Hello, everyone, and welcome to the debut episode of the Hammer Territory podcast, a podcast about the Atlanta Braves.

I am your host, Brad Roland, and I'm joined by Scott Coleman. Scott, how are you? As we transition into the month of May and roll out a brand new podcast.

Brad, I am doing great. It is really good to hear your voice. It has been a little bit of time since you and I both got together for a podcast. Of course, we are here under a new name, a new network, a lot of exciting things, and very happy to be back on the airwaves.

Yes. So as Scott references, and as I do as well, we are a podcast that existed before, but we are back in a new form. We recorded hundreds of episodes as both the Talking Chop and Battery Power podcast. We are very glad that you found us. I'm sure some of you are returning from that feed, and we definitely appreciate that. We would love it if you would subscribe to this new show on your favorite podcast platform, and of course, tell your friends and family about the program so we can help to spread the word and grow the podcast. We are also part of the Foul Territory Network, which might sound familiar to you. It is a great network of shows that involves Ked Rosenthal and Scott Braun, a ton of different baseball players, Retired. Names that you will certainly recognize. We are now under that umbrella as Hammer Territory. Essentially, what we do or what we endeavor to do is to cover the Braves in comprehensive fashion. We have fun. We talk about the ins and outs. We give you the nuance, responses, the numbers, the trends, all of that fun stuff. It is not just Scott and I as well.

We are joined by two more co-hosts on a regular basis, Stephen Tolbert and Sean Coleman. You will have a rotation of the four of us and lots and lots of content coming your way in the near future. Scott, I know I'm fired up about this. I'm sure you are as well.

Yeah, thrilled to be back. Very excited to be part of the Foul Territory Network. If listeners are long-time listeners of the Talking Chop and battery Power podcast and have not checked out the foul territory network of shows. Please be sure to do that. A ton of great baseball content. And as you just said, Brad, if you're a long-time listener, you know what we do here. We love the Atlanta Braves. We cover the ins and outs and day-to-day of the team. We'll We'll crank in a couple of emergency podcasts whenever news calls for it. We'll be here for all the highs and the lows and the heartbreak and the euphoria. Again, just great to be back. We want to thank everybody who has made the transition over from battery power to hammer territory. We're very excited about this, and it should be a great ride.

Yes. And eventually, we'll stop talking about the old feed and all the old stuff, but we do want to make sure people get it comfortable with us, and hopefully, you will enjoy what you are about to hear. But from this point forward on this episode, we'll be talking about Atlanta Braves' baseball and to reset things as we're recording this podcast, In between series, the Braves just finished up a series against Seattle on the road, and then now they're heading to Los Angeles for the first showdown against the Dodgers over the weekend. Of course, Atlanta is 20 and 9. I'm sure we will probably poke fun or maybe think about or laugh about a little bit of a freak out in the last couple of days, but the Braves did win their most recent game on Wednesday in Seattle, and they had the best record in baseball, although a familiar your foe, NL East rival, the Philadelphia Philies, are currently hot on their heels in second place across baseball. We'll cover it, of course, in more depth in a second, but it's been synergistic. The offense started out hot for the Braves this year. The pitching was a little bit wobbly out of the gate.

Of course, Special Strider getting injured was an unfortunate subplot earlier this season. Lately, it's been the pitching, actually, carrying a massive load in the offense has been a little bit wobbling. But Scott, honestly, that sounds like a good baseball team to me, one that could cover it for itself. When one part of it's struggling, have the other parts of it step up.

It's crazy to think the Braves are 20 and 9, and I am not sure at any point in the first month of the year did they have both the pitching and the lineup firing together at the same time. You just said early on the lineup was unbelievable, but there was some shakiness in the rotation. And then the pitching staff over the last couple of weeks, especially, has been phenomenal. Max Fried has really settled in after a weird start to the Chris Sayle has been fantastic. Let's all hope and pray that he stays healthy for the year because Chris Sayle looks like vintage Chris Sayle right now. Old Chuck Morton at age 40 is going strong. Ronaldo Lopez has been an incredible find, one It was pretty unheralded in the offseason, and Lopez has been terrific. And the bullpen, while maybe not perfect, has been plenty fine as well. So hopefully after this win on Wednesday afternoon to avoid the sweep in Seattle, let's hope the bats get going. It is pretty wild to see the big trio of Acuña, Olson, and Reilly struggling the way they have. At the end of the day, the Braves are on pace for about 112 wins.

