The Royals scored single runs in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th innings off Grant Holmes to salvage a game from the 3-game series. Holmes went 5 innings, allowing 5 hits while walking 2 and striking out 4. Seth Lugo went 6 1/3 scoreless innings for the Royals, the 2nd consecutive Royals starter to hold the Braves scoreless over 6.
Drake Baldwin hit his 2nd homer of the season in the bottom of the 8th, and Ozzie Albies and Mike Yastrzemski joined Drake as the Braves with two hits.
Didier Fuentes pitched 4 innings of 2 hit, 1 run relief, carrying over from his excellent spring training. It’s hard to see how he won’t get some starts if anybody falters.
There’s not much more to say about this, except that today I learned that the Braves open the season with 13 consecutive games without a day off, and also that I’m 30 years older than Matt Olson. Happy birthday, Matt.
The Somewhere, USA Athletics come to town Monday at 7:15 Eastern, Jacob Lopez and Bryce Elder scheduled.
Didier’s 4 innings take him out of the running to make a start against the As. He might get optioned for Perez.
https://x.com/Braves/status/2038610803612405863
As you predicted.
If Didier had gotten knocked out after an inning, he’d probably still be in the big leagues. I’ve always hated this kind of move; it’s a perverse way of incentivizing.
Yeah, I’ll be at Wednesday’s game (first MLB game for my kids). Was hoping to see either Sale or Fuentes. With Diddy pitching yesterday, I hope we just go with Sale. Screw his rest; I don’t go to many games. I want to see good pitching!
You’ll probably see Perez or Suarez.
Can’t wait
Hate to break the news to you, Bo… but this ain’t exactly Ontario, where people are relatively reasonable.
Nope, you take the bucks here, you take the heat, even if it’s only 3 games:
https://www.mlb.com/news/bo-bichette-booed-by-mets-fans-2026
Obviously, it’s April and all the pitchers are still warming up, but I love seeing this team work counts instead of just going up hacking and running into outs. This feels like a more patient team, and dare I say, an offense that’s begun to buy into Tim Hyers’s emphasis on improving their swing decisions.
Ok, I have to ask a dumb question since I was out of pocket over the weekend while also being locked out of my MLB.TV account with no help from them: has Ozzie been hitting in the 3-hole all year?
Only against lefties. He hit sixth against righties.
And since he hit a homer in his first AB hitting third, I think Weiss will stick with it.
I don’t know why everyone was so stressed about the rotation this year. Four runs in four starts so far. Three starters have gotten through five scoreless. Just keep this up and we’ll be fine.
PTSD from 2025 with flashbacks triggered by giving Carlos Carrasco real innings this spring.
Oh I know. I’ve been as stressed as anyone. The starters’ performance so far helps, no doubt, but there is a long way to go to erase the 2025 rotation injury nightmare.
They really should have just let the lefty Lopez pitch to White vs. bringing in a RHP so Yaz could pinch-hit for White.
Whenever it’s Good Elder Day, it’s fun to watch having him work so fast.
I don’t know what you guys think, but I think Atlanta’s strategy after the trade deadline last year of basically staying pat and watching players on the waiver wire was brilliant. I don’t know if Payamps and Jose Suarez will be great, but I think the bullpen is a strength of our team. We were able to keep a good core of relievers, add a few guys, and bring in others to supplement. If we would have had a massive sell off we would have likely lost our core bullpen and called up guys from the minors too early. I think the bullpen will be solid this year .
There have been way too many baserunning gaffes this year. I thought baserunning might be a strength of this team, with Antoan Richardson now coaching first base, but…no so far.
Agreed–three pickoffs already. I wonder if this isn’t a repeat of last year where the hitters struggled with new strategies by Hyers?
The pitching has been brilliant and the hitting and defense have been good. They’re definitely doing the big things well! Still, the baserunning and ABS challenges have been wretched, so there’s room for improvement.
No matter what happens, this is definitely not 2025…
Helps to open at home, too.
Agreed. Opening with the Royals and Athletics is also a little easier than the Padres and Dodgers, I don’t care where you play them.
5 scoreless for Soroka last night, with 10 k’s. And only 4 H and 1 BB. And an immaculate inning for good measure! What a story if he could keep it up. Just maybe not too much in his next start (against us this weekend). Maybe something like a 3-run bomb on a pitch outside the zone, preceded by 2 errors. Or we can just beat up on the Dback reliever who gave up 6 runs in less than an inning last night.
Charlie Morton didn’t have his first 3 WAR season til age-33. Plenty of pitchers don’t turn the corner by Elder’s age (26). Elder already has a 2.5 WAR season and an All-Star appearance under his belt. A player’s development does not have to be linear and neat.
The people that constantly shit on Elder can go play in traffic. I’m Team Bryce Elder. Debate the street light.
“Rob, this is a Wendy’s.”
Elder has been frustrating most of his time in the majors, but the numbers have him as an inconsistent fourth or fifth starter, and given our injuries, that’s a fine guy to be running out there!
Also being inconsistent, at a certain ERA, is probably good for a pitcher.
recapped.