It’s the Braves vs. the biggest fish of them all in the third game of a four-game set with the Miami Marlins tonight at Truist Park.
The Braves look to continue enjoying this home fishing trip (2-0 so far) as they send Bryce Elder to the mound Wednesday evening against the current Cy Young Award winner, Sandy Alcantara.
Alcantara won his first Cy Young Award last season when he went 14-9 with a scant 2.28 ERA. In 228.2 innings of work, he carried a .980 WHIP, 8.1K/9, and was a 5.7 WAR pitcher in 2022. Alcantara is currently just 1-2 with a 5.47 ERA which we hope grows significantly tonight.
His counterpart this evening, the young Elder, has an NL-leading ERA that is currently half of Alcantara’s Cy Young year (1.14). Elder was called up from AAA Gwinnett when Max Fried went to the IL after tweaking a hamstring in his first start of the season and it feels odd to say, but the young right-hander has been consistently dominant during his first four starts of 2023. Sure there’s been a hard hit ball or two, but Elder’s ability to limit damage, nibble away, and trust his stuff has been remarkable. He is 2-0 (should be 3-0) with 23 K’s in 23 innings and carries a 1.183 WHIP into his fifth start of the year.
The Braves have enjoyed an offensive resurgence in the first two games of the series and look to add to their catch and clinch the series with a win this evening. Eddie Rosario has homered in consecutive games, Ozzie Albies hit two homers last night, and the man – Ronald Acuna – has 14 first-inning hits in the first 24 games of 2023. Acuna leads the world in stolen bases (13) and has set the table in great fashion this season.
The key to tonight’s game may be that Brian O’Nora https://twitter.com/UmpScorecards/status/1651233631019384841?s=20 worked last night’s game behind the dish, so tonight’s strike zone may actually make sense…his 76% strike called accuracy rating was an abomination and worse than most weather forecasters I know.
If the Braves can force Alcantara to work up in the zone and the back half of the lineup can stay hot, I look forward to celebrating another series win. Here’s how the Braves will lineup tonight: https://twitter.com/Braves/status/1651279784972894215?s=20
Happy fishing, Braves!
Alcantara is the reigning CY winner, but we have the Elder.
I’m at the game. Crowd is quite small—rain earlier and chilly temps keeping folks away I guess.
Same here tfloyd. It is chilly. Alcantara is nasty tonight unfortunately.
Timo, you traveled a lot further from home to get here than I did (and probably most everyone else here). The Braves owe it to you to score a few off Alcantara.
Right, still in striking distance.
Finally got two…now let’s hold ‘em down and pound the ‘pen!
Looks like Elder is experiencing regression to the mean tonight.
I told you all on Saturday there was a decent chance that Ozuna would get another hit this season.
The crowd is into the game now!
Bad send by Wash there. Hope we get more chances.
With 2 out and Ozuna on deck, I’m going to make them make a play.
I’m with Rusty…when Eddie turned the corner looked like was gonna be okay, but LF made a strong peg to the plate
Honestly, where was the lane to home for Rosario? Catcher was blocking it before he caught that, easily
Tonkin is turning out to be a good middle reliever. Glad he didn’t get the axe.
MH2 with a walk, single, stolen base in 4 PAs tonight so far. Pretty good for first time in AAA.
He’s young for his league lol.
Big hits for Eddie Rosario three nights in a row…
Let’s win this thing.
EDIT: Nice!
Snit must be feeling pretty good about himself right now.
NOzuna puts the ball in play and Floro is flailing away…let’s go!
LOLFish. I’ll take it.
What a comeback!
I think timo and tfloyd deserve lots of credit.
It was worth the trip! Grissom is a great hitter. Everyone around me felt good about him coming through. Great comeback. Go Braves!
Well, that was quite a rousing victory. Let’s go for 4…
And the Mets are losing to the Nats at home again, 4-1 in the 9th
I am not qualified to be a major league manager, but removing Sandy Alcantara from a game in which he has a 4-1 lead after 88 pitches is not the sort of move I would make unless there’s some other issue. And that’s true even though it’s going to work out most of the time.
Agreed, I was very excited to see Alcantara coming out.
Tied with the Pirates (wtf!) for the best record in the NL.
Yeah, like everyone else I can’t believe the Pirates have been this good. Fun for their fans, maybe they’ll be this years 2022 Orioles.
Bring out the brooms tomorrow boys.
This is the first time I’ve read this post, but I was thinking throughout the game that the home plate umpire had one of the best games I’ve seen from an umpire all year. A lot has been made about how the pitch clock has affected pitchers and hitters. From my perspective it has affected many umpires in a very negative way – and it’s not like I thought they did a great job last year.
I don’t know if tonight’s umpire was perfect, but compared to what I’ve seen over the last few weeks, he was really good.
It was a relief after Tuesday night’s effort.