And while it has not been perfect and there are things to improve upon, this is a pretty good standing here a month into the year.

When you are winning two out of every three games in baseball, you are doing something right. That's a very shorthand version. It's very broad on purpose, but certainly nothing is disastrous so far for Atlanta. Rather than, especially for recurring listeners, rather than go back three and a half, four weeks, that's we last podcast. We're not going to do that necessarily. That was our brief overview at the top here. But we'll dive into the Seattle series for the most part on this show. At the end of the show, we will also preview the massive showdown coming up this weekend between the two, I don't know if they were preseason favorites, but two of the top three favorites, probably for the World Series coming into the season, and probably still right now, Braves Dodgers in Los Angeles. But first, let's dive in to the three-game series in Seattle. I would say the theme, even with the Braves winning on Wednesday afternoon, was that the offense was in a power outage. I wrote about it a little bit, actually on Wednesday morning before they broke out a little bit on Wednesday. But even on Wednesday, they only had one real good ending It, I don't know, produces frustration when things go that way.

Lower scoring games when your offense is not functioning at its peak level, those games can lead to swings. You have one bad pitch here, one bad pitch there, and things can flip. And I think that Monday's 2-1 loss in Seattle was perhaps the epitome of that because for the most part, it was a late-night game. A lot went well for two-plus hours, and then what? In about two minutes or so or less between two batters, it all went south.

Yeah, it's crazy. I thought we might be getting the Braves' first no hitter for the first time in 30 years. Shout out to Ent Merker in 1994, still has the last no hitter for the Braves. A A difficult 2-1 loss. But again, AJ Menter came in, seemed like the Braves were on their way, and just made a couple of mistake pitches, and one that Seattle did not miss, went very far for a walk-off home run. But overall, really, all three games in the series were toss-ups or close to it. That's the way it goes sometimes. The Braves were uncharacteristically, have been pretty bad offensively for the last week or so. And Cleveland and Seattle are two teams that really can pitch, especially at home for the Mariners. That's a really good rotation, probably the best rotation in the American League when it's all said and done. A tough one to open up the series on Monday. The Braves also had just traveled all the way across the country. They played Sunday afternoon in Atlanta and then flew cross country to play the Mariners that Monday evening, which is never easy. So unfortunate to be sure, but the Mariners are a good team.

They're probably the favorites in the American League West, especially the way the Astros have struggled. So while, of Of course, you never want to lose a series. There's no shame in losing a couple of games to the Mariners.

Yeah, that's right. Seattle is a quality team, the pitching staff in particular. New listeners may not know this, but Scott is actually based in Arizona, and currently, Arizona is on Pacific time. They don't change their clocks in Arizona. One of those weird things out there where you live, Scott.

We're very weird out here.

I say that because we always refer to these West Coast trips as peak Scott Coleman time, because Scott is the that's in his prime time. It's not super late when these games are happening, and I'm sure you were on recap duty writing-wise on Monday evening. So you had a close personal look and all kinds of notes and things about a game that was, again, it was one-nothing in the ninth heading. And then essentially, Minter takes the ball because the glasses was unavailable. He pitched the two previous games, a lead-off single, and then quite literally, just a terrible pitch to Mitch Garver that Minter owned up to. Everybody talked about it. You can't miss like that. And within seconds, it It's just over. And it was one of those can't predict ball games. But I'm glad you pointed out how good Seattle rotation is because their pitching staff in general is top-notch. It doesn't give the reason an excuse, but it is an explanation for part of what happened. And basically, it just leaves you with very little margin for error. Even when you're winning, you're up one run and things can flip on you that fast.

