Game Info

• First Pitch: 2:10 PM ET

• Location: Rate Field, Chicago

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: 75° and sunny, wind NNE at 5 mph

Atlanta Braves Lineup

RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
DH Drake Baldwin
1B Matt Olson
2B Ozzie Albies
LF Lane Thomas
CF Michael Harris II
SS Mauricio Dubón
3B Austin Riley
C Sean Murphy

Quick thoughts:

• As they’re wont to do, Atlanta moves Baldwin to DH with a lefty on the mound in favor of Sean Murphy.

Chicago White Sox Lineup

LF Sam Antonacci
1B Munetaka Murakami
3B Miguel Vargas
DH Andrew Benintendi
RF Braden Montgomery
SS Colson Montgomery
2B Chase Meidroth
CF Tristan Peters
C Drew Romo

Quick thoughts:

• Fun fact: The trio of Munetaka Murakami (29 HRs), Miguel Vargas (28), and Colson Montgomery (26) are all in the American League’s top ten for homers, and Chicago is the only team with three players who each have 25 or more homers.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP Grant Holmes (7-5, 3.82)

Quick snapshot:

• 3.82 ERA / 4.82 xERA / 4.91 FIP

• 19.1 % K / 10.1% BB / 9.1% K-BB%

Pitch mix (2026 debut):

• vs LHH: 33% slider, 29% four-seamer, 13% cutter, 11% curveball, 9% changeup, 5% sinker

• vs RHH: 40% slider, 29% four-seamer, 22% sinker, 3% each of cutter, curveball, changeup

What to watch:

• Don’t let one blowup erase the two starts before it. Holmes entered his last outing with 13.2 consecutive scoreless innings, then allowed six runs in 3.2 innings against Arizona. The three walks and early homer made that more than simple batted-ball misfortune, but it also doesn’t necessarily signal a broader collapse. He still owns a 3.82 ERA over 117.2 innings, albeit with estimators roughly a run higher.

• Holmes’s defining statistic: Watch the walks to Chicago’s lefties. His overall results are almost neutral by handedness - lefties have a .731 OPS and righties a .744 OPS - but he has walked 35 of 298 left-handed batters, compared with only 16 of 209 righties. Chicago’s left-handed bats don’t necessarily hit him harder; they are much more likely to force him into traffic and unfavorable counts.

• The slider must remain his primary weapon. Holmes’s slider carries a 38.9% whiff rate and a .299 xwOBA, while the curveball has also been excellent. The danger comes when he falls behind and must lean on the fastball trio of four-seamer, sinker or cutter. All three have been hit hard, with the cutter producing particularly ugly results when it’s left over the plate instead of on the black.

• The likely Holmes hinge point is the fourth inning. Opponents have a .969 OPS against him in the fourth, with seven homers and 16 walks in 21.1 innings. His first two trips through the lineup aren’t neatly divided, but the fourth has clearly been where command problems and damaging contact begin to converge.

Who to watch:

• Almost everyone on Chicago’s roster has faced Grant Holmes, but it’s almost exclusively one or two ABs except for the five from deadline acquisition Brenton Doyle.

  • The good: Brenton Doyle is 1-5 with a homer and two RBI, Miguel Vargas is 1-2 with a homer, and Braden Montgomery is 1-2 with a RBI.

  • The bad: Andrew Benintendi and Tristan Peters are both 0-2, while Drew Romo, Randal Grichuk, and Sam Antonacci are all 0-1.

Opposing Starter: LHP Anthony Kay (9-5, 4.01 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 4.01 ERA / 5.02 xERA / 4.79 FIP

• 18.1 K% / 8.1 BB% / 10 % K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Sweeper (22%, 82.8 mph)

• Four-seamer (22%, 95.8 mph)

• Sinker (17%, 95.2 mph)

• Cutter (17%, 91.6 mph)

• Changeup (14%, 86.1 mph)

• Slider (6%, 86.4 mph)

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Kay: Lean into the righties. Kay has been dominant against lefties, holding them around a .197/.266/.276 line, but righties have hit approximately .278/.374/.464 against him. That is a difference of roughly 300 points of OPS. Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, Lane Thomas, et al, as well as Ozzie Albies batting right-handed, can carry the matchup for the Braves.

• The recent ERA is better than the recent pitching. Kay has a 2.55 ERA in three August starts, but he has allowed 19 hits while striking out only 11 in 17.2 innings. His season ERA is 4.01, while Statcast has him at a 5.02 xERA. He has pitched better recently, but he hasn’t suddenly developed overpowering stuff.

• Hunt the fastball family. Kay divides his repertoire among a four-seamer, sweeper, sinker, cutter, changeup and occasional slider. His four-seamer, sinker and cutter all have expected wOBAs of at least .358; the changeup and slider are his best contact-management pitches. Atlanta’s righties should look for something firm in the zone and avoid helping him with the changeup below it.

• The odd inning to watch is the second. Kay has a 6.93 second-inning ERA with a .905 opponent OPS, compared with a 3.91 ERA in the first. If Atlanta doesn’t score immediately, the first trip through the lower portion of the order may provide its best early opportunity.

• The Braves against Kay: Only six Braves have ever faced Kay in the majors.

  • The good: Dominic Smith (1-1, grand slam), Sean Murphy (1-1, double), Lane Thomas (4-9, 2 RBI)

  • The bad: Matt Olson (0-2), Austin Riley (0-1), Ozzie Albies (0-1)

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A sinker/sweeper-based arsenal with expected tendencies - more fastballs when behind, more breaking balls when ahead. The offspeed isn’t used pretty much at all here, and the slider’s mostly reserved for pitcher’s counts.

vs RHH: A kitchen sink-based mix with some common adjustments like more cutters and sinkers when behind, more changeups and sliders when ahead, but also some uncommon ones - opposite-handed sweepers early and when behind as a strike-stealer, increased four-seam usage with two strikes.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• Raisel Iglesias and Brent Suter are both completely fresh, having not worked since Sunday and Saturday, respectively.

Potential limitations:

• Dylan Dodd’s coming off a back-to-back (21 total pitches, while Ray Kerr’s at 34 pitches across the last three days and Victor Mederos is at 32 in the same time frame.

Quick takeaway:

• Atlanta has the pieces they need to secure a win.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available:

• The quintet of Jordan Hicks, Tyler Schweitzer, Huascar Brazoban, Bryan Hudson, and Hagen Smith should all be up after their usage earlier this week.

Potential Limitations

• Some old friends shouldn’t be available today for revenge games: Erick Fedde was the bulk arm on Tuesday (78 pitches) and is down for a few days, while Sean Newcomb threw 34 last night.

• Grant Taylor’s coming off a back-to-back and likely down, although we saw Minnesota use someone on three straight games so anything’s possible.

Quick takeaway:

• Chicago’s in a good spot here.

Final Thought

Braves are a very slight favorite on the moneyline -106 to Chicago’s -102, and FanDuel has set the over/under at 8.5 runs. Both starters’ ERAs are approximately one run better than their bleavxERAs: Holmes is at 3.82 with a 4.82 xERA, while Kay is at 4.01 with a 5.02 xERA, so this one is more about disrupting that. Which offense forces the starter away from his best secondary pitches? Atlanta’s clearest advantage is its right-handed bats against Kay, while Chicago’s is making Holmes throw strikes to its lefties and getting him into trouble around the fourth inning.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this morning, after lineups were announced.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

We’re going with the top of the sixth inning here.

After Taj Bradley exited with seven strikeouts and only one run allowed in his five innings, the Braves got to work against the Twins bullpen, attacking lefty Kody Funderburk almost immediately.

Matt Olson led off the frame with a line drive single, coming on a sweeper off the plate that he shot to left. Michael Harris II and pinch-hitter Lane Thomas followed Olson with singles of their own, scoring a run and prompting Minnesota to get the bullpen hot. Ozzie Albies provided the first out of the inning via a sacrifice fly, bringing the game with one and causing the Twins to pull Funderburk for Tommy Nance. The Braves countered by pinch-hitting for Mike Yastrzemski with Mauricio Dubón, who singled to put runners on the corners.

Dubón then got the game-tying run in by dancing off of first base and causing Nance to balk, which sent Thomas home and moved Dubón to second base.

But with a runner in scoring position and only one out, the rally would die here. Austin Riley would strike out looking on a pitch that was clearly off the plate, but that he didn’t challenge, followed by a Jim Jarvis strikeout that ended the inning.

For as bad as the Braves have been at using ABS both on low-probability pitches and in low-leverage situations, this was clearly an important at-bat despite it being only the sixth inning and no one would have begrudged Riley for tapping the helmet there.

Today’s Player of the Game

Matt Olson, I guess?

Look, it wasn’t a very good day for the Braves all around - they had only seven hits, six of them singles, while striking out fourteen times, but Olson made the most of his time on base. The first time, in the 6th inning, he scored from second on Lane Thomas’ ground ball to right field. The second time he was on base came via an A.J. Minter walk in the 7th inning. Olson then, and please make sure you’re sitting down for this, stole second base. Against a lefty.

