Chris Sale's Record Setting Night & Merrifield's Scary Incident | FULL EPISODE

Chris S notched his record setting 200 strikeout last night in Atlanta's 3 nothing victory over the Colorado Rockies whip marfield dealt with a scary situation getting hit by a pitch in the helmet we'll break down all of that and more on this episode of Braves today [Music] yes welcome on into Braves today your home for all of your news and coverage about the Atlanta Braves I'm Lindsey Crosby he's Christian Ral you can follow us on Twitter I'm at Crosby baseball he's at Christian sral ruh you can also read all of our written work Braves today.com that is the Braves today substack uh go check out everything that we do over there and last night in this three nothing victory for the Atlanta Braves over the Colorado Rockies uh Chris dominant I'm it's warranted to call this a dominant outing right seven scoreless Innings no walks and uh just six hits struck out nine batters so didn't get to double digits but this is his fourth start this year of seven Innings with no runs allowed and this extends a streak now Chris S has 15 consecutive starts with two or less runs allowed this goes back to the beginning of June but despite all of that's not the biggest story that streak is not the biggest story of this outing because Chris S did this 22 and there is strike three and there is strikeout number 200 this year for Chris Sail the first Lefty to record 200ks in a season in franchise history you heard Brandon Goden there Chris Sale is the first left-handed pitcher in franchise history to have 200 strikeouts and this is the longest continually operating franchise in Major League Baseball history the previous record here was Tom glavin 192 punch outs in 1991 was the first of his two young Seasons he went 2011 255 record that year LED all of MLB with nine complete games here's what's I have a great stat shout out to um my good friend Grant mcau of 929 the game he had a great stat last night night glavin had 192 Warren spawn in 1950 had 191 strikeouts and Denny lamaster in 1963 had 190 but the Innings it took these guys to get those strikeouts lamaster got his 190 strikeouts in 237 Innings Warren span got his 191 in 293 Innings Gavin's record of 192 was in 246 and 23s Innings Chris S has his 20 six strikeouts in 16.2 Innings he's the only one to average more than nine strikeouts per nine Christian I've got to ask here we thought Chris S was going to be good this year was there any world where you expected this out of Chris Sale no and I mean that like in the best way I possibly can but respectfully respect yeah you have to think that you weren't going to have this much of a Resurgence after what we've seen from Chris Sale over the last couple seasons in plagued and all that good stuff I will say it's glad that it's nice to see that he's in the the nice light of being in the say young contention after all those injuries on the Red Sox after what people think about of him cutting the Jersey being a part of member of the white socks it's you're finally seeing what Chris Sale deserves to be seen as a sa young award-winning pitcher and that's what he set up he's set up to be and you might see him as a Triple Crown winner he's leading all the categories in the national league right now with strikeouts to six he's got 16 wins which I believe is three more than Zack Wheeler right now and he's leading with a 2.46 erra which is not only the best in National League get the best in baseball right now I'm a little disappointed he didn't get 10 strikeouts because I predicted 10 double digits for two of the three batters so it's up to you Charlie Morton to step up today so maybe that will happen who knows those Rockies do sure strike out though we saw that last night but I'm really excited to see what Chris Sale can do the rest of the way I don't even know if he's gonna make it to 200 Innings but he might make it to 240 strikeouts which is quite impressive absolutely wild if you're I went to look this up I was just curious what the overall strikeout record in the season was because we know Spencer Strider can throw out over 200 punchies obviously we saw sa do it this year you just did the math a little bit he might get to 240 this year the record the all-time franchise record for a single season belongs to a Boston because all of these stats do at this point Charles bluffington in 1884 struck out 417 batters he went 48 and 16 in his 67 starts 63 of those were complete games had a 2115 erra he also batted like 260 that year as well because you do both you did both of them back then did it say how many innings I don't have it off top of my head but I it can't be it can't be less I'm going to guess I'm going to guess it can't be less than 400 yeah if not more I feel like nobody back then really had um giant like strikeout totals so I'm gonna find that oh got it here we go 587 Innings what Boston a season in a in one season Boston used two starting pitchers and five total pitchers the entire year bluffington started 67 games Jim Whitney started 37 and then they had three other guys combined for 12 starts that was it he threw three seasons of pitching now three like three top Innings count Seasons to get that in one year that's how much the game has changed that's just absolutely wow okay all right so Chris Sale now back to Chris Sale shout out arge bluffington back to Chris Sale 6.1 F war fangraphs war highest pitching war total since fangraphs was invented the next closest starter in the NL Zack Wheeler 4.4 