Yeah. If you're looking for a positive, Max Fried was phenomenal. Six innings of a no hitter. Everyone was starting everyone They're starting to look around at each other like, Are the Braves really about to do this? Are we about to see a combined no hitter? They made it through seven innings. Piers Johnson was really good as well in relief. Unfortunately, things went a little sideways in the eighth, the no hitter went away, and then Ajay He was a very, very good reliever, and he was thrust into ninth-inning duty because Iglesias was not available. But the big picture takeaway, I believe the game was played on April 29th, which is hardly the highest of stakes the Braves are going to play this year. For April 29th, I think The big takeaway is that Max Fried looks fantastic. Fifteen straight scoreless innings, a 1.37 ERA over his last four starts after the very, very weird start to the season where he couldn't even get through the first ending. It's good to have Max back, especially without Spencer Strider at the top of the rotation. Right now, Fried and Sal make for about as good of a one-two punch as there is in the National League.

I was going to say, do you remember when Max Fried was absolutely terrible? He was for a minute. I know that it was happening when we were on podcast hiatus, but on Twitter and other things, we were able to share like, Hey, I'm not worried about Max. There's no reason to really panic about a guy with a record as long as his. As long as he wasn't hurt, and knock on wood, he's not. He looks like himself again. Just to get this out of the way, there was absolutely no chance he was going to be able to finish no hitter off. Every time a guy gets pulled a no hitter, there's somebody in the crowd that gets mad about it, but he was already at 100 pitches through six innings. In the modern game, you can grub Well, about this if you want to, but there was just no chance. He was going to throw three more innings, like zero %, especially, as you said, in late April. They're not pushing that. The combined O'Hare would have been fun, and that's also the same way it was with Mercer back in the day. But just to get out in front of it, there was just no way it was going to happen for Max on his own on that night, even though he was awesome.

Yeah, I don't want Max Fried throwing 130 pitches. Yeah, sadly, that's not going to happen. And a theme I think that also emerges is the offense was pretty nonexistent. You alluded to a couple of minutes ago, there was a good ending on Wednesday afternoon where the Braves scored four runs. But other than that, man, it was tough. I mean, it's just been tough to watch. The whole lineup is slumping right now. I guess Osi Alves has been good since he came back from his toe injury, and Marcelo Zuna has been fine. But overall, like one through nine, there are far more players who are struggling and in a bit of a slump than there are who are playing well. And that's just uncommon for this Braves lineup the last couple of years. It felt like Even if a few guys were down, there were a few others who were red hot and picking up the slack. And it's just been an odd couple of weeks offensively. I don't think anyone has necessarily panicked or sounding the alarm because there's just too much talent in this Braves lineup. But it is weird to watch Ron Acuña Jr.

Just swing right through fastballs right down the middle of the plate. Matt Olson just hasn't found the same power that he had last year. Same for Austin Reilly. Somebody pointed out that Reilly has to lead the world in baseballs that have just died at the warning track. I would put him up against probably anybody because he's just been off ever so slightly. But at the end of the day, these are just really good players. They're going to figure it out. And hopefully, it happens this weekend when the Braves head to LA and face arrival in Los Angeles.

It's a good point. And even this year, there were times when guys were scuffling, to your point, about how it's rare for the whole lineup to be down at the same time. And Aussie has been pretty good. But early in the year, Marcel Lozuna was at an on an absolute tear. There was that three-day period where Travis Arnault was the best player in the world. That stuff happened. Orlen Arcia was really hot early in the year. Michael Harris was really hot for about a week, maybe two weeks. Right now, nobody's really doing that. And I think that someone will, again, maybe today, unlock things that we'll get into in a second with the big three being most of the offense on Wednesday after they had been the guys who had been struggling. I do think, broadly speaking, it's a little bit different of a reaction if the guys who are struggling were not, Ron Lecunia, Matt Olson, and Austin Reilly, who are, I don't know, Scott, three of the top 15 players in the world, conservatively, right now. Ronny, arguably the best player in the world. Reilly has been a the old top 10 MVP guy.

The last three years, Olson was top four in the NL last year. They would have had an MVP worthy season a lot of times. I have trouble worrying about those guys. I really do.