The throw was a bit high, but it looks like Olson would have had the bag even if the throw was on line.

On a day where no Braves players really stood out that much, why not give it to Olson?

What You’ll Be Talking About

Other than the Braves being swept for the second time all year, let’s talk about Jim Jarvis.

He actually had a productive day (for him) at the plate today, walking twice. He also committed a defensive error at second base, whiffing on the catch during a Royce Lewis stolen base attempt, with Lewis advancing to third as the ball rolled into the outfield.

He had another defensive miscue earlier in this game, trying to get a double play on a slow roller from Byron Buxton with the bases loaded and coming away with nothing.

Both errors were emblematic of a slumping player pressing to try and make something happen, trying to do too much and not getting anything done.

Here’s the thing about Jarvis. If he’s not going to hit - he’s now down to .213/.274/.306 on the season and is 3-35 in the month of August - and if he’s not providing the defensive floor, what exactly is he doing here? At least Nick Allen, for how anemic his bat was last year, finished the season as a Gold Glove finalist. Jarvis is barely grading out positively via Statcast, and that’s before today’s error.

Either play Dubón at shortstop every day or give Ha-Seong Kim a two-week run at shortstop (which they honestly should have done when Kim came back from rehab) to see if he can get going at the plate. Let Jarvis return to Gwinnett with coaching points to work on down the stretch, like pitch recognition against breaking balls (.141 xBA, .172 xSLG) so that he can either regain some confidence before October or prepare to be an option at shortstop again next season.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s flying to Chicago for a makeup of a rained-out game against the White Sox. Grant Holmes (7-5, 3.82) takes on lefty Anthony Kay (9-5, 4.01) at 2:10 PM ET.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 1:40 PM ET

• Location: Target Field, Minneapolis

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: Courtesy of @BravesWX on X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
C Drake Baldwin
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
DH Dominic Smith
2B Ozzie Albies
LF Mike Yastrzemski
3B Austin Riley
SS Jim Jarvis

Quick thoughts:

• Amid the slumps of Ozzie (.188/.252/.357 last 30 games) and Mauricio Dubón (.225/.248/.288 last 30 games), Dominic Smith is batting fifth today.

  • Dom’s last 30 games stats are .222/.317/.319, so not much better.

Minnesota Twins Lineup

RF Luke Keaschall
CF Byron Buxton
DH Josh Bell
2B Kody Clemens
1B Royce Lewis
LF Trevor Larnach
3B Brooks Lee
C Victor Caratini
SS Kaelen Culpepper

Quick thoughts:

• Buxton returns to the lineup after being held out at the start of the game yesterday, but was feeling good enough in his sore knee to both pinch-hit and play the field for the final few innings.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP AJ Smith-Shawver(0-0, 4.15)

Quick snapshot (Five 2026 starts in AAA):

• 1.66 ERA / 2.78 xERA / 2.47 FIP

• 28.7% K / 10.3% BB / 18.4% K-BB%

Pitch mix (2026 debut):

• vs LHH: 56% four-seamer, 29% splitter, 11% curveball, 2% “slider”

• vs RHH: 58% four-seamer, 25% splitter, 13% sinker, 4% “slider”

What to watch:

• This should be a real start, not another extended rehab appearance. Smith-Shawver was limited to 69 pitches in his July 29 return against the Mets, but he has since thrown 89 and 95 pitches for Gwinnett. His most recent outing was his best: 5.1 scoreless innings, one hit, no walks and seven strikeouts. Across five Triple-A starts, he posted a 1.66 ERA with 25 strikeouts and nine walks in 21.2 innings.

• The biggest development is the return of a five-pitch arsenal. In his MLB appearance against New York, AJSS threw 58% four-seamers and 28% splitters, barely using anything else. He generated only two swinging strikes in 69 pitches. In his final Gwinnett start, his distribution was much more diverse: 35% four-seamers, 23% splitters, 18% curveballs, 13% sliders and 12% sinkers. That version produced 16 whiffs in 95 pitches.

• The velocity is fine; the shape and location of the fastball remain the question. His four-seamer averaged 95.9 mph and reached 97.4 in his final Triple-A start. That is plenty, especially after surgery. But velocity has never guaranteed fastball success for him: opponents produced a .481 xwOBA and 63.9% hard-hit rate against his four-seamer in 2025. The splitter, by comparison, had a 39.7% whiff rate and .232 xwOBA.

• AJSS’s defining question: Can the breaking balls help him finish right-handed hitters? Righties hit .300/.410/.429 against him in 2025, with twelve walks in 84 plate appearances. Lefties were held to .212/.278/.343. His revamped slider looked considerably sharper during his final rehab outings, but we’re working with a tiny Triple-A sample. Minnesota’s righties will provide a much better test.

  • To clarify here, he has been throwing a cutter that’s been misclassified as a slider, but in Gwinnett in that final rehab start, he unveiled a vertical-breaking gyro slider, so Statcast’s gonna need to reclassify some stuff today.

• Reasonable length expectation: five innings, with six available if he is efficient. He is physically built up for approximately 90–95 pitches, but he needed 95 pitches to record sixteen outs in his last start because hitters fouled off 28 pitches. The Braves can hope for six; they probably shouldn’t plan around it.

Who to watch:

• The only member of the Twins roster to face AJ Smith-Shawver in the majors is Josh Bell, who is 0-4.

Opposing Starter: RHP Taj Bradley (9-5, 3.98 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 3.98 ERA / 4.01 xERA / 4.05 FIP

• 26.1 K% / 10.2 BB% / 15.9 % K-BB%

The arsenal (2026 debut):

• Four-seamer (47%, 97.1 mph)

• Cutter (24%, 89.8 mph)

• Splitter (20%, 91.5 mph)

• Curveball (13%, 80.0 mph)

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Bradley: Accept the walks, avoid the secondary pitches and hunt the four-seamer in the zone. His cutter has generated a 35.5% whiff rate and .220 xwOBA, while his splitter and curveball are both around 35% whiffs with expected wOBAs of .266 and .262. His 97-mph four-seamer is the exception: a .382 xwOBA, 53.7% hard-hit rate and only a 16% whiff rate.

• Bradley’s defining statistic: ten walks against twelve strikeouts in fifteen August innings. He has a 6.60 ERA and 1.93 WHIP this month. Since the break, he has walked nineteen in 33 innings after issuing forty in 102.2 innings before it. The post-break opponent OPS is only .720, so this has been more about creating traffic than getting consistently hammered.

• His stuff hasn’t disappeared, but his secondary pitches have stopped finishing hitters. Bradley’s fastball has actually averaged 97.8 mph in August. However, his cutter’s whiff rate has fallen from approximately 39% before the break to 17% this month, while the splitter has fallen from 39% to 19%. That is only three starts, but it points toward location and chase problems rather than lost velocity.

• There isn’t an enormous platoon advantage, although lefties have been slightly better. Left-handed hitters have a .708 OPS against Bradley; righties are at .668. Righties see the cutter approximately 34% of the time, while lefties get more splitters. Loading up on lefties helps reduce exposure to his best pitch, but this isn’t somebody Atlanta should beat simply by manipulating handedness.

• The first inning and third trip through the order are the openings. Bradley has a 6.75 first-inning ERA with seventeen walks in 24 opening frames, then settles considerably in the second and third innings. My pass through his game logs produced a .588 opponent OPS the second time through but a .792 mark on the third trip. If Atlanta doesn’t score immediately, its next opportunity may not arrive until the fifth or sixth.

• The Braves against Bradley: most everyone has seen Bradley before, but most are limited to five or six ABs max.

  • The good: Sean Murphy (1-2, HR, 3 RBI), Mauricio Dubón (2-6, triple, 2 walks), Ronald Acuña Jr. (1-3, 2B), Matt Olson (2-6, 2 RBI)

  • The bad: Lane Thomas (1-10, 6Ks), Drake Baldwin (0-2, K)

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A four-seam-based mix with pretty common adjustments - more fastballs when behind (at the expense of curveballs and splitters), more curveballs when ahead and with two strikes.

vs RHH: A four-seam-based mix with common adjustments (curveballs when ahead, fastballs when behind), but one that throws the splitter less than the cutter, the inverse of the game plan against lefties.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• Raisel Iglesias and Dylan Lee should be completely back from their Sunday usage and (hopefully) we can get a lead so that they can work the 8th and 9th.

Potential limitations:

• If Didier Fuentes is still getting the kid-glove treatment, he’ll have today off, but other than that, Atlanta should be good to go.

Quick takeaway:

• Atlanta has all the pieces they need to secure a win. Now if only they can get a lead…

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available:

• Bulk arm Tommy Nance is still well-rested, having not pitched since Thursday, but he’s the only one.