right so yeah Chris Sals got he had a top six finish in the sa young in the AL seven consecutive years he was a runner up in 17 third place finish two fourth places two fifth places this is the year I don't really know what is there anything Zack Wheeler can do short of three consecutive perfect games to catch Chris Sale yeah I know hitter might you know push him up into that category but I think Chris saes got it in the bag and especially since Dylan ce's already got that no hitter he's a little bit behind but no I think Zack Wheeler is just going to be the runner up and that's not a bad year to be the runner up because Chris Hales is absolutely just doing great things and it's not just him it's this entire rotation Lindsay we mentioned it uh before but they extended again the brave starting pitching is now allowed three runs or fewer in 22 straight games it extends their longest single season record in in Braves history they're doing all of this with this rotation with with the legends of the game that we have seen the Braves have you the glavin the MX smolts you name them all right they're doing this year and they're not even at full Strife they're doing it without Spencer Strider so it is super impressive what this entire rotation is doing of course led by Chris S and his NL sa young award-winning performance yeah this is this is dominant something that was a little bit prevalent in Braves Twitter last night and I can I had something to do with this so I want to address it is Chris sa's velocity was a little interesting last night and we just going to spend a minute on this he looked normal in the first inning he hit 96 on his next to last fast ball but after that his fast ball dropped he only threw two fast balls in the second inning that were harder than 92 miles an hour and from that point through the fifth inning or until the fifth inning he only had two fast balls break 93 at like at one point stat cast was showing he was almost three M hour down from his from his season average and I felt like I needed to say something or not say something but I made the observation that I noticed this trend during the game because I was at the home opener in the Press Box when Spencer Strider was throwing low to mid90s and none of us really were comfortable saying anything and it turned out that was the in that was the game where he left with the the elbow pain had the Imaging ended up having elbow surgery missed the rest of it I tried to watch it during the game his V picked back up in the fifth inning he didn't throw a ton of fouram fast balls it was a lot of Sinker slider but when he did throw those fast balls the velocity was a little bit closer to normal and was not at the game last night did not have a chance to go in the press conference and talk to him about it nobody asked him about it but it looked like he was deliberately backing off a little bit to try to dial in the control the fastball was a little wild in that first inning so I was a little concerned about what was going on and it looks like he just backed off a little bit got it figured out and then went back to the heat then that last inning and I think what's funny is he didn't even need the velocity to shut down Colorado he finished a game with 23 whiffs and a 35% csw and gave up a grand total of one extra base hit and like these always seem to do in a Chris Sale start it was a Fly ball two hor Solair in right field that J Solair did not make a play on in this case it was right there at the base of the wall Solair cir tried to get it and it went between him and the wall and then the ball lodged in the fence between the Chand link fence and the padding frustrated that they did not rule it a ground rule double or something they let Ezekiel Tovar be at third base on there but then Chris S obviously got three consecutive outs two strikeouts and a fly out or a ground out didn't lit Tovar scores even then he wasn't phased by it but even that last that one extra base hit I'd argue wasn't really his fault it just seems every time Chris Sale makes a start there's a Fly ball to Jorge Solair that goes a little bit wrong or just goes a little bit sideways in right field yeah this is going to be something we got to get used to having cair in the corner outfields again and it's strap in because it's we're probably going to get a couple more of those across the next rest of the season and and next year as well but you mentioned those whiffs 23 whiffs that was the most in all of baseball yesterday all 13 games it's just been really impressive to see what chisale has done and I was nervous about that velocity too when you sent it my way we were talking offline yesterday but he really let it go he really let it go towards the end of that start I think there was couple times 97 it was really impressive watching Chris S just change his command and control he's got it all figured out this year he's got everything just figured out he has really mastered his craft this season I talked to him in spring training down at Northport and he swore up and down in the press conference when after the Braves signed him he swore up and down when I talked to him in spring training he was the healthiest he's ever been and I think a lot of us and us as in Braves country right fans media whatever we took it with a Grandin of salt because we haven't seen you led to earlier we haven't seen Chris Sail be healthy really since 2018 2019 right he's had he's thrown I think 150 innings in the last three seasons combined and no he's completely