Yeah, it's only a matter of time. They've had some bad luck, too. The Braves lead baseball by a considerable margin in barreled outs. So baseballs that they have barreled at the plate have just found a glove. It's the way it goes sometimes. I would like to think over the course of 162 games, it's all going to balance out, and the pendulum will swing in their favor, and and get back on track to this lineup we knew a year ago. And even with this downturn, overall, the numbers are still good. Maybe not historic. Yeah, maybe not historic as they were last season. But on the whole, the team looks fine offensively. It's just when you start out so, so well, and then most everybody has cooled down considerably, it's just going to feel a little bit different. The Braves have also run into some good pitching in recent weeks. It's not as if they're not putting up runs against the Oakland A's and the Chicago Whites Sox. That would probably have me a little more concerned. But the Cleveland guardians are a pitching factory. The Mariners, as we said, might have a top three rotation in baseball.

Hopefully, they just settle in. The weather is going to warm up. That's only going to help. Hopefully, they get back to hitting home runs. They haven't hit many home runs either. And just get back to be in the Braves that we enjoyed so much last season.

For sure. And Monday's game, they scratched a run across with the help of an infield single and two stolen bases from Ronald Acuña. They have three hits in the entire game. Tuesday, they lose by a run again, three to two. They had seven hits on Tuesday, but all were singles, nothing extra bases. They're down three, nothing in the eighth day, and they get back into it as this team always seems to. They're really, over multiple years now, extremely resilient and getting back in the games, never being out of games. Earlier this year, they were doing the comeback thing that they seemed to do with regularity. But there was this 10-game sample, which I cut off before Wednesday's game because they did score five runs today. It was a little bit better. But the 10 games previously, we're talking all around how shaky they've been, but they had a 635 OPS as a team over 10 games. They scored 36 runs in 10 games. That's not a disaster for most teams. It's pretty bad. For over 10 games for most teams, but for this offense to do that, and yeah, they're not 100% healthy, but they're close to it, that is a pretty big surprise, even over that small of a sample size.

We've talked around this, too. They've been very unlucky. You mentioned the barreled outs. Our colleague and co-host, Steven Tolbert, wrote about this at batterypower. Com, actually, about how they went unlucky across the board in the last couple of weeks. But the Braves still, as of today, when we're recording this podcast between series, lead all of Major League Baseball hard hit rate and exit velocity for the season. Those are two really good stats to lead the Major's end. That probably indicates it's going to be a better time ahead.

Yes, it should. You would hope that it balances out. They have been hitting the baseball on the ground a fair amount, which is a little bit of a concern. Of course, you hit the baseball on the ground, what is the absolute best outcome? I mean, maybe a triple if it just happens to roll to the perfect place. But more than likely, it's either going to be a ground out or it's to be a single. With the power that's in this lineup, we want the Braves to drive the ball, get it up in the air. Again, I don't think anyone is really concerned. Man, it's a really good lineup, and it feels like it's only a matter of time before Acuña and Reilly and Olson get going. Michael Harris has been okay, but I still think he has another gear in his game. It sounds like Sean Murphy is getting closer to a rehab stent, which will be really good. For as good as Travis Darnot has been in limited duty, it'll be great to have Murphy out there as well. And just one through nine, right? We've seen Orlando Arcia can get hot and be a contributor.

I don't know if you necessarily want Orlando to be one of your key guys, especially if others are struggling. But man, when the Braves lineup is humming and the top is going, and then even if the bottom half is just okay, it just feels like to me that we're just counting down the days until everything gets going again. And assuming the pitching staff keeps it going the way they have, that's a scary thought, especially for a team that is 20 and nine. You think about the ceiling and just how good it can be if everything gets clicking together. It could be a really fun month ahead.

It should be for sure. And just one more note on that Tuesday game, Ronald Lopez, who you talked about earlier in accurate terms. He is a human After all, he had been, I would say, unhuman in his first four starts. He allowed three runs and a home run. Actually, even in a, quote, unquote, not that great start, he struck out seven with two walks. He's not even allowed multiple runs in a start until then. He has a one five ERA. And look, he was always going to be due for some regression. No one was going to be able to keep up what he was doing this first four starts. But even in a less spectacular outing on Tuesday, we're not always been a huge story. We don't have to go super deep into it now. But the fact that they're getting what they're getting out of him has really, really helped, given the strider absence that happened essentially right away, the early short from Fried, et cetera. There's been a lot of guys. We talked about sale. Morton's been very rock solid. Elders done a good job since he came But Lopes being this in a uncertain role for him.