Potential Limitations

• Guessing Yoendrys Gomez gets the day off today, and both A.J. Minter and Andrew Morris (worked three of the last four days) are candidates to be in turf shoes today, as well.

Quick takeaway:

• The Twins might need to either push a reliever or piece it together if they’re holding a late lead, given that two or three guys probably should be down based on recent usage.

Final Thought

This game is exactly even on the moneyline, -104 for both teams, and FanDuel has set the over/under at 8.5 runs. This matchup will likely hinge on which young power arm can access his secondary pitches? Smith-Shawver’s final rehab start featured a broad arsenal and sixteen whiffs; his MLB return featured an overly fastball-heavy approach and only two. Bradley’s fastball velocity has increased while his cutter and splitter have become less effective. Whichever pitcher establishes something besides the four-seamer will have the advantage. Atlanta’s best chance against Bradley is to make his current command problem hurt him. His cutter and splitter are capable of overwhelming a lineup that expands, but he has issued ten walks in fifteen innings this month and owns a 6.75 first-inning ERA. On the other side, Smith-Shawver doesn’t need to prove he can still throw hard; he needs to prove the deeper, more balanced arsenal from his final rehab start will survive against major-league hitters.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this morning, after lineups were announced.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The easy answer is to, once again, point to the first inning here.

Tyler Mahle was making his third Braves start and just like Martín Pérez last night, Mahle got tagged in the first. This one came after two outs, and was because of two pitches: a middle-middle fastball that was ripped for a double off the wall by Ryan Jeffers, and a 1-1 splitter that caught too much of the plate to Josh Bell, who launched it to the right-center seats at 110 off the bat.

After a mostly-non-competitive walk to Kody Clemens, Mahle locked in and got out of the inning thanks to a lineout to Michael Harris II, who battled an awkward sun/shade terminator to snag the Royce Lewis line drive.

Today’s Player of the Game

Despite the two early runs, I’m giving it to Tyler Mahle, with special consideration given to Michael Harris (three hits, two doubles).

Mahle was able to lock in after the first inning, and while he didn’t have his best swing-and-miss stuff (only 8 whiffs in 45 swings), he was brutally efficient with the stuff that he did have. After throwing 26 pitches to finish the first inning, he started mowing through Minnesota hitters, cruising the rest of the way with only four singles allowed across his next 5.2 innings.

He was lifted after Brooks Lee hit a two-out single in the 7th despite being at just 76 pitches (58 strikes), as Walt Weiss decided to pull his bullpen lever and chase a win.

We talk about this with Chris Sale a lot, about how he’s not always on his A game but still able to get through an outing with the Braves having a chance to win the game. Mahle showed, for at least one night, that he’s in that same vein.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Once again, this offense.

The Braves finished with just six hits tonight, scoring their only run on a solo shot from Drake Baldwin in the sixth inning. Those hits came from mostly just two players, with Harris having three (including two doubles), Baldwin adding the homer and a single, and Ozzie Albies having a single. Atlanta stranded all six runners they had tonight, as well, going 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.

It’s not for lack of trying - the Braves had fifteen hard-hit balls, including nine over 100 mph, although only four of the fifteen fell for hits.

Atlanta grounded out thirteen times to just four flyouts (and a few lineouts, too), contributing to the frustration.

Squandering the few scoring opportunities they get isn’t going to stop the skid. After Baldwin’s homer and back-to-back two-out singles in the 6th, Minnesota pulled Zebby Matthews for reliever Kody Funderburk, who got a strikeout to end the inning. The Braves didn’t get another runner until the 9th, and he was stranded on base after a groundout, a strikeout, and a flyout.

At this point, I don’t really know what else to say. Atlanta’s offense needs to be better, and while it was understandable to struggle against playoff-caliber starters from the Yankees and Diamondbacks, they’ve been shut down by Minnesota’s rotation and bullpen. They’ve got to be better, and that’s all there is to it.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves made a rotation change for Wednesday, with AJ Smith-Shawver being called up to make the start. He’ll face off with Taj Bradley (9-5, 3.98) at 1:40 PM ET.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 7:40 PM ET

• Location: Target Field, Minneapolis

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: Courtesy of @BravesWX on X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

DH Drake Baldwin
RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
2B Ozzie Albies
LF Mike Yastrzemski
3B Austin Riley
LF Mauricio Dubón
C Sean Murphy

Quick thoughts:

• Atlanta’s going with what I’m calling the “playoff lineup” here, with Dubón at short and Murphy behind the plate.

Minnesota Twins Lineup

CF Luke Keaschall
LF Trevor Larnach
C Ryan Jeffers
DH Josh Bell
2B Kody Clemens
1B Royce Lewis
3B Brooks Lee
RF Alan Roden
SS Kaelen Culpepper

Quick thoughts:

• Byron Buxton gets the day off, with Luke Keaschall kicking over to center field for the day.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP Tyler Mahle (4-9, 4.64)

Quick snapshot:

• 4.64 ERA / 3.93 xERA / 4.10 FIP

• 23.4% K / 8.7% BB / 14.7% K-BB%

Pitch mix:

• vs LHH: 51% four-seamer, 33% splitter, 16% cutter, 1% slider, <1% sinker

• vs RHH: 46% four-seamer, 19% cutter, 18% splitter, 15% slider, 2% sinker

What to watch:

• Tyler Mahle’s pitch mix changes is fueling this hot run. In his first two Atlanta starts, Mahle has thrown his splitter 36.8% of the time, up from approximately 25% before the trade. The extra splitters have largely replaced his cutter and slider: cutter usage has fallen from roughly 18% to 12%, while he has thrown only two sliders in 185 pitches.

• The early results say this was a good idea. Mahle has completed six innings in both Braves starts, allowing one run with sixteen strikeouts and two walks. More encouragingly, he generated 28 swinging strikes across those two games. The 0.75 ERA won’t continue, but that combination of whiffs and command gives the success more credibility than two merely fortunate box scores.

• Mahle’s defining matchup: Minnesota’s right-handed hitters. Lefties have produced only a .223/.275/.386 line against him this season, compared with .294/.376/.461 by righties. That makes a lefty-heavy Twins lineup less troublesome than it might appear. The real test will be whether the Braves’ splitter-heavy plan helps him navigate Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton and Ryan Jeffers, assuming they are in the lineup.

• Can Atlanta expect length? Six innings is a reasonable request. Mahle needed 92 and 93 pitches to complete six innings in his first two Braves outings. He hasn’t shown any obvious workload limitation, but Atlanta also hasn’t pushed him into a seventh. Six competitive innings is the reasonable expectation if the walks stay down.

Who to watch:

• Byron Buxton has a homer and four hits in nine ABs, while Ryan Jeffers is 3-5 with a homer and four RBI. Outfielder Trevor Larnach is 4-10 with three doubles.

Opposing Starter: RHP Zebby Matthews (6-8, 5.34 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 5.34 ERA / 4.69 xERA / 5.05 FIP

• 19.9 K% / 7.8 BB% / 12.1 % K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Four-seamer (37%, 95.2 mph)

• Slider (21%, 87.1 mph)

• Changeup (13%, 86.6 mph)

• Curveball (13%, 80.0 mph)

• Cutter (11%, 90.5 mph)

• Sinker (4%, 95.2 mph)

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Matthews: Load up on lefties, hunt the four-seamer and cutter, and refuse to donate chases against the breaking balls. His slider has generated a 33.7% whiff rate and allowed a .252 wOBA, while the curve is at 33.8% and .238. Those are his two legitimate weapons. The four-seamer and cutter, however, have allowed respective wOBAs of .405 and .445. Matthews’ Statcast profile

• Matthews throws hard, but the fastball doesn’t play like a dominant 95-mph pitch. His four-seamer averages 95.2 mph but has produced only a 13.6% whiff rate, with opponents slugging .504 against it. The larger problem is damage: Matthews has allowed eighteen homers in 91 innings, and his 11.6% barrel rate is well above the MLB average of 7.6%.

• Lefties have been more successful, but primarily because they see less of his best pitch. Left-handed hitters have an .826 OPS against Matthews, compared with .774 for righties. Against lefties, he reduces his slider usage from nearly 29% to approximately 16% and throws his changeup roughly 22% of the time. That is a much more attractive pitch distribution for Olson, Baldwin, Harris and Yastrzemski.

• This isn’t a clean third-time-through collapse, but his ability to finish hitters deteriorates. My pass through his game logs produced a 24% strikeout rate the first time through, 19% the second and 15% the third, with his walk rate climbing above 10% on the third trip. The fifth inning has been the obvious trouble spot: a 9.00 ERA and .938 opponent OPS. He has completed exactly five innings in each of his last three starts.

• Matthews has been worse since the break, but not quite as bad as the ERA suggests. He owns a 7.50 ERA and 1.71 WHIP in five post-ASB starts. His full-season 4.69 xERA is better than his actual 5.34 ERA, but it still describes a below-average starter rather than a major positive-regression candidate.

