{"id":45830,"date":"2018-04-26T13:29:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T17:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45830"},"modified":"2020-08-06T13:29:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T17:29:21","slug":"jonny-venters-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45830","title":{"rendered":"JONNY VENTERS IS BACK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

As the 2018 baseball season began to take shape, I had earmarked April 28th<\/sup> on the calendar.\u00a0 Instead of jet-setting off to some other city to watch baseball somewhere else, or catching a Braves game at still-newish Racist<\/span> ScumTrust Park, it was actually a minor-league game up in Lawrenceville that had my interest: The Gwinnett Braves<\/span> Strippers<\/span> Stripers versus the Durham Bulls, the triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was kind of the best option of all worlds; I\u2019m a baseball hipster that prefers minor league baseball over the majors, I could check out the newly enshrined Stripers and possibly get a new baseball cap<\/a> to add to my collection, and I could check out the future of the Braves in uber-prospect wunderkind<\/a> Ronald Acu\u00f1a, who laughably was held in triple-A for obvious financial and team-control purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Above all else though, it was actually a guy on the other team that I was more interested in: Jonny Venters<\/strong>, he of the former Braves all-star relief corps with Craig Kimbrel, but with the ridiculous power sinker from the left side that I had the luxury of watching for three straight years as he made MLB look like his own personal playground whenever he took the mound.\u00a0 That is, until he got hurt, blowing out his elbow not just once, not just twice, but three total times in his long and arduous journey back to baseball.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s in the Rays organization, and at the start of the season, he was assigned to triple-A, presumably to keep warm and ready for whenever the Rays would need to get some reinforcements, he would be high up on the list.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I had no doubt that both Jonny Venters and Ronald Acu\u00f1a were going to be called up in 2018, but little did I realize that both would be called up by their respective parent clubs on the same day, April 25th<\/sup> \u2013 three days before I had every intention of trying to see them both, in the minor leagues.<\/span><\/p>\n

A tiny part of me is disappointed in the fact that my plan was derailed; I was hoping that I could maybe get Jonny Venters to autograph a nice photograph or something since I\u2019m pretty much his biggest fan ever, and maybe see Acu\u00f1a do something super prospect highlight-y or something, but ultimately I\u2019m not at all heartbroken over this.\u00a0 As I get older, I like leaving the house less, and the idea of driving like 40 miles to Lawrenceville wasn\u2019t really that appealing, and I could probably be more productive or relax more at or closer to home anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m stoked to see the Ronald Acu\u00f1a era begin for the Braves, and as their roster begins to take shape with young promising talent and fewer and fewer placeholders and has-beens keeping positions warm, the more hope that things will turn around emerges.<\/span><\/p>\n

But more importantly, I\u2019m ecstatic to see that Jonny Venters is back<\/a> in the big leagues, where he was always destined to be, and even if it\u2019s just for a single batter per appearance, I can\u2019t express how happy for the guy I am, that he\u2019s back.\u00a0 I hope he continues to get key lefties out throughout the year and keep his ERA low with his strikeout total high, and eventually get more and more confidence until he\u2019s back to being the dominating monster he was when he was on the Braves, and stays up in the big leagues longer than LaTroy Hawkins<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the 2018 baseball season began to take shape, I had earmarked April 28th on the calendar.\u00a0 Instead of jet-setting off to some other city to watch baseball somewhere else, or catching a Braves game at still-newish Racist ScumTrust Park, it was actually a minor-league game up in Lawrenceville that had my interest: The Gwinnett … Continue reading JONNY VENTERS IS BACK<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,66,64],"class_list":["post-45830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-minor-leagues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45832,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45830\/revisions\/45832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}