When we talked over the winter, we were not sure he was even going to be given the opportunity to start. They talked about it. We knew that. The fact that he was basically just always going to be a starter, according to everybody with the team in the spring, him to pitch this well in his first five starts. I didn't look at his five starts, but all of what I've seen, I don't know about you, looks like a guy who is a legitimate starter.

He's been a godsend. And for a pitcher who I think we all just penciled him in for the bullpen, and then the front office was saying, No, he's going to get a chance. Then, of course, he did get a chance in the spring and looked good. Especially without Spencer Strider, you talk about needing players to step up. Ronaldo has been huge. It feels like, to me anyway, that it's still very early in the year. The calendar has flipped to May, but it feels like they're just not biting their time, but just trying to connect the dots and go day by day. Then, of course, once the summer rolls around, there might be an opportunity to add another starter to this rotation. But it cannot be overstated what Ronaldo Lopes has done to stabilize the rotation, especially as the carousel in the fifth starter spot has been okay. Alan Wyman got beat up. Darius Vines was okay. Bryce elder has been okay. But you talk about just having that reliable fourth starter behind Fried and Sal and Morton. Ronaldo has been terrific. I think the Braves have really handled him well, skipping days and giving him an extra day of rest wherever they can.

That's only going to pay dividend in the summer months as as his innings continue to rise. Just a tip of the cap to the front office for identifying Lopez because he has been a great add so far.

Absolutely. We should at least touch on the one positive game briefly. We referenced it, but just to dig into it a little bit, a 5-2 victory on Wednesday on getaway day. I think everyone would feel better based on the result of winning the getaway than it would have been if it had been a sweep. In the first two games, we poked fun already about how some of the freak out is warranted, but you don't want to get swept. No one ever wants to get swept. It's rarely happened to this team in the last few years, but the Braves going out and taking an early lead, never giving it up, and just being in control. They really only had one positive offensive ending in the entire series, But it was timed well. It was actually ironic, where we talked about earlier, a lot about Roni and Olson and Reilly. The bottom four of the batting order on Wednesday went over 16 with no walks. It was an absolute wasteland at the bottom of the order. For once this year, the top of the order did its job.

Well, and the really encouraging sign for me was that there were a lot of hard-hit baseballs. We talked about some of the bad luck these guys have run into, but Ronald had a ball that was about 112 off the bat. He smoked a line drive up the middle, which is, I think when he's really going, he's hitting the ball to the middle of the field. His timing is right. I think he's probably still just trying to battle through a spring where he just didn't get a lot of plate appearances during spring training because of the knee issue. Reilly and Olson as well had some well-hit balls. I think it's just... I don't want to be repetitive, but it feels like it's just a matter of time before this trio of superstars starts to break through. And it was definitely good to get a win on Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were actually the first time all season long, the Braves had lost back-to-back games, which is pretty crazy when you consider that we are a month into the season. So to get a win on Wednesday, there's a day off on Thursday, and then, of course, a very big series on the horizon against the Dodgers.

At at least as big as the series can be the first week of May. Nobody wants to get swept, especially against a good West Coast team, which was maybe not a marking stick game, but one where you want to see how you stack up against one of the better teams in the American League so far. So a nice win. There was that one inning where the top of the lineup really did all the damage, and that was all they needed because Chris Sal... Oh, boy, Brad. Chris Zahle has been nasty every single time he's gone out there, and it feels like he is getting better and stronger every time he takes the mound.

I totally agree. I know you were calling your shot on that in the spring, but he only navigated five inings today because his pitch count got a little bit higher than you would like it to. But nine strikeouts, no walks, one run allowed. My favorite stat of Chris Sal on Wednesday was the fact that he generated 21 whiffs in the game. You cannot fake that. That means your stuff is disgusting, basically.

Dude, he is nasty. I had not seen a ton of Chris Sayle over the past couple years with the Red Sox. I catch him on a national telecast every now and then. But it is not hard to see when you watch Chris Sayle right now. He, at one point, had a very real claim to be the best pitcher on planet Earth. It takes about two seconds of watching him to see just how good this guy is. Maybe he isn't quite that level in the back nine of his career now, he's 35 years old. But man, let's just hope that his health cooperates and holds up because Chris Sayle has been downright unhittable. You talk about 21 whips. That is the epitome of unhittable. Very, very good on Wednesday and really stepped up when the Braves needed him to step up.