• The Braves against Matthews: extremely limited experience here, with only Lane Thomas having faced him:

  • The good: Lane Thomas is 1-2 with a homer

  • The bad: N/A

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A four-seam-based mix with pretty common adjustments - more fastballs when behind, more sliders and curveball when ahead.

vs RHH: A more-variable kitchen-sink-esque mix, one that ramps up sweeper and changeup use when ahead and saves a cutter-esque slider for early and when behind.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• The leverage arms got a game off and should all be fresh for game two.

Potential limitations:

• I’d imagine Victor Mederos (39 pitches in the last three, although only ten last night) is a candidate to be down today, as is Brent Suter if they want to give him one more day after 49 pitches on Saturday (but I’m guessing he’s available if they need him).

Quick takeaway:

• Even with the DFA of Tyler Kinley, Atlanta has the bullpen pieces for just about whatever gets thrown at them tonight.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available:

• Bulk arm Tommy Nance is well-rested, but he’s the only one.

Potential Limitations

• Andrew Morris might be back from his 51-pitch back-to-back over the weekend, but I’d honestly give him one more day. Taylor Rogers should be down after his back-to-back, while I’m sure they’d like to stay away from Jeff Hoffman if possible.

Quick takeaway:

• Minnesota has the pieces they need for game two.

Final Thought

Atlanta is a slight favorite on the moneyline (-128 to Minnesota’s +120), and FanDuel has set the over/under at 8.5 runs. This matchup will likely hinge on which team gets damage against the fastball. Mahle’s Braves adjustment has replaced most of his slider and cutter usage with a splitter that is producing whiffs against both handedness. Matthews owns the better pair of breaking balls, but his 95-mph fastball has been surprisingly hittable. If Atlanta refuses to chase the slider and curve and makes him win with the four-seamer, the Braves should have the more favorable offensive matchup.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this morning, after lineups were announced.

After posting a .976 OPS during his freshman season at North Florida, Lodise transferred to the ACC powerhouse, where he would spend the next two seasons as Florida State's starting shortstop.

As a sophomore, Lodise experienced some growing pains with the jump in competition. Still, he batted .281 with an .833 OPS and nine home runs.

The breakout would come the following year.

In 2025, Lodise exploded during his junior campaign, slashing .394/.462/.705 with a 1.167 OPS and 17 home runs. Despite the massive production, legitimate questions remained about his hit tool as he entered the 2025 MLB Draft. Lodise had struck out at least 20% of the time in each of his two seasons at Florida State while posting a walk rate below 10%.

Those concerns remained when Atlanta selected him in the second round, taking him with the 60th overall pick and signing him to a $1.3 million bonus.

Immediately, many penciled him in as the potential starting shortstop for the Atlanta Braves as early as 2028. He was assigned directly to High-A Rome after the draft, but almost immediately ran into trouble at the plate. Whether that was the result of a long college season, an aggressive assignment, or simply a young player adjusting to professional baseball, the numbers were alarming.

Now, almost a full year later, Alex Lodise is starting to show why so many people were excited when his name was called last summer. Myself included.

The Red Flags Were Hard To Ignore

In my inaugural Top 50 Braves prospect rankings, I placed Alex Lodise at number 19 overall. To many, that was probably a surprise.

MLB Pipeline currently ranks him as Atlanta’s number five prospect. FanGraphs also opened the year with him at number five, while Baseball America had him at number nine entering the season. Most outlets had Lodise comfortably inside Atlanta’s top ten. Even with my placement of 19th dragging down his overall, Lodise came in as Atlanta’s 12th-rated prospect with a composite score of 13.26 on the Braves Today Prospect Composite.

So why was I so much lower on him?

For me, a college bat of Lodise's caliber should, at minimum, hold his own against Single-A and High-A pitching. He spent two seasons playing in one of the best conferences in college baseball and was one of the best hitters in the country during his final year at Florida State. The pitching he would face at the lower levels of the minor leagues should not be completely foreign to him.

Yet, in 25 games with High-A Rome last year, Lodise slashed just .252/.294/.398 with a .692 OPS. Those numbers by themselves were not disastrous. What concerned me was how he got there.

Many of the problems scouts worried about before the draft immediately showed up. Lodise struck out at a 38.5% clip, posted a 32.8% whiff rate, and walked just 4.6% of the time. That is a pretty difficult offensive profile to make work, and the reasons why we wrote before the season that Lodise might require a longer developmental runway than his college résumé suggested.

Instead of sending him back to Rome to begin 2026, the Braves assigned the now 22-year-old to Single-A Augusta to continue working through those issues.

Through his first 50 games, Lodise showed improvement, but not quite at the level I wanted to see. His slash line still sat at just .251/.338/.399 with a .737 OPS. His strikeout rate dropped considerably to 27.3%, while his walk rate improved to 9.5%.

Better? Absolutely. Good enough for someone many considered one of Atlanta’s best prospects? I still wasn’t sold.

So when I put together my rankings, I wanted to compare Lodise's profile to other recent prospects and see what players with similar numbers eventually became. The results were concerning, to say the least.

Since 2021, there have been just 14 prospects who were at least 21 years old, hit below .260, slugged below .400, struck out more than 25% of the time, walked less than 10% of the time, and still managed at least a 100 wRC+.

Yes, those are very specific parameters. That is also kind of the point.

Lodise was putting together a very unusual profile for a player of his age and pedigree. There was enough production to remain above league average, but the way he was producing raised legitimate questions about how his bat would translate as he climbed the ladder.

Thankfully, that version of Alex Lodise has slowly started to disappear.

Since the beginning of June, Lodise has slashed .263/.354/.587 with a .940 OPS. More importantly for me, his strikeout rate dropped to 24.1% while his walk rate climbed to 10.1%.

After 435 plate appearances with Augusta, Lodise earned his promotion back to High-A Rome with an .826 OPS and 117 wRC+ on the season. This time, he looks much more prepared for the challenge.

Lodise Is Finally Answering The Questions

As I mentioned before, since the calendar turned to June, Alex Lodise has looked much closer to the player we all hoped he would become.

Before returning to High-A on July 28, Lodise posted a .920 OPS during his final month with Augusta. His strikeout rate continued trending in the right direction as well, dropping to 23.6%.

For me, his return to Rome represented the first major test of Lodise's future in the organization.

If he struggled again, especially in the same ways he did last season, it would become increasingly difficult to overlook. At some point, a highly regarded college hitter has to show he can handle lower-level minor league pitching. And well, Lodise seems to be playing like he knew that.

Through 17 games since his promotion, Lodise has posted a ridiculous .343/.434/.571 slash line with a 1.005 OPS and 163 wRC+. Even more encouraging, he has struck out just 7.2% of the time. Yes, you read that correctly. No, that is not a typo.

Realistically, a roughly 20% reduction in strikeout rate is not going to be sustainable. I am not suddenly expecting Lodise to become Luis Arraez at the plate. But that really isn't the point.

What matters is that the underlying improvements we needed to see are showing up. Lodise has lowered his whiff rate to just 18.6% while increasing his zone contact rate to 86.9%. His walk rate still sits at a fairly pedestrian 8.4%, but he is making significantly more contact without sacrificing the damage that made him such an intriguing hitter in college.

Lower swing-and-miss. More contact. Higher damage. That is the version of Alex Lodise we have all been waiting to see.

The Next Test For Lodise

At 22 years and five months old, Alex Lodise is almost exactly the average age of a player at the High-A level. For me, however, that does not automatically mean he is right back on track to become the shortstop of the future for the Atlanta Braves.

Context matters.

Before getting hurt, Tate Southisene had already proven himself at High-A and earned a promotion to Double-A at just 19 years old. John Gil has also reached Double-A at only 20, although he returned to High-A to start this season before an early-August promotion back to Columbus.

Other shortstops selected in 2025, such as Eli Willits, JoJo Parker, and Kayson Cunningham, are already playing at the same level despite coming out of high school. Fellow college shortstops such as Aiva Arquette, Marek Houston, and Wehiwa Aloy have already reached Double-A.

That does not mean Lodise is behind schedule or suddenly a failed prospect. Development is not linear, and comparing every player directly by age and level can get dangerous pretty quickly.

Still, for a polished college hitter who was one of the best players in the country just over a year ago, I think it is fair to expect a little more.

I would really like to see Lodise continue this hot streak and earn at least a small cup of coffee at Double-A before the season ends. That would give us another data point against more advanced pitching and, more importantly, another opportunity to see if these improvements in his contact ability are real.

Because that is ultimately what this comes down to for me. The power was never really the concern. The athleticism was never really the concern. There is a reason Lodise was viewed as a potential everyday shortstop almost immediately after Atlanta drafted him.

It was always about whether he would make enough contact for everything else to matter. Over the past few months, he has started answering that question.

Those red flags from late last season and early this year have not completely disappeared from my mind. I am sure I am not alone there. 17 great games at High-A cannot completely erase what we saw beforehand. But it can change the conversation.

