The Braves look to haul out their brooms and do a little fall housekeeping as they hope to sweep the Cubs tonight at Truist Park.
Atlanta has won the first two games of this three-game set with the Cubs. The first two games were exciting for Braves fans, and excruciatingly painful for the Cubs. In each game, the Chicago defense betrayed the Cubs who are still trying to lock-up a post-season Wild Card slot.
The Braves were clutch on multiple occasions in last night’s 6-5 win. Ronald Acuña Jr. created the 40/70 club during the contest, which was awesome and well-worth celebrating. He singled, stole bag #69, and scored the tying run in the bottom of the eighth. Moments, the soon-to-be MVP singled home the Manfred man in bottom of the 10th, swiped #70, and scored the game-winner on Ozzie Albies’ third hit of the night. Albies was 3-for-5 with with three RBI in the win. Marcell OHzuna also provided some heroics, saving Kirby Yates‘ bacon by hitting a tying home run to left in the bottom of the ninth to force extra innings. OHzuna unloaded on a center-cut 3-0 pitch and Truist Park erupted.
Chicago desperately needs a win to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Braves, however, hope to inch closer to the all-time home run record while doing some fall housekeeping this evening to earn the sweep.
Smith-Shover returns
The Braves go for the sweep tonight behind rookie AJ Smith-Shover, I mean Smith-Shawver. The flame-throwing rook hasn’t made a big-league start since July 30. The young right-hander threw five innings of four-hit, three-run ball vs. Milwaukee in that one. Smith-Shover is 1-0 with a 4.57 ERA in five MLB appearances this season.
Smith-Shover will be opposed by Marcus Stroman (10-8, 3.88). Stroman is 1-2 with an 8.59 ERA in his last seven games. He’s working his way back from injury and last pitched against Colorado on Sept. 23. Stroman allowed five hits and three runs in three innings of work against the Rox. Albies is hitting .438 with an .876 OPS in 16 ABs vs. Stroman, while Eddie Rosario has a .333 avg and 1.333 OPS in nine ABs against the veteran right-hander.
First pitch at Truist Park is slated for 7:20 ET/6:20 CT.
All AJ needs to do is throw strikes here. Stroman is meat on the rack for this offense.
The Cubs don’t seem too good to me.
Greetings from Vegas…
No kidding… Not only are the Cubs looking like the Bad News Bears this series, but the Bravos really seem bent on breaking their hearts… and doing the Marlins a big favor.
Nonetheless, for the WC round, Marlins/Milwaukee doesn’t seem too sexy, but Phils/D-Backs could be interesting. I know which club I’ll be rooting for.
Fwiw, Braves’ odds to win the World Series are about the same as UGA winning the CFP again… about 2.5 to 1.
The Cubs are just killing themselves on the mental side of the ball. At this rate, Dansby’s going to have to call a clubhouse meeting in the middle of the pitching change.
Really promising job by AJSS. Honestly, between him and Winans and Vines, I think the second string has really been showing up.
You can make a case that our first round 3rd starter pitched tonight.
I like the Wright/AJSS tandem for that
Anyone who wanted to watch the Braves play a quality team in the fight of their life and utterly demoralize and defeat them, I think you got your answer. The Cubs beat themselves with a series of mental lapses, and the Braves demonstrated their ability to generate multiple runs without warning.
The starting pitching is the weak link right now. But this is a lineup that no one wants to face.
Someone somewhere needs to note that Ronald Acuña Jr. set the alltime MLB record for RBIs by a leadoff man in a season tonight. So I suppose it has to be me. As a record, it is slightly tainted by the fact that leadoff RBIs are much higher in the DH Era, but he’s still got three games to go and there have been a lot of leadoff men in the AL in the DH Era.
Congrats, RAJ.
In other news, I live about 15 miles north of CitiField and I was somewhat astonished when the game got held up by rain when it was completely dry here. But now, looking at the radar, I don’t see how they finish this game before about 2 am. But if they’d started this game about 30 minutes earlier the Marlins would be well on their way to Pittsburgh by now.
It is indeed a remarkable record for rbi by a leadoff hitter, but I believe Betts also broke that record this year, and as of right now Mookie has one more rbi than Ronald. That’s one more record to shoot for this weekend. I very much want RAJ to win MVP over Betts, and surpassing him in rbi is one more data point to help clinch that argument.
I’m sure I could look it up somewhere, but what is the longest hitless streak Ronald has gone in all year and specifically after the All Star Break? There are games where he looks lost at the plate but puts it together by the end of the game. If he ever gets an 0-fer, it seems like he’s at least 3 for 4 the next game. I’ve never seen a team in general and RAJ in particular better at making in game adjustments.
Ronald’s ability to make adjustments is easily the thing that has impressed me most about him since the moment he got called up. (Same with Harris.) Obviously, he cut his strikeout rate in half this year, and he did it while increasing his average exit velocity. Quite frankly, to me, I think that’s the single most impressive thing he’s done this year.
He nearly halved his launch angle (it was 14 before this year; now it’s 7.5) and he’s pulling the ball less than he ever has before; basically, he’s hitting lasers all over the field and he’s so strong that a lot of them just go over the fence despite themselves. If he sold out for power like Ozzie does – Ozzie’s launch angle this year is 16.4, and Matt Olson’s is 16.2, more than double Ronald’s 7.5 – he could hit 60.
Remarkably, his BABIP is actually pretty much identical to his career norms (.335 this year, .333 for his career); he’s hitting .336 because he is making tons more contact with the ball, and yet, whenever he makes contact, he’s not getting cheated. Along with everything else, he nearly halved his infield fly ball percentage, from 8.3% before this year to 4.7% this year.
He’s walking, making contact, and stealing bases like a traditional leadoff hitter, and he’s hitting velocity nightmare line drive home runs like Gary Sheffield. And he’s 25 and has demonstrated the ability to continue to learn, adapt, and adjust. All of the adjustments he made this year have served to make him a devastatingly more complete hitter. It’s really pretty astounding.
When the “Ronald-Acuña-has-been-passed-by-Mookie-Betts” talk started in July. there was a reasonably big gap in WAR that gave Betts some ammunition, Now Betts leads by 0.1 in WAR and has one more RBI. He trails in every other stat, though only significantly in BA and stolen bases. https://stathead.com/tiny/XShTL I continue to think that the MLB-leading CS number (14) significantly detracts from the true import of 70 SB, but not nearly so much to overcome RAJ’s enormous lead. He’s a bridge-jumping lock now.
I have my playoff predictions ready, but I’m not going to post them until next week. Suffice it to say that the best team every year has about a 22-25% chance of emerging as champion. The rest is mere speculation.