Yeah. He really is nasty. We're often wrong, and maybe we will be again. I'm sure we will be again, in fact. But something we said a lot, I know you led with it quite a bit in the spring, was essentially that Chris Sayle has never been bad when he's healthy, ever. He's always been good. It's either he's good or he's hurt. That's the Chris Sayle experience. And here we are again. Knock on wood again. We're all holding our breath for Chris Dale. He's an older guy, tons of injury issues, but so far, so good. He looks incredible. And we focus a lot on the weaknesses of the offense in recent days, but the starting pitching has been incredible in particular. The bullpen has been the same all year. It's been top 10 in the league, mostly rock solid. Bullpins always give up some stuff every once in a while. People remember the worst stuff more than the better stuff, but it's been totally fine. Starting pitching after a rough first week or so, maybe two weeks max, has been incredible. They're number two in the league now in starting pitcher ERA. Their ERA as a unit has been around two for three weeks now.

Basically, they have one bad start in about the last three, three and a half weeks, and it was from Darius Vines, who's not pitching in the rotation right now. Everybody's been good almost every time out. And that won't sustain because bad starts will just happen, but it's been every single game, the stars leaving the game, having allowed one or two runs. It feels like every night.

Yeah, and a Quick note on Chris Sayle, of course, who was acquired in the offseason for Von Grisom. Grisom is finally healthy, and he's going to make his debut with the Red Sox. So if you happen to catch a Red Sox game, he is going to be out there, wish the best for Von. Seems like a good kid, a kid who really cared, a kid who is genuinely sad to be moving on from the Braves. We will be rooting for him these next few months as he's going to get a chance to play basically every day in Boston, which I think- He was going to debut and he got sick, too.

Did you see that? He was ready to go, and they were ready to play him. He was like, Oh, by the way, Zill. Like, Oh, man, come on.

Tough go. Yeah. He had an injury in the spring, which set him back. We'll be rooting for Vawn. I think I speak for most Braves fans. A good kid, by all accounts. I think when that trade was made, as we hoped and suspected. As long as health cooperates, it was really a win-win trade for both sides. The Braves got the front-end starting pitcher that they wanted, and the Red Sox were able to move on and add a young position player who should be able to fit in pretty nicely to their lineup.

Yeah, win-win there for everybody involved, hopefully. And there you have it. So big picture, the team's in great shape, 29 with a lineup, especially the top of it. That's not been its peak self. You don't want to get greedy necessarily, but there's a lot that could go better for the Braves. On the flip side, we have to be responsible and say that I think that there are some regression candidates still on the team so far, but I would say more, if anything, more progression candidates especially when you talk about the big guns at the top of the lineup, the pitching seems somewhat sustainable, knock on wood again. Even though the guys who have already cooled off in the middle and the bottom of the lineup have already done that and they're still winning. I think full steam ahead for the Braves at this point in time. We do have one non-on field topic to discuss, Scott, and it's not really in your wheelhouse necessarily. How do you feel about Bally Sports right now? Because it's not really your day-to-day experience as someone who lives in Arizona.

I I saw the news that the Braves are no longer on Comcast on Bally, and that is not fun. I can speak firsthand. The Arizona Diamondbacks last season, they're, of course, my local team here, they were pulled from Bally. Bally, Arizona collapsed, and it was not fun. I know a lot of fans here who were just distraught, and there was a lot of unknown for a little while. Yeah, any time that TV contracts get in the way of watching baseball or any sport for that matter, it is customer suffers, and it really is unfortunate.

Yeah, I think this is probably the loudest, most prominent carrier dispute in baseball that I can recall. Even today, in the last couple of days, monitoring national people who have waited on this and essentially, you got to get this stuff fixed because it becomes... It's an issue where if your fans can't watch the games, and it's not an isolated thing, Xfinity is... I'll speak for the Atlanta market. A lot of people, including me, have Comcast, almost exclusively because they carry Bally, and they can have all the stuff they want in one place. Sports fans in particular, I cover many sports. If you don't know my work elsewhere, but I do lots of other things and cover sports and write about sports. I have to have lots of channels. The only service that is available to me in Atlanta, and I'm not kidding, the only one that has every channel I need is Xenity, except for that ended on May first. Now, I don't really know what to do. That's a personal thing, but it's not a local issue either. This is a national thing where Bally has gone dark with all of their teams. I believe they have something like 12, 13, 14 baseball teams, similar level in the NBA.