What Alex Lodise has done over the past few months has been awesome to watch, and I can already tell you he will not be sitting anywhere near number 19 when I put together my end-of-season prospect rankings.

I still want to see more. If these contact gains continue as Lodise faces better pitching, though, we might look back at the first few months of 2026 as nothing more than a young player figuring things out.

And if that is the case, Alex Lodise has a chance to do more than just prove skeptics like myself wrong. He could very quickly put himself right back at the front of the conversation to become the next everyday shortstop for the Atlanta Braves.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Believe it or not, it ended up being the bottom of the first inning.

Atlanta got runners on first and third, but couldn’t bring them in to start the game. The Twins had…more luck than that.

Luke Keaschall started the inning off with a double, going down to get an 0-2 changeup below the zone and pulling a double to left. Righties Byron Buxton and Ryan Jeffers both drew seven-pitch walks, loading the bases with no outs.

Cleanup hitter Josh Bell then got up 3-0, took a sinker in the zone, and then flared a soft fly ball to right that landed just short of Mike Yastrzemski, bouncing into the stands for a ground-rule double.

The Twins then added two more RBI singles, one on a soft liner back up the middle from Royce Lewis (on a first pitch, poorly located cutter) and a Kody Clemens ground ball (again, on the first pitch and on a poorly located offering, this a sinker).

Pérez locked back in after that, getting a flyout, a strikeout, and a groundout to end the inning, but not until 34 pitches and nine total batters.

It was only thanks to a six-pitch 2nd inning, with a single, a groundout, and a double play, that Pérez was able to stabilize his pitch count and finish five innings. He allowed four more hits across his next three innings, but no runs or walks with two strikeouts.

Today’s Player of the Game

It’s going to be somewhat controversial, but I’m giving it to Ray Kerr.

The lefty returned to the majors for the first time since June 15th, 2024, pitching 1.1 scoreless innings. He cleaned up a first-and-second situation for Tyler Kinley with a one-pitch groundout to finish out the sixth, and then came back out for the seventh.

The wiry lefty got himself in a jam, hitting Brooks Lee in the toe with a curveball, giving up a single to rookie Kaelen Culpepper, and then leaving a throw to first on a bunt attempt a bit too high for the diminutive Ozzie Albies, loading the bases.

And then Kerr locked in. He picked up two pop-ups to Matt Oson with well-placed curveballs before getting a groundout to strand all three and hang a NOBLETIGER on the Twins offense.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Once again, the offense for Atlanta was stymied by an opposing pitching staff. The problem is, it wasn’t a playoff-caliber rotation like the Yankees or Diamondbacks, but rather Minnesota’s worst starter and some relievers with high ERAs entering tonight.

The Braves picked up seven hits, including two doubles, but after chasing Bailey Ober with one out in the fifth, they managed just one hit and two walks the rest of the way. Their best chance to rally against the bullpen was with the top of the order up against struggling reliever Jeff Hoffman.

They couldn’t do it, though. Ronald Acuña Jr. struck out in an awful sequence - taking a middle-middle slider for a strike, swinging at a 1-1 slider far off the plate, and then taking an elevated slider for a strike three.

Matt Olson laced a double, then got pushed to third after Kody Clemens made a great diving play to rob Michael Harris II of an RBI hit. Mauricio Dubón walked to load the bases with two outs, but Ozzie Albies chased a splitter off the plate, flying out to left field to strand the tying run on first.

The Braves tried it again in the 9th, getting leadoff man Mike Yastrzemski on via walk and advancing him all the way to third (groundout, defensive indifference), but they could never find a hit to bring in the one run, never mind tie the game with a second.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves will look to even up the series tomorrow night, with Tyler Mahle (4-9, 4.64) taking on Zebby Matthews (6-8, 5.34) at 7:40 on BravesVision.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 7:40 PM ET

• Location: Target Field, Minneapolis

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: High of 80° and sunny at game time.

Atlanta Braves Lineup

C Drake Baldwin
DH Ronald Acuña Jr.
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
LF Mauricio Dubón
2B Ozzie Albies
RF Mike Yastrzemski
3B Austin Riley
SS Jim Jarvis

Quick thoughts:

• Acuña gets another day at designated hitter, batting 2nd. It’s an extremely small sample size, but he’s struggled to lock in at the plate when he’s not in the field this season:

  • RF: 63G, .256/.365/.462 w/ 12 HRs, 15 SBs

  • DH: 9G, .167/.250/.306 w/ 1 HR, 1 SB

Minnesota Twins Lineup

RF Luke Keaschall
CF Byron Buxton
C Ryan Jeffers
DH Josh Bell
1B Royce Lewis
2B Kody Clemens
3B Brooks Lee
SS Kaelen Culpepper
LF Alan Roden

Quick thoughts:

• Outfielder Austin Martin went on the injured list this morning, replaced by catcher Alex Jackson (old friend alert - yes, it’s THAT Alex Jackson).

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: LHP Martín Pérez (8-6, 2.96)

Quick snapshot:

• 2.96 ERA / 4.29 xERA / 4.22 FIP

• 18.6% K / 10.0% BB / 8.6% K-BB%

Pitch mix:

• vs LHH: 54% sinker, 25% changeup, 14% cutter, 6% curveball, 2% four-seamer

• vs RHH: 33% changeup, 27% cutter, 26% sinker, 8% curveball, 6% four-seamer

What to watch:

• Pérez’s defining question: How much longer can he keep winning without missing bats? He carries an 18-inning scoreless streak into tonight and has lowered his ERA to 2.96, but his most recent start featured only two strikeouts against three walks in six innings. This remains a contact-management profile, not a sudden transformation into a bat-missing starter.

• There is one legitimately excellent pitch supporting the run: his changeup. Pérez throws it about 30% of the time, and opponents have hit .162 and slugged .325 against it with a 32% whiff rate. His sinker and cutter are primarily contact pitches, but the changeup gives him something capable of generating a strikeout when traffic begins building.

• Minnesota is a favorable matchup for Pérez. The Twins have produced only a .668 OPS against left-handed pitching, batting .224 with a .353 slugging percentage. That lack of damage fits Pérez’s pitch-to-contact approach extremely well.

• Watch the walks to Minnesota’s right-handed hitters. Pérez has shown a dramatic control split: through his first 19 appearances, he issued 30 walks to righties but only six to lefties. Minnesota can build around Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis and Ryan Jeffers against a lefty, so free baserunners ahead of its right-handed power matter more than Pérez’s strikeout total.

• The scoreless streak contains some small-sample magic. Entering his previous start, Pérez was carrying a .232 BABIP and 79.7% strand rate, while his expected run-prevention numbers remained in the mid-4.00s. The changeup and contact management are real; eighteen consecutive scoreless innings probably are not the new baseline.

Who to watch:

• Byron Buxton has five hits in thirteen ABs, while Josh Bell is 1-3 and Ryan Jeffers is 1-5 with a homer.

Opposing Starter: RHP Bailey Ober (7-4, 4.64 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 4.64 ERA / 4.70 xERA / 4.78 FIP

• 16.1 K% / 6.0 BB% / 10.1 % K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Changeup (34%, 82.7 mph)

• Four-seamer (32%, 88.1 mph)

• Slider (17%, 82.2 mph)

• Sweeper (12%, 76.1 mph)

• Sinker (3%, 88.5 mph)

• Curveball (2%, 72.7 mph)

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Ober: Trust the left-handed power and attack the four-seamer/changeup combination. Ober’s velocity collapse has fundamentally changed him: his four-seamer is averaging only 88.1 mph, his strikeout rate has fallen to 16.1%, and his 4.64 ERA is supported by a nearly identical 4.72 xERA. Lefties have slugged .475 against him and accounted for 12 of his 17 home runs allowed.

• His changeup is no longer the automatic lefty neutralizer it once was. Ober throws it more than any other pitch, including roughly half the time against lefties, but it has produced only a 21.9% whiff rate with a .362 xwOBA and .503 xSLG. The four-seamer has been punished for a .542 slugging percentage with just a 14.8% whiff rate. That gives Atlanta’s lefties two very hittable pitches to hunt if they refuse to expand.

• The sweeper is the pitch Atlanta cannot donate outs against. Opponents are batting .095 and slugging .119 against it, with a 40.5% whiff rate. It is comfortably Ober’s best pitch, but represents only 12% of his arsenal and is used more heavily against righties. The Braves should make him win with the 88-mph heater and the diminished changeup instead of chasing his sweeper below or off the plate.

• Ober is still providing innings, but not dominance. He has completed six innings in three consecutive starts, but during that span has allowed ten earned runs and four homers while recording only seven strikeouts in 18 innings. His latest outing against Baltimore featured three home runs and five earned runs. He has not won since July 17.

• There is also health context behind the diminished stuff. Ober missed more than a month with right elbow inflammation before returning July 9. Since the All-Star Break, he owns a 5.27 ERA with only 16 strikeouts in 27⅓ innings. The velocity has not meaningfully returned with his health.

