here are a couple regarding our apparently undeposed closer:
"Dan Kolb, getting another chance to close after being demoted last week, allowed a leadoff homer in the ninth inning to Chris Woodward, but managed to get his 11th save and possibly quiet at least a few of his critics."
Let's see, Kolb allows a home run to a no-name batter, then nearly walks the dreadful Mike DeFelice, strikes out Mike Piazza, allows a double to the gap, a walk, a stolen base moving the tying run into scoring position, and then another strikeout. He entered with a three-run lead and ended up pitching out of a jam with the tying run on second. What critics are going to be silenced by a performance like that? The guy sucks right now. He should be in a mop-up role until he figures out how to stop allowing multiple base runners every inning. And that leads us into Dan's explanation for his performance:
"Said Kolb of his struggles this season, 'I think I've got a curse or something. I need a horseshoe.'"
No, a curse would be you giving up a bunch of seeing-eye grounders and Texas leaguers. You're getting shelled. You're walking a batter an inning and you're giving up sharply-hit balls left and right. You want better luck? Stop serving up meatballs.
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