Those are the two most prominent sports, but NHL teams are still on Bally as well. This is not a baseball-only issue, but right now it's baseball season, so it's going to be right in the mix of things. Look, I did some digging on this today. I already had this suspicion on it, but I asked around as people that would know. I believe, from what I can gather, the Braves are literally the most valuable and prominent team that ballet sports has in the country. We all know this. If you're Braves fans, I'm sure you have some recollection of this, but dating back to the TBS days and all that, the Braves are a national team. The Braves have a massive fan base. They are the team of the Southeast. They cover several sports where they are the number one team in the Southeast. None of this is new, but that makes them the most I don't know about profitable, but certainly the most desired property that Bally has. They're going to be hearing, I know they have been hearing from Braves fans constantly since this happened. Will that fix anything? I have no idea. But ultimately, short term, hopefully they find a fix.

In season, the pressure is going to be on all parties to get something done, including the Braves. The Braves were tweeting out and sharing social media. I'm not sure if you saw that, Scott. The Braves were weighing in directly, which that means they know the heat is on. If the official team is saying things about the TV contracts and all this stuff publicly, that means they know the fans are not happy, and they don't like that.

No. As I said a little while ago, the only person who really loses out here is the fan. It is the customer. And that's really unfortunate, I hope. I know with blackouts, too, being such an issue, not just for Braves, of course, but across all of Major League Base, it really is unfortunate that in the year 2024, with all the unbelievable technology everything at our disposal, there are these ongoing TV disputes over sports, blackouts, you go on. I mean, you and I could probably rant about this for hours and hours and still not get it all out of our systems because it's very frustrating. But let's hope for the sake of everybody involved that they figure this thing out sooner rather than later, because I want to watch the Braves. I think I would imagine all of our listeners do, too. The team is very good. It's a lot of fun to watch, and let's hope they figure this thing out because it's just nonsense and bickering over money.

There are some options if you are local to watch Only the Braves. I know Fubo TV is an option as well as Direct TV stream, but those are if you already have a service that you're paying for, if you're in a contract somewhere else with Xfinity, it's hard to do both. We will not extensively cover the kibble TV Wars on this podcast, but because it literally happened on May first. I would argue that was maybe the biggest story of the day, even on a day the Braves won a baseball game, because it just fan reaction and all of the way that Like you said, it's only the fan that loses here. If fans can't watch your sport, that is a problem. All right. With that said, Scott, let us quickly preview the weekend. We referenced it several times, but the showdown in LA is happening. Their first meeting between the Braves and the Dodgers this season, and they only face off twice in the regular season this year. In fact, they will not play again until mid-September in Atlanta. That's a long time from now. That's four and a half months between series, and that's a four-gamer in Atlanta.

But if you are hankering for Braves Dodgers, you better get it now, because otherwise, you have to wait for quite some time.

Yeah, man, this is about as exciting as the baseball series gets in early May. I mean, story lines galore. We know of the history and the postseason with these two clubs. It'd be great to see Freddie Freeman, who's having another nice season. Of course, Shoheil Tani, mania with the Dodgers. That is just an absolute zoo with having such a talented player. Some great pitching matchups as Well, I mean, two clearly on paper for my money, the two best rosters in baseball right now. It's a real measuring stick. You're not going to over-blow a game out of proportion in early May. Of course, there's a long season left, and For when you're in the position that the Braves and the Dodgers are in, seasons are ultimately, fair or not, going to be evaluated and judged based on how they perform in October and hopefully November. But there's no denying. Anytime these two teams get together. It's a national stage. All of the all baseball fans turn their eyes to the series, and hopefully the Braves can build off on the win on Wednesday. Two out of three in Los Angeles would be really great.