• The Braves against Ober: very limited experience here, with only five players having even faced Ober:

  • The good: Matt Olson is 2-2 with a homer and five RBI (a three-run homer and a two-run double, both in the same game in 2024)

  • The bad: Lane Thomas is 0-6, Mike Yastrzemski is 1-7, and both Ha-Seong Kim and Dominic Smith are 0-2.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A four-seam/changeup based mix without many adjustments (other than increased 4S when behind and less when ahead)

vs RHH: A more-variable kitchen-sink-esque mix, one that ramps up sweeper and changeup use when ahead and saves a cutter-esque slider for early and when behind.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• Most of the non-leverage arms, with the possible exception of Brent Suter (49 pitches on Saturday) should be good to go today.

Potential limitations:

• The backend arms, however, threw a combined 57 pitches to avoid a Diamondbacks sweep yesterday. You could make an argument that Didier Funtes is likely down today either way.

Quick takeaway:

• I’m curious to see what happens if Pérez only goes five or six and the Braves are trying to protect a slim lead - do they piece it together by asking guys like Victor Mederos and the TJ-returning Ray Kerr to step up, or do they plan to double up on the leverage arms (plus Dylan Dodd, who has two days of rest) to get the win and figure out Tuesday on Tuesday?

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available:

• A lot of the bulk arms (Tommy Nance, Travis Adams) are all well-rested, so they can handle a blowout.

Potential Limitations

• Setup man Andrew Morris has 51 pitches over a back-to-back, so if he’s not down today, the MLBPA might file a grievance for unsafe working conditions. A.J. Minter only needed 26 pitches for his own back-to-back, but he’s likely getting today off as well (although fellow lefty Kody Funderburk has also thrown a back-to-back on twenty total pitches, so someone will likely need to pitch today unless they’re going to trust the struggling Taylor Rogers).

Quick takeaway:

• Minnesota has their closer and some leverage options, although anyone outside of the closer that throws today is likely down for the rest of the series.

Final Thought

Atlanta is a slight favorite on the moneyline (-122 to Minnesota’s +112), and FanDuel has set the over/under at nine runs. This one is likely decided by which contact-oriented starter can do a better job of keeping the ball in the yard. Ober’s got a tough test, running a diminished fastball and a declining changeup right into Atlanta’s power lefties, while Pérez gets the benefit of a Minnesota offense that’s struggled to slug against southpaws this season. If Atlanta stays away from Ober’s sweeper and gets four-seamers or elevated changeups to Olson, Harris, Baldwin and Yastrzemski, the Braves should produce the more dangerous contact. If Pérez supplies Minnesota’s righties with free baserunners, however, he gives an otherwise underpowered matchup exactly the kind of crooked-number potential it needed to keep pace with Atlanta.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this morning, after lineups were announced.

Goodhart’s Law is, essentially, an indictment of performance measurement: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Velocity was once a measurement. For many young pitchers, it has become the target. Too many young pitchers are obsessed with the radar gun’s reading, believing that the delta between 95 and 92 is the magic elixir for getting the D1 college offer or first-round draft attention.

When 95 mph begins to feel like the price of admission, a pitcher sitting at 88 or 92 has every incentive to chase the missing number, even while his body is still developing.

The Atlanta Braves, though, have perhaps become too comfortable not targeting that velocity. Pursuing velocity for velocity’s sake can be bad process, and the Braves understand the danger of asking young pitchers to manufacture it before their bodies are ready. But at the same time, they haven't consistently shown they can develop it safely once those bodies mature.

The Braves have become exceptionally good at making 92 mph work. The uncomfortable question is why they aren’t better at turning it into 95.

Let’s talk about it.

The Braves CAN Build Around 92

Columbus Clingstones pitching coach Mike Steed recently told radio host Bill Shanks that the organization doesn’t push velocity on their young pitchers, explaining that the #1 answer it gives prospects who ask how to throw harder is “grow up.”

To be clear, Steed was not telling them to sit around and wait. He described a development process built around efficient movement, strength, body awareness, pitch shape, location, release height, and deception. Velocity can arrive within that process, but the Braves don’t want it to become the entire process.

And on its face, that makes sense. The Braves still want guys who throw hard. Why wouldn’t they? Velocity shortens a hitter’s reaction time, provides more wiggle room for a missed location, and can make certain secondary pitches even better.

But the distinction for Steed is the intentionality behind velo growth. Velocity can emerge through physical growth, strength and conditioning, and learning how to move more efficiently. The Braves appear to believe that trouble begins when a young pitcher tries to force mechanics or workloads onto a body that isn’t ready for them.

Shanks presented Steed with a great hypothetical (paraphrased):

What would you tell a pitcher who throws 92 or 93 mph and worries that he will never reach 98?

And if you’re someone who’s worried about the health of Atlanta’s pitching prospects, Steed’s answer should be comforting: there are ways to “build stuff” with almost anyone.

And he’s right; there are lots of ways to do that!

The first is fastball movement. Maybe your ideal shape isn’t a four-seamer because it lacks carry, and you need to make a cutter or sinker your primary fastball or mix all three in roughly equal amounts.

Maybe it’s your pitch locations. Are you elevating your four-seamer enough? Is your cutter being thrown into the heart of the zone, or in the shadow?

Maybe it’s your arm slot. Cam Caminiti’s a great example of dropping a pitcher’s arm angle to create outlier pitch shapes.

This works for release height, too. Can you make up for subpar carry on a four-seamer by lowering the release height and creating a flatter Vertical Approach Angle? Or can you find a way to introduce some deception into the delivery?

It might not even be mechanical; it might simply be informational. Where are your misses coming from, and can you adjust the catcher’s target to account for that? Are you overusing one sequence? Are you going to a pitch too often, allowing its effectiveness to ‘decay’ as the hitter sees it multiple times during an at-bat or across the game? And do you know what to throw to ‘buy back’ some of that effectiveness?

The organization’s newer focus on individualized pitching development means it is better equipped to explore those different approaches with each of its prospects.

Understanding and being able to improve all of those facets of a young pitcher are signs of a sophisticated pitching development apparatus.

They’re also workarounds. A 92 mph fastball with excellent shape can absolutely outperform a dead-zone 95 mph fastball, but the same excellent fastball shape at 95 would still be better.

Owen Murphy is the Clearest Cost

Atlanta clearly prioritizes Stuff, and has shown that they’re willing to aggressively pursue impact starters who have it.

Part of the reason the Braves have been so diligent in searching for that impact starter is likely that they haven’t been able to move enough prospects from the “regular season back-end starter” group to the “impact postseason arm” group.

Spencer Schwellenbach, when healthy, is a frontline starter. Spencer Strider, when healthy, has shown he’s capable of being a frontline starter.

But too many of the pitching prospects just now reaching the majors, like JR Ritchie and Owen Murphy, have not yet shown the ability to take that leap.

And with Ritchie, that’s a lofty expectation that was never really placed on him, even as a first-round pick. In his Baseball America pre-draft profile, they both pointed out that the youngster typically pitches in the low 90s and that there was “not much in the way of future physical projection” going forward.

Meanwhile, his final prospect profile before losing his prospect eligibility this season specifically points out that adding velocity could help him “find another gear”.

But that’s not the case for Murphy, who was believed to have more in the tank due to his “natural athleticism,” having been both a “star football player” and a “legitimate prospect as a shortstop” as a prep.

Yet his Triple-A fastball remains about 92 mph this season, four seasons after being drafted. Owen Murphy at 92 has to locate, sequence and maintain his shape. Owen Murphy at 95 could survive the occasional mistake, generate more empty swings and force hitters to begin their decisions earlier. Nothing else about him has to change for his ceiling to move dramatically.

(The caveat here is the time he missed following Tommy John surgery, with Atlanta being right to prioritize health during his return-to-play. That being said, many pitchers naturally return with more velocity after Tommy John and the organization has had several years to develop his body and delivery. His command, pitch shapes and approach have progressed, but the radar reading largely hasn’t.)

Garrett Baumann Complicates The Case

Baumann is, physically, a monster. Standing 6-foot-8 and 240 pounds when drafted in 2023, his draft profile noted his average velo of 91-93 and a max of 96, pointing out that his suboptimal mechanics and having “plenty of arm strength” could eventually translate into a workhorse starter.

Atlanta did help Baumann add some velocity since he was drafted in 2023, as well as polish the rest of the package to create an intriguing starter. His height and release point create a steep approach angle, so the org gave him a sinker to capitalize on that extreme sight picture and he pushed his velo toward an average of 95 mph.

But his fastballs still generated too much upper-level contact despite the modest velo bump, and his merely average secondaries have not consistently given him a way to finish off an at-bat. Following a difficult Triple-A stint where he got hit hard (xwOBA of .346, .306/.380/.653 line), he was moved back to Double-A Columbus last week.