healthy and he talked last night in the media availability after the game about having a healthy offseason for him was huge because it really let him work on building up his stamina refining everything versus just trying to rehab to get back on a mound and so that's why not only has he been able to pitch All Season he's been able to pitch at a Sai Young level so definitely definitely good to see there quick note 13 games yesterday not a Full Slate of games but if you want to hear about what happened in these games go check out our other podcast first pitch where we get your podcast and on YouTube we'll put a link in the episode description and on YouTube right up here in the corner but comes out every single weekday morning we break down all of the news from the previous days worth the games the storylines the things to know so go check that out I'll will say one more thing about this before we move on about sale you mentioned that postgame conference we are talking all these amazing things what he's doing and how he's the front runner for the Sai Young and how he might win the pitching Triple Crown he doesn't seem to care at all about that Lindsay yeah all he seems to care about is the Braves making the postseason and you absolutely have to love that from a veteran guy that is just all in on getting these bravs back to where they belong it that is I think that is really exciting that makes me just like the guy even more yeah one of the quotes he had was teams are going to come at him and they don't care how many strikeouts he had last game right he they're going to give him give him their best and so the goal there is to win get the team in the postseason you'd love to see that selfless Spirit from one of the I'm going to call one of the leaders of the team this year uh especially having lost Spencer Strider and just a second let's talk about a scary situation happened late in the game with Whit marfield some of the ramifications of that we'll do that next right here on Braves today welcome back into Braves today Lindsay Crosby Christian raal and in this it wasn't all just great stuff in the game in this B in this seventh inning there was a scary situation involving second baseman Whit marfield oh oh [Applause] [Music] gosh and it looks like man take your time whip I think he just told him to get the ball over the plate is what he said to chriswell so it's frustrating there's no two ways about it for Chris chriswell so Mayfield takes a Jeff chriswell pitch in the back of the head you can see from the video he was hot right he was not happy about getting hit in the head and he walked off the field under his own power he went down to all fours and was quickly back up they team checking on him Luke Williams came in who to pinch run promptly went first to Third on a g or sh hit and run and then sack fly for Michael Harris drove him in so Atlanta got a run out of that whole sequence but one medical update on Whit marfield uh Snicker said after the game he passed all the concussion tests that they gave him they were going to re-evaluate him today uh obviously time of recording we don't quite know the results of that yet but they were going to reevaluate him today and if he passes everything and Whit marfield expressed to the coaching staff when he was being evaluated he feels like he should be able to play today now merfield himself talked to the media after the game it was interesting uh the Medical Update first he said that he was going to get a CT scan just to be safe and that likely he was probably not going to be able to play tonight and that's just one of those precautionary things that's assume guy gets hit in the head they're going to try to hold him out for a day or so just to be safe he's also though on the mlbpa rules committee and they have a regularly scheduled call this morning and so he said and I've got the quote here it's going to be a long conversation on what we've got to do to make pitchers think about this I just took 95 right off the head I'm very very lucky that it got me in a good spot and on his note it looked like it caught the edge of the helmet so I don't quite think it was flush on his head I think it caught the Ed the the bottom edge of the helmet in the back I've got to go get a CT scan I'm out of the game he gets to stay in the pitch I'm probably not going to be able to play tomorrow no repercussions on his part and without being overly dramatic that was my line that was my life on the line right there I'm sick of it it's happening way too much and he mentioned some other guys on other teams that we've seen get hurt like this I watched Taylor Ward get hit in the face last year and have to get reconstructive surgery that ended Taylor Ward season that was bad and I was talking to a buddy of mine who who covers the angels He said that Ward got hit on like the shoulder this year and ever since then he's been awful at the plate and it's probably there's probably a lingering effect there of he expecting to get hit yeah Justin Turner got hit in the face last year it's happening at an exponential rate guys are getting hit in the hand bets broke a bone in his hand this year it's just ridiculous it has to be fixed or God forbid something terrible is going to happen and to his point we've seen Braves players this year get hurt and be out multiple Travis darno took one on the wrist and missed a week Austin Riley took one on the Miss on the wrist and it's going to be out six to eight weeks here's my question I think he's not wrong right