Yeah. If you don't know our work necessarily. You may be surprised by this. If you do, you probably won't be surprised. If the Braves lose two out of three in LA, I'm not going to worry or panic. That's not what's going to happen, at least for me. But like you said, measuring stick, it's always better win. If you don't want to get swept and all that stuff, I think I actually haven't looked. I usually would know the betting odds. I would imagine a lot of these games would be coin flip games, even though they're in Los Angeles. There is one matchup on Saturday that is a little bit dicey for the Braves on paper. It's Bryce Elder, their fifth starter against Tyler Glass now, who's been really good so far this year for LA. So that's the one. If you would pick one on paper, that's the toughest. But on paper, it's baseball, and things are not ever guaranteed to happen. The Braves do miss also Yamamoto, who has not been incredible, but is a guy that I think is quite good, and they don't have to see him this weekend. Atlanta is going to be sending Morton on Friday, Alder on Saturday, and Max Fried on Sunday.

By the way, the first two games, going back to this, are prime Scott Coleman hours. I believe there's a 10:10 start and a 9:10 start the first two games for an afternoon getaway game on Sunday.

At least it's the weekend for our East Coast listeners. You can put on a pot of coffee or whatever you need to stay up late into the night. It's Dodgers. It's worth staying up for. It's probably the two best teams in baseball. Should be a good series. Charlie Morton has been off to a really good start. He is going to face a very, very good Dodgers lineup, one that has unbelievable talent at the top of it. But Chuck's been really good. A big challenge for Bryce elder. He is going to need his command, or he's just going to sink out there. I'm going up against Tyler Glass now, who's been arguably the best pitcher in baseball this season. Very, very good, of course, with the Tampa Bay before the trade. But then Max, Max Fried gets the ball on Sunday. He has been phenomenal over his career pitching in Southern California. He is, of course, from the area. I'm sure he will have a lot of friends and family. But the last couple of seasons, Any time, Fried has gotten the baseball against LA, he's been really good. It should be a great way to close out the series.

He will go up against James Paxton, who's having a nice year as well. But I'm excited for it. It's a great series. The Braves will wrap up this West Coast road trip, which is good to get it out of the way early in the year when players are generally fresh. And hopefully, the Braves can take the series, and it'd be a real nice statement early in the year if they can win two out of three. And of course, the sweep would be a dream.

It certainly would be a dream. And We will leave it there for now on our debut of the Hammer Territory podcast. We will do another round here at the end of the show of of plugs and not necessarily begging you, but certainly encouraging you to subscribe to this podcast. Anyway, Anywhere, you might find podcasts, just search Hammer Territory and Atlanta Braves podcast. If you've not found the show, there's also going to be direct links that we'll share on social media. You can follow our new Hammer Territory Twitter account at Hammer Territory. We'll also be on Instagram, we'll be on Facebook. You could find all that stuff there. I am at BT rolling on Twitter. Scott is at ScottColman55 on Twitter. We certainly love five-star ratings as well. That helps us to grow. People might just be finding us and searching out new Braves content, and it would be very helpful for us as we start fresh and start from scratch on this podcast feed. Scott, what else can we say before we stop this podcast?

It's just really good to be back behind the microphone talking some baseball with you, Brad. We will have A ton of great content on this feed. Multiple shows every single week with Brad and I, and then Steven Tolbert and Sean Coleman. A great team, of course, if you are a long-time listener of Battery Power, you know us. Very similar style shows. A A lot of great content coming your way. Breakdowns, analysis. We're a little early in the year for emergency podcasts. I generally think this early in the year, if it's an emergency podcast, it's probably not a good thing. Yes. Let's hold off on the emergency pods for at least a couple more months until the Trade Deadline season kicks in. But nonetheless, really good to be back. We appreciate everybody's support on the old feed, and of course, this new feed. I will echo all of Brad, please subscribe, leave five-star reviews. It does help us out with the algorithms. Tell a friend, tell a family member, and we'll be back soon. We're really glad to be back, and the Braves are good. It's easy and fun to talk about this team, especially when they're playing as well as they're playing this year.

Yes, the content train rolls along, so we hope you join us. We do appreciate everyone who is asking and looking out for the show and seeking out the show, and we're back, and we plan to be doing this for a long, long time. So please subscribe, and we'll see you all next time.