Adam Duvall had three hits, again, and the Braves blank Philly, 6-0 to win two out of three from the NL East leaders. Reynaldo Lopez was brilliant, as well, throwing six scoreless innings.
Duvall had three hits in a 3-1 win on Wednesday, and did so again today. He got the scoring started in the top of the second with a HR down the left field line that had a 40 degree launch angle. It was a moonshot, the type of HRs he can run into on occasion. These three hits have his average all the way up to .184, two points higher than recent call-up, Eli White. White hit his first homer as a Brave to conclude the scoring.
The Braves did most of their scoring in the five-run second. Jarred Kelenic addd a three-run homer and Matty Olson followed with a homer of his own, #13 on the year.
Lopez remains dominant
All of those runs were more than enough for Reynaldo Lopez as the Braves blank Philly. Lopez threw six innings of two hit ball and saw his ERA dwindle to 1.71 on the season. Many thought he had looked tired in recent starts. That fact may or may not have been true, but on regular rest today, he killed it! And for the first time in his career, Reynaldo has been named to the All-Star team. He will join Chris Sale and Marcell OHzuna as Braves reps at the mid-summer classic.
The Braves are 5-5 in the last 10 and are eight games back on July 7, I’m content playing for the Wild Card, but stranger things have happened in terms of thinking about another NL East title. Atlanta is 4-2 against the Philthies this season and won’t see them again close to two months.
Atlanta boarded the charter for the desert a little while ago and will play four against the Serpientes before a weekend series in San Diego to close out the “first half” of the season. Sale will get the nod tomorrow night, with first pitch set for 9:40 Eastern/8:40 Central.
Something I just realized: per Baseball Savant, Lopez’s four-seam fastball has the best run value (15) of any pitch in MLB. In terms of suppressing offense and impacting in-game run expectancy, his fastball has been better than Chris Sale’s slider, better than Paul Skenes’ splitter, better than Corbin Burnes’ cutter…that’s super impressive.
That is very impressive. The pitch doesn’t look that dominant to my eye. I wonder what distinguishes it. Any insights?
I honestly wasn’t sure, so I asked Ben Clemens of Fangraphs this question today during his weekly chat. He pointed out that the Pitchingbot and Stuff+ pitching models actually both think that Lopez’s four-seamer is below average in terms of velocity, spin rate, and overall “shape.” However, they rate his location of the pitch to be above average, which has led to more strikeouts, groundouts, and other events that would result in a reduction of the opponent’s run expectancy. So basically it’s been a matter of location over “stuff” for him.
I was curious and looked at Savant’s pitch-movement rankings, and Reynaldo’s 4-seam was decidedly in the middle of the pack, nothing special. You may have to clarify what exactly “run value” means – are they tracking movement, or is it a more literal outcome-based stat where that’s the pitch that’s produced the least runs?
I watched him pitch in person for the first time yesterday. He throws as hard as any of our other starters, but it was his location that was very on-point. He kept his fastball low and on the corners. Got a lot of foul balls and weak contact when behind in the count (not that he was behind much). He must be fairly deceptive and tough to read. The more our rivals see him the more that first-timer advantage will wear off. Still, he looked damn good to me.