One of the reasons the Braves have the best record in baseball is they dominate rubber-games. Atlanta is 7-1 in rubber-games this season and have another one today in Milwaukee. The Braves won 6-4 on Friday night, the Brewers 4-3 last night, setting the stage for the rubber-game today.
It appears the regression bus has caught up to Bryce Elder. The Braves could use a first-half start from their Elder. When he is right, Bryce is like that annoying little brother who pokes, prods, and gets you yelled at when you retaliate. Elder is 7-2 with a 3.31 ERA.
The regression bus has also come for old friend, Julio Teheran, who will start for the Brewers. He is 2-4 with a 4.01 ERA and is just 1-2 in his last five starts. He surrendered four home runs to the Mets a couple of starts ago. Let’s hope THAT Teheran shows up today. If Julio can give up that many bombs to the light-hitting Mets, what kind of damage can this offense do.
When Julio was right in Atlanta, he worked down in the zone and annoyed hitters – similar to Elder. If the Braves can force Teheran up in the zone, I think they will be in business, and will continue to dominate rubber-games. But judging by this pitch that Austin Riley launched last night, that may not be necessary.
Marcell OHzuna is a lifetime .354 hitter against Teheran in 48 ABs and has homered three times. Let’s hope seeing our old friend helps OHzuna get going again. And let’s hope Riley can set a new Braves record with by hitting a HR in six straight.
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Allan Winans was sent back to AAA following a solid start last night, making room for Daysbel Hernandez to be called up. The 26 year-old righty has struck out 32 in 22 innings at three levels of MiLB this summer.
First pitch in Milwaukee is set for 2:10 ET/1:10 CT.
This passes the smell test. Moore seemed to call a wider strike zone for their pitchers than for our pitchers.
https://umpscorecards.us/single_game/?game_id=717296
But this was nice, from Max Scherzer:
Moore has been bad all season, with extremely poor accuracy and expected accuracy rankings (32nd percentile and 23rd percentile, respectively).
Worse than the weather man.
That call on Riley by Dreckman with the bases loaded felt like Malachi Moore 🤦🏻♂️
That call on Ozuna was almost as bad. On a side note, he is on quite the downward spiral at the moment
Now Bruce Dreckman is taking a page out of Moore’s book.
He is giving Elder absolutely nothing. That being said, many of Elders 2 strike pitches have been non competitive. I remain skeptical that Elder can be successful long term with his low strikeout rate
Yeah, pretty bad. That call on Ozuna was horrendous!
The Braves have been giving away their at-bats, too. Julio is nibbling with junk and they’re not making him throw it down the middle.
I hate team slumps. I keep hoping we can have few guys off cycle sometime. Only TdA seems to be hitting today.
Daysbel’s throwing gas.
And fanning people! Need some runs to make him a winner!
A blizzard of Ozz!!
That’ll work!
Yeah, Daysbel looks like a keeper.
There we go, Ozzie. Let’s win a series.
Why are the Braves pitchers SO bad with 2-strike pitches???
Raisel looked like a closer
Recapped: https://bravesjournal.com/2023/07/23/eighth-inning-albies-homer-launches-braves-to-series-win-in-milwaukee/