Jurickson Profar‘s 2 run, 2 out single in the bottom of the 8th broke open a 2 -2 tie, and the Braves held on to take the season series 8 games to 5.
Ozzie Albies led off the 8th with a single off Gregory Soto, who then went on to record 2 quick outs. However, Soto walked Sean Murphy and hit Vidal Brujan with a pitch, setting the stage for Profar’s bloop into center field.
Bryce Elder was the good kind of inconsistent, completing 6 innings, allowing 3 hits, 2 walks, and striking out 6. You can check out or review JonathanF’s analysis of Elder’s inconsistency here. A two run homer by Mark Vientos in the 2nd accounted for the only runs Elder allowed. Raisel Iglesias also allowed 3 hits, but gave up only half as many runs, pitching around trouble to record his 22nd save.
Profar, Murphy, and Ronald Acuna Jr. had 2 hits each for the Braves, Murphy driving in the Braves first 2 runs in the 6th with the Braves other 2 run, 2 out single of the day.
Atlanta is now 33 – 33 on the season at home. They will try in Miami on Monday to improve their road record. 6:40 Eastern, Spencer Strider and Edward Cabrera scheduled.
I’m thinking a good nickname for Elder would be Whitman, because he’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get, and he’s not particularly good for you.
That’s also good because it’s third-rate chocolate. He wouldn’t be Godiva or better. He’s a Russell Stover or Whitman. Maybe with Whitman it could also invoke the two roads diverged, though he rarely takes the one less traveled.
Elder would be sugar-free Russell Stover… upsets your stomach & perhaps makes you sprint to the loo.
Sometimes I think back to the early days of Elderdom, when he was a budding all-star with a special secret sauce people were writing about called “seam-shifted wake.” We were so much Elder then, we’re younger than that now.
I am clueless about this seam-shifting phantasmagoric ability. Enlighten me.
Alright, so I just googled it. Interesting stuff–definitely a thing.
If I remember the early days of Elderdom correctly, it means that he was really good at beating Miami.
Yeah, can’t remember where I first read about it, but it was going around Braves Internet there for a bit; feel like I even heard it on the TV broadcast at one point. This piece from Battery Power back then has more about it (though for some reason I can only pull it up on the Wayback Machine).
There’s also this explanation from a piece from The Athletic this past off-season:
“Unable to change their stature, pitchers have often turned to the baseball’s seams to produce unexpected movement. Clay Holmes has leveraged his knowledge of “seam-shifted wake” — a phenomenon in which seams can gather on one side of the ball and drag it in a certain direction — to make his sinker move like pitches thrown from lower arm slots. He gets tremendous drop from an over-the-top slot because of the seam effects on the fastball he throws.”
So there is a piece that runs with Greg Maddux after Braves games where they ask about a particularly insane 2 seamer he threw. He explained that he placed the scuff on the outside of the ball to give it more opposite side cut. It’s the same idea as seam shifted wake.
I used to think pitchers would just use scuffs for grip to increase spin rate, and I’m sure you can do that, but I didn’t realize how much movement it can impart just from different drag.
How’d Spencer look tonight?
Much better. Tons o’ ground balls.
Some good news.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6575124/2025/08/25/los-angeles-angels-ron-washington-return/