Peak velocity (96.9 mph in that Memphis outing) tells you what an arm is capable of producing. Sustained velocity tells you what kind of pitcher the organization has developed. With Baumann, the system has shown that it can add some velocity and optimize his pitch shapes. It has not yet shown that it can help him preserve that velocity across a starter’s workload or assemble a pitch mix capable of compensating when it fades.

The program is incomplete, lacking the consistent ability to add speed, preserve it across a starter’s workload, and make certain the final pitch mix gets results.

Patience Is Not A Program

It’s only right to acknowledge that there are places where Atlanta’s pitching prospects have been able to make meaningful velocity gains during their time in the system.

Brett Sears, a seventh-round senior sign in the 2024 MLB Draft, was able to acclimate to the grind of a professional season through both physical maturation and finding routines that worked for him, per Steed. That growth allowed him to climb from barely breaking 90 when drafted to comfortably sitting 93. He’s now on the radar as a legitimate prospect, albeit with a ceiling as a back-end or spot starter at best.

Cedric De Grandpré went from a low-90s sinker/slider control artist before his 2024 Tommy John surgery to a Stuff monster, averaging 95 with his multiple fastballs and touching the high 90s with his four-seamer. The previous two-pitch arsenal has ballooned to all three fastballs, a bat-missing curveball (31.3% whiff rate in Triple-A) and a slider, as well as a seldom-used-but-promising changeup. With the additional velo at his disposal, he’s raised his stock from a 13th-round JUCO lottery ticket to a legitimate prospect.

Other pitchers, like Drue Hackenberg and Blake Burkhalter, have been able to return from injury with more physical development and the newfound velocity that come with it.

Individual success stories prove velocity growth can happen inside Atlanta’s system. They do not establish that Atlanta possesses a repeatable process for producing it.

The 2026 Draft: Acquiring Velocity?

The big prep swing in the 2026 draft, in which the Braves saved money with their first two picks (both college outfielders) and then went overslot for three consecutive prep pitchers, may be a tacit acknowledgment by the organization that this deficiency is real.

Of the three Day One arms:

• Kaiden McCarthy has reached 99 mph.

• Jensen Hirschkorn has reached 95–96, with additional physical projection remaining.

• Cole Dennis reached 96 at the Draft Combine and reportedly touched 97 during the spring.

These aren’t pitchers that the Braves must teach to escape the low 90s. They used their draft capital and early underslot savings on pitchers who either already possess or are physically close to possessing the velocity they want.

None of that proves the Braves privately believe they have a velocity-development problem. Draft classes are shaped by availability, bonus demands and opportunity. But after using their first two selections on college bats, Atlanta spent three consecutive picks on high-school pitchers who had already shown mid-to-upper-90s velocity. It is at least fair to wonder whether the organization has decided the safest way to develop premium velocity is to acquire pitchers who already possess it.

The Limits of the Workaround

Atlanta knows how to make 92 play. Bryce Elder’s 91.7 mph fastball has paid off in a 3.73 ERA/3.88 xERA across his last 30 starts, dating back to last August. His 19 quality starts are one ahead of teammate Chris Sale and tied for 5th with Logan Webb, Sonny Gray, and Cam Schlittler.

(Important caveat here: Sale missed most of August 2025 due to injury and has his 18 quality starts in 22 outings compared to Elder’s 30.)

But Atlanta’s pitching pipeline will remain capped until the organization can more consistently make 92 become 95.

If you’re not going to aggressively sign or otherwise acquire flamethrowing aces on the open market, you need to develop them. Atlanta has not shown the consistent ability to build that velocity internally.

Atlanta has proved it can teach 92 mph to survive. Murphy shows the ceiling of that approach, while Baumann shows that touching 97 is not the same as holding it. Perhaps this draft class is merely a collection of the best players available. Or perhaps the Braves have reached a more revealing conclusion: premium velocity is easier to refine than it is to manufacture.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the seventh inning.

Arizona had just tied the game at two runs each, getting a leadoff homer off of Didier Fuentes, and Atlanta had the bottom of the order due up.

Austin Riley led off the inning with a 110 mph double to left, his third hard-hit ball of the day, and it came in an encouraging at-bat: He laid off two sliders down and away, working the count to 2-2, and got a hanging slider in the zone that he fired off an “A” swing on. Jim Jarvis immediately bunted Riley over to third, but after closer Brandyn Garcia came into the game and walked Drake Baldwin, he got Ronald Acuña Jr. to strike out. Arizona was close to slamming the door shut on yet another Braves run-scoring opportunity.

Matt Olson kicked that door wide open.

Olson took two sweepers and a sinker for balls, forcing Garcia to come back into the zone to avoid loading the bases. It wasn’t a bad sinker, sitting about knee high in the zone for Olson, but he clearly expected both the pitch and the location and he did not miss it.

That blast was 109.5 mph off the bat and 437 feet for Olson, ultimately standing as the winning run for the Braves.

Fun fact, Didier Fuentes got charged with both a blown save (his 5th) and a win (also his 5th), as he gave up the lead in the top half of the inning but was still the pitcher of record when Atlanta took it back.

Today’s Player of the Game

In a surprise to absolutely nobody, it’s Matthew Kent Olson.

Olson’s homer today was his 36th, leaving him one off of Philly’s Kyle Schwarber for the league lead. He’s sitting at 66 extra-base hits, which leads baseball, with his 88 runs scored being 2nd to Washington’s James Wood (100) and both his .551 slug and 265 total bases leading the National League.

Braves Today sponsor FanDuel has NL Most Valuable Player odds on the board for only two players: Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani (-140) and Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (+115). But it’s hard to make a case for anyone else to be third over Matt Olson at the moment, not when you consider the offensive production, the expected second consecutive Gold Glove, and the Ironman streak of not having missed a game since early in the 2021 season.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Raisel Iglesias having another shaky outing.

Called on for a routine save with a three-run lead, Iglesias instead put Braves fans on a 21-pitch roller coaster that we weren’t exactly mentally prepared for.

Facing the middle of the Diamondbacks’ order, Iglesias walked leadoff man Ketel Marte on six pitches and gave up a 105 mph single to Max Kepler before recording his first out.

And then things got weird.

After getting utilityman Tim Tawa to fly out for the 2nd out of the inning, the third base umpire decided only then to call Iglesias for a balk. There are, somehow, no replays floating around the internet for me to show you - the MLB research tool doesn’t capture clips of ‘non-plays’ - but the Arizona dugout began yelling as Iglesias delivered the pitch. After talking to someone on the Diamondbacks beat, it appears that the dugout thought that Iglesias slightly separating his hands after coming set rose to the level of a balk, and after the flyout was over, the third-base umpire decided to invalidate the out by agreeing with them and calling the balk.

With the runners now on second and third and Tawa having a new lease on life, he grounded out, scoring Marte from third. Iglesias, still visibly off his game after the balk call, managed to get a flyout of catcher James McCann to preserve the lead.

It’s yet another shaky outing for the usually-reliable Iglesias, who has allowed six runs on nine hits and five walks in his last 6.2 innings. Four of those seven outings have seen the opponent score.

I’m not panicking yet, but it’s definitely concerning. Every closer has shaky moments, and Iglesias is usually good for two weeks a year, so hopefully this is about to be past us, and he can resume his usual 9th-inning dominance through the end of October.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves are off to the airport for a three-team, four-city road trip, beginning in Minnesota against the Twins on Monday. Here are the pitching matchups for Target Field:

Mon: Martín Pérez vs Bailey Ober
Tue: Tyler Mahle vs Zebby Matthews
Wed: Chris Sale vs Taj Bradley

Game Info

• First Pitch: 1:35 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: Courtesy of @BravesWX on Twitter/X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

C Drake Baldwin
RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
LF Mike Yastrzemski
2B Ozzie Albies
DH Dominic Smith
3B Austin Riley
SS Jim Jarvis

Quick thoughts:

• Mauricio Dubón gets the day off, with Dom checking in at designated hitter and both Ronald and Yastrzemski in the outfield corners.

Arizona Diamondbacks Lineup

SS Geraldo Perdomo
RF Corbin Carroll
DH Gabriel Moreno
2B Ketel Marte
LF Max Kepler
3B Nolan Arenado
1B Tim Tawa
C James McCann
CF Jorge Barrosa

Quick thoughts:

• Ketel Marte, who left Friday night’s game with “left knee soreness” and missed Saturday, is back in for the finale.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP Bryce Elder (8-7, 4.03)

Quick snapshot:

• 4.03 ERA / 4.08 xERA / 4.59 FIP

• 19.4% K / 8.1% BB / 11.3% K-BB%

Pitch mix:

• vs LHH: 30% four-seamer, 23% slider, 19% cutter, 15% sinker, 14% changeup

• vs RHH: 52% sinker, 26% slider, 10% four-seamer, 7% cutter, 5% changeup

What to watch:

• Elder’s last start looks more like a blowup than the beginning of another collapse. Before allowing seven runs to the Mets, he had surrendered five earned runs over his previous four starts and 24 innings. His 4.03 ERA and 4.09 xERA are closely aligned, so there isn’t an obvious statistical warning that his entire season is about to unravel.

