At the park
It was a confusing scene Monday for anyone watching on television or from a high vantage point. Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez sprinted from the dugout to initiate a replay challenge of Marlins right fielder Christian Yelich’s tumbling catch of Cameron Maybin’s line drive for the third out of the second inning.
It was pretty clear from the press box and the television angles that Yelich had caught the ball. But Gonzalez and the rest of the Braves in the dugout saw a flash of white hit the ground that they thought was the ball.
“It was the hat,” Gonzalez said, referring to the white lining of Yelich’s cap.
Further confusing matters was that third-base umpire Mark Ripperger delayed calling Maybin out until he had run out to see if Yelich still had the ball. Also, Braves third-base coach Bo Porter was emphatically gesturing for Maybin to keep running, the Braves in the dugout were yelling that Yelich had dropped the ball and the Marlins were leaving the field.
It was under those circumstances that Gonzalez immediately notified plate ump Jeff Kellogg that he wanted to invoke his challenge. However, the official rules say that while a manager must immediately run onto the field to tell the umpire he’s contemplating a challenge, he gets up to 30 seconds to decide if he actually will challenge the call while the umpires hold the defensive players on the field.
Then Fredi said …
Gonzalez was asked about hot-hitting veteran infielder Alberto Callaspo, whom he had in the lineup for the second consecutive game Tuesday. It was the sixth start for Callaspo in eight games, including four at third base. “He’s a hyena,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve got a bunch of hyenas. You ever see a hyena on Animal Planet? You ever seen a hyena hunt? They’re a bunch of ugly looking cats, they’re not real pretty but they get the job done and they laugh and they fight. That’s what we’ve got. That’s my team. We’ve got ugly hyena that play the game. That still pull the meat off the bone when they get (their prey), just like the other beautiful cats, the pumas and the leopards and all the others.”
Small ball
“We are trying to take (hitting coach Kevin) Seitzer’s approach into every game. We are not going to rely on the home run ball. We are going to be able to manufacture runs, squeeze across just enough to win the game.” — Eric Young Jr. after the 3-2 victory Monday, on the Braves’ ability to manufacture runs.
Footsteps
Triple-A Gwinnett third baseman Pedro Ciriaco got his second game-winning hit in four days as the G-Braves won a soggy 5-4 victory against the Norfolk Tides on Monday. Ciriaco was hitting .318 through five games and leads the team with seven hits and four RBIs. Ciriaco, you may recall, was in tears when he first was told he’d make the opening day major-league roster, then found out after the trade of Craig Kimbrel that he would not.