teams are calling these dudes up that throw 100 miles an hour they don't know where it's going they say just set up down the middle throw it as hard as you can hopefully we'll get a guy out what can Major League Baseball legitimately do to try to re this in what options do you actually have in this situation you mentioned our no and Riley Michael Harris the second also got hit in the hand too didn't he another one that's right yeah he did and we thought he was gonna miss a bunch of time he ended up checking in on defense the next day so that's right I thought I forget about him we thought he was going to miss more time than he did that's a bad thing that we're forgetting about the IM multiple amount of people that have been hit by this thing I think the only thing that you can possibly do because this is a tough one to fix right you can't really change the game I think the only thing you can change in this thing is when it comes to getting hit in the head and I think that if you hit a batter in the head that means your control is just nowhere where it needs to be I think you can realistically eject a player automatically if you hit a player in the head think that is fair if you hit somebody in the head that means that you are nowhere near the strike zone Lindsay like above the shoulders head neck sails over their head whatever if they love the shoulders you're out of the game yeah if it sails over the head I think you maybe could use maybe the Umpire could use discretion and do a warning maybe if that if that's the case but if it causes contact with the head or neck area I think that should be considered an automatic injection you can use the replay system if you want to a college sports uses that for targeting but every sport uses something to protect head injuries and I think that's the biggest thing marfield made a really good point that's his life on the line and especially you can't really blame the guy for saying that if you're do you want 94 miles an hour taken at your head I sure don't he had a welt on the back of his neck it just missed his helmet as you alluded to I don't blame him for being upset or mad whatsoever I I would love to be a fly on the wall in that conference call because I'd love to hear what they got to say but I think that's probably the only thing that you could possibly do I don't know if that has anything to how you can fix you know hitting the hands on the bat maybe that would change the way but hit by pitches are not going away and it's actually becoming an epidemic starting in 2021 in the last 10 years span according to Fan graphs 2,112 hit by pitches in the season there's never been more than 2,000 before the year 2021 since 2021 it has been over 2,000 every single year two 2022 is 2046 in 2023 it was right back to 2,112 I did the math and looked at some pacing compared to 2024 last night after the whip Maryfield they are right on Pace to surpass 2,000 hit by pitches yet again in 2024 this also the passing of pitchers throwing in the upper zones is also increasing Year bye as well as velocity Year bye so it's I don't know if you're going to be able to fix the velocity portion of that Lindsay because they keep bringing out younger guys that throw hard they want to get strikes that's just the new end of the game but you got to find out a way of of working the up and in and taking either taking that away from players or just making it some sort of punishment as I mentioned uh if they do hit somebody in that neck or head area I think it's worth asking is there an Avenue where a suspension an automatic suspension based on a player missing time is that worth it is that something teams would try to game so like just off top of my head if a player misses let's say every five games a starter misses because they were hit by a pitch by you you miss one start and CU I'm thinking about the head thing is scary I I think you're on the right track anybody gets if you come in above the head above neck head whatever above the shoulders you should be ejective from the game you should be gone because obviously you cannot control what you're doing but a lot of the instances that he mentioned you know or or that we've mentioned mooki bets Austin Riley Harris darno those were all hand wrist and a lot of those were the backhander wrist right not even the front one it's hard to like armor that up or protect that because you have to have flexibility and it's the back one so is it worth looking at some sort of conversation I don't want to say fine guys because a lot of these guys don't make a ton of money anyway don't find guys but is it worth a suspension that is correlated with the amount of time a guy misses let's say Mayfield misses 5 days Chris Wells suspended and can't make it next start is that fair do you think that's enough of a deterrent or is that something where you may see you open up the risk for shenanigans where a team may say we had a backup in there who we don't really need and Zach wheeler hit him we're going to hold him out for we can say he can't play so that we can hurt the Phillies down the stretch yeah I think that could there's ways that they could find ways to work around those as teams and that that really only comes into play if you're a starter if you're a relever then what how does that work right does it you miss five appearances you can't step in for five games I I think it's interesting I don't know if they go down that route I don't I think that would be a very tough route to to try and fight on both sides because I think you're gonna have to get pitching to agree too on the players for the rules committee they're gonna have to find some way to agree on that I think it's gonna be really hard to try and change anything to do with the inside pitches that affect the hands I think that's going to be the toughest thing I think the first step will be a ating and punishing or suspending or however you want to call it to the the head and neck area I think that's the first St I think that's the first step on fixing this situation yeah and I do want to clarify there is nobody at all who has intimated that any of these shots to the Head were intentional that is not a thing in the game and marfield even talked about um even just hitting the opposing guy is not something that's in the game anymore you don't go out and retaliate and hit the other guy that not part of the game anymore he did touch on the fact that pitchers don't have to hit and so because you're not you're encourage not to go retaliate and hit one of their guys and their pitcher is never going to come to bat that there's less consequences for pitchers I don't necessarily think it's more as much that as it is teams maybe prioritizing stuff over control I do agree there's not an easy way really to handle this I think your spot on you can Institute something for the most egregious things that you know the face the the stuff above the shoulders and I did notice when Travis darno finally returned a week later he had a new it was like a slide on sleeve he wore on his backand and it had like rubber like a rubber pad right over his wrist I don't want to say the solution is just to armor these guys up I do think there is some developments in flexible protection to take a little bit of the sting out of it but I think it's got to be more can't be reactive on this you got to be proactive you have to find ways to eliminate this from the pitcher perspective not from minimizing the damage on the batter that's like saying hey too many people are speeding and going and getting an accidents we're not going to worry about the speeding we're just going to try to make cars like buff them up and make make them safer it's great to make things safer the solution is to fix the speeding and it feels like that here I just don't know how you do this and I don't really know if there is a silver bullet like you said I'd be really curious to hear how this conference call goes and to hear what comes out of this obviously anything proposed by The Players Association has to be agreed to by MLB vice versa anything MLB proposes the player association has to agree to we know those are not notoriously hostile bodies and I believe MLB has enough seats on the rules committee to unilaterally pass anything with onee with a one-year notice they can unilaterally do something but I imagine mention anything that they try to do right now that would punish a player for a ball above the head and neck I feel like would probably be accepted by The Players Association I agree no I agree I think we're going to see a new rule uh by the beginning of the Season that does change this uh whether it happens at winter meetings whether it happens just sometime in the off season but I do think when we head into spring training next year that'll be part of the new rules yep all right wrapping this up here uh tonight's matchup 7:20 p.m. it is on B Sports South uh Rock 518 Rockies versus 75 and 63 Braves are still only half a game up on the Mets because the Mets just absolutely took it to the Boston Red Sox last night interesting pitching matchup for me here 23y old Bradley balock versus 40-year-old Charlie Morton a 17year spread in the starters I think we're both on the consensus here Atlanta feels like the absolute favorite on this but you have a specific request of Charlie Morton tonight don't you yes 10 St outs come on you got to give me those 10 strikeouts Charlie you got to get you got to help me out with my prediction here because I can't be wrong just what my second show back with UL Lindsay over here in brace today I can't be wrong because I'm never wrong but no this this is interesting with block here he had this is going to be his fifth start of his career his six appearance he had won a one inning Stout with the Milwaukee Brewers before he went over to the Colorado Rockies he's only got 21 and two3 innings in the major leagues you compare that against char Morton who is qualifying for an ARP membership in the next month or so so you it's going to be it's going to be really fun watching these two go back and forth 10 strikeouts Charlie come on do me in that's what we need from you trillian Morton also probably a pretty good lock he's going to spin a he's going to spin a curveball and hit a lefty on the back foot that is not in retaliation for Whit marfield I'm going to go ahead and throw it out there now somebody some dumb person on Twitter is going to say that we're saying now that's not going to be the case uh this is been Braves today for Wednesday September 4th if you're listening to audio do us a favor leave us a festar review if you're on YouTube leave us a comment down below if you have any questions for us let us know we'll grab those probably next off day unless we just have a boring game and need something to talk about but also if you're on YouTube do us a favor also go out and subscribe to that audio feed we want to show believe that Braves that Braves country can show up for their teams and for their shows um until next time this is Braves today oh [Music]