• Arizona’s right-handed hitters are the larger threat. Righties have hit .282/.327/.436 with a .334 wOBA against Elder, compared with .211/.287/.383 and a .295 wOBA for lefties. Arizona’s contact-heavy approach could make Nolan Arenado, Gabriel Moreno and the switch hitters more problematic than Corbin Carroll and the other lefties. Elder’s excellent changeup gives him a better weapon against left-handed bats.

• Elder’s defining task: Stay out of fastball counts. Opponents have a .275 wOBA after he gets ahead 0-1, but that rises to .304 after 1-0 and .429 after 2-0. Arizona is difficult to strike out, so Elder needs the freedom to use his slider and changeup on the edges instead of supplying predictable sinkers and four-seamers.

• The changeup should be especially important. It has held opponents to a .180 average, .220 slugging percentage and .218 xwOBA while producing Elder’s best contact-quality numbers. His slider remains the better swing-and-miss offering, but the changeup gives him a way to produce poor contact from a lineup that refuses to whiff.

Who to watch:

• The only player with more then seven ABs against Elder is Nolan Arenado at 3-14 (crosses fingers), no one on Arizona’s roster has taken Elder deep (does an unjinxing dance) and no one’s really been dominant against him in their limited looks (sacrifices a chicken at an altar).

Opposing Starter: RHP Michael Soroka (8-3, 2.92 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 2.92 ERA / 4.16 xERA / 2.93 FIP

• 23.6 K% / 5.7 BB% / 17.9 % K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Slurve (33%, 80.6 mph)

• Four-seamer (32%, 93.6 mph)

• Changeup (12%, 85.9 mph)

• Cutter (12%, 89.0 mph)

• Sinker (10%, 93.3 mph)

• Sweeper (1%, 83.0 mph)

What This Means for the Braves

• Soroka after the IL: The arsenal remained essentially unchanged. In his return against Colorado, he threw 32% slurves, 27% four-seamers, 14% cutters, 13% changeups and 12% sinkers. His season rates are 33%, 32%, 12%, 12% and 10%, respectively. The only noticeable adjustment was taking roughly five percentage points from the four-seamer and distributing them among the other pitches, which is very much within the range of normal variation from start to start.

  • The slurve came back intact. Soroka generated four whiffs and three of his four strikeouts with it. Its 80.9 mph velocity and movement were almost identical to his season averages. That matters because the slurve is the main reason for his resurgence this season: opponents have a .194 average and .265 xwOBA against it, with a 33.5% whiff rate.

  • The fastball velocity is concerning, but not yet alarming. His four-seamer averaged 92.8 mph in his return, down from 93.6 for the season, while his sinker was down from 93.3 to 92.7. He still reached 94.6, and the injury was a left-glute strain rather than an arm problem, but Atlanta should see whether the average velocity rebounds in his second start.

  • The biggest post-IL difference was his strike-throwing. Soroka walked three in 4⅓ innings after issuing only 17 walks in his previous 82 innings. His first-pitch strike rate fell from 64.1% for the season to 56% in the return, and only 47 of his 77 pitches were strikes. He still allowed just three hits and generated weak contact, but the scoreless line was cleaner than the underlying command.

• There may still be a workload opportunity. Soroka made only one four-inning rehab start before returning and was removed at 77 pitches against Colorado. Arizona may allow him to approach 85–90 today, but Atlanta should not help him cruise through five innings. The Braves made him throw 91 pitches in five innings when they faced him in April, drawing three walks despite scoring only once.

• Atlanta’s path against Soroka: Prioritize the lefties and force him away from the slurve. Left-handed hitters have produced a .270/.327/.416 line and .326 wOBA against him, compared with just .177/.215/.274 and a .218 wOBA for righties. The slurve is his clear finishing pitch; the cutter has allowed a .313 average, .625 slugging percentage and .403 wOBA. Atlanta wants to avoid expanding against the slurve below the zone and make Soroka supply fastballs and cutters in hitter’s counts.

• Soroka’s 2.92 ERA remains somewhat misleading. His 4.17 xERA is more than a run higher, and Statcast estimates that the contact he has allowed would normally have produced approximately 10 home runs rather than six. His improved slurve and strikeout-to-walk foundation are legitimate, but the run prevention has received some assistance from favorable home-run results.

• The Braves against Soroka: all small sample sizes here, sadly - the most ABs anyone has against him is eight by Dom Smith, and only two of those have been after 2020.

  • The good: Drake Baldwin is 1-4 with a homer, while both Michael Harris II and Mauricio Dubón are 2-3. Matt Olson’s 1-4 with a double.

  • The bad: Ozzie Albies is 0-4 and Ronald Acuña Jr. is 0-2, while Austin Riley is 1-5.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A well-rounded mix with some expected tendencies: less breaking balls and more fastballs when behind, and more of that killer slurve when ahead and with two strikes.

vs RHH: A slurve-and-fastball-group-dominant package, one that makes the expected changes based on state of the at-bat - more fastballs when behind, more slurves when ahead.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• The leverage group is well rested, with Didier Fuentes being given last night’s game off even if it was close (per a source).

Potential limitations:

• You’d worry about the Braves having length issues given that Victor Mederos threw 29 pitches last night and Brent Suter threw 49, but Atlanta DFA’d Danny Young to call up lefty Ray Kerr this morning. He hasn’t thrown for Gwinnett since Wednesday and has already shown the ability to throw 30+ pitches in an outing.

Quick takeaway:

• Atlanta has the bullpen pieces they need to prevent a sweep.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available/Potential Limitations:

• I’d guess the entire pen is still available today, as both of the outings from Diamondbacks starters so far this series have allowed them to just throw single innings from non-key relievers.

Quick takeaway:

• Amazing what length from your rotation can do for your bullpen, isn’t it?

Final Thought

Atlanta is a slight favorite on the moneyline (-122 to Arizona’s +112), and FanDuel has set the over/under at nine runs. This one is likely decided by who is better at throwing a first-pitch strike. Soroka’s command was rusty in his return, while Elder’s results deteriorate quickly whenever he falls behind. Whichever pitcher consistently gets to 0-1 will be able to lean on his best secondary pitch - Soroka’s slurve or Elder’s slider/changeup combination. If Atlanta stays patient without becoming passive, it can turn Soroka’s workload restrictions into an early trip to the Arizona bullpen.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this morning, after lineups were announced.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The second inning, believe it or not.

Atlanta jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in this one thanks to a Ronald Acuña Jr. leadoff home run and multiple other hits, but Arizona came roaring back in the top of the 2nd.

Ever dangerous cleanup hitter Gabriel Moreno led off the inning with a five-pitch walk, being moved to third on a Max Kepler double in the gap. Arizona then began bringing those runners in, scoring one on a Nolan Arenado grounder and a second on a Tim Tawa single to left. After a groundout pushed Tawa to 2nd, rookie (and #9 hitter) Ryan Waldschmidt drove Tawa in from second, with Tawa sliding in just ahead of a 94 mph throw home from Ronald Acuña Jr.to give Arizona a 3-2 lead.

The Braves looked to try and battle back in the bottom half of the inning, with Lane Thomas battling through a seven-pitch at-bat for a leadoff double, but Atlanta went strikeout, fly out, and pop out to end the inning and the threat.

Arizona added three more in the third inning to take a 6-2 lead, while the Braves didn’t record another hit until there were two outs in the fifth inning (and even that was a bit iffy, as the batted ball was only 74.9 mph and shortstop Geraldo Perdomo just…missed it, with the slow roller bouncing off his glove and into shallow left field.

Their next hit came in the ninth inning, after the deficit had ballooned to eight runs.

Today’s Player of the Game

Hard to pick someone, but we’ll give it to Ronald Acuña Jr. He led off the bottom of the first with a home run, as well as picked up the “single” later, but it’s really because of his defense.

Jake talked on yesterday’s postcast about how Ronald offensively doesn’t feel like the same guy when he’s the designated hitter. But when he’s both the right fielder and leadoff man, there are some times where he just locks in and finds multiple ways to impact the game.

The offensive potential is obvious, but he had three different defensive plays that showed why the best configuration of the team is with his arm in right field, even if his range and defensive jumps aren’t what they used to be.

The first was on a single to left. With a speedy outfielder running from second on contact, Ronald barehanded a grounder and fired home at 96.4 mph, just barely missing the runner.

The next inning, he did it two more times, first chasing down a Corbin Carroll line drive in the corner and almost beating the runner to the bag with an 89 mph throw…

And then perfectly playing a carom off the wall and almost getting the runner at second thanks to a 94.3 mph throw.

I’ve watched enough baseball where there are few things that’ll make me sit up in my chair quite like Ronald Acuña