While the Braves are back to winning series, it still feels like they’re scraping by. Jared Shuster helped his cause yesterday and should remain in the rotation, which gives the Braves a foursome of Charlie Morton, Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, and Shuster. The Braves don’t have another off day until June 1st and I hope, by then, there’ll be a full rotation, Max Fried or no. Tonight, the stakes go up as it’s Braves vs. Dodgers. Freddie Freeman who?
Braves vs. Dodgers Pitching Matchups
- Game 1: Charlie Morton vs. Gavin Stone: Stone was a 5th round draft pick back in 2020 and was rated the 50th best prospect in baseball coming into this season. This will be his 2nd game in the bigs.
- Game 2: Spencer Strider vs. TBD: Like the Braves, the Dodgers are finding it hard to fill out their rotation. It feels like the first 2 games in the series are very much winnable.
- Game 3: Bryce Elder vs. Tony Gonsolin: Like Elder, Gonsolin is defying his expected results, carrying a 1.13 ERA into Game 3.
Braves Lineup
Ok, Michael Harris II…enough is enough. I’m calling it. This will be your breakout series.
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It will be interesting to see how the Braves fare against the fairly inexperienced Stone. He appears to largely rely on just two pitches: a 4-seamer and a changeup that has been described as a “plus-plus” pitch. Hoping the offense can handle Stone and that we see another vintage Charlie Morton outing.
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The “how do the Braves fare relative to the league against inexperienced starters (however you’d define that)” thing sounds like yet another homework assignment for JonathanF.
Looking forward to a renewal of the current best rivalry in the sport. Folks can come at me if they want to, but the winner of a postseason series between these two teams went to the World Series in three of the last five years, won it twice, and then in one of the two years where that didn’t happen, one of the best players in baseball moved from one of the teams to the other in awkward and uncomfortable fashion. So yeah, I stand by it. If the Celtics and Lakers can be the best rivalry in basketball (which quite a few people claim) despite not playing an important game against each other since 2010, the Braves and Dodgers can certainly be the best rivalry in baseball despite not being in the same division and only playing two series a year in the regular season.
So if we continue with the bullpen games, how long before Charlie Culberson is our opener?
Interesting former Brave note: Julio Teheran opted out of Padres deal. And no, this is not an endorsement for him to come back.
I think I might prefer Julio to the bullpen games
Eddie sure likes to beat up on the Dodgers…
BTW, I’m sure it’s been mentioned somewhere b/c it deserves mentioning: In his 14 games in the month of May, Marcel Ozuna is 18 for 54 w/ 6 HRs & 15 RBI for a .333/.410/.685 clip.
Crooked number in the first inning, courtesy substantially of one October Eddie. Would be cool if he got hot.
As ever, give Charlie a big early lead and he barfs it all back.
Ronald really has been horrible defensively this year. It just doesn’t make sense.
Charlie is pitching like he doesn’t trust his fastball tonight.
Ozuna does that more anyone in the league. He’s gonna get thrown at, or get our stars thrown at. Just another reason to not like him.
At what point is Hilliard going to get some starts in center? Harris looks absolutely lost and it doesn’t matter what pitch it is he isn’t seeing it.
Hope I’m proved wrong, but this is starting to have the feel of a classic Hibernation Mode game.
Seems pretty textbook to me. Next inning is going to be huge with the top coming up when we are now mist likely going to be losing
As I said…
If I’m sitting curveball watching at home from the couch, it’s a damn sure good bet that MLB hitters are as well. That was as predictable as it gets. Terrible pitch sequencing the last couple of innings.
I would really like to know what’s going on in Morton’s head when he just loses it.
That steal by Ronald…..I’ve heard about people doing that kind of thing, but never seen it until now.
I cannot recall ever seeing that. Acuna!
I guess saying playing the game the right way has become a joke, but Ronald Acuna Jr. plays the game the right way.
Sean, you’ve had a great season … but, man, you CANNOT get caught down the line like that. Costly, that will be.
And Minter in a high-leverage situation? Snit, how many times must A.J. struggle before he becomes a mop-up option?
The tandem of Jimenez and Minter made sure the base running issue didn’t hurt. Minter very clearly should not be used in any type of High leverage situation
Yeah, Minter should be used exclusively in low-leverage situations until he figures it out. His results have been poor, but his inputs have gotten worse, too. His .407 xwOBACON-against is pretty awful.
Money Mike is cash-poor right now. Needs to sit for a few days.
Snit has punted this one. On to Tuesday.
Minter might be the guy optioned when Dodd comes up to start.
In Snit’s defense, whoever we bring in out of this pen is probably gonna give up runs. It’s not his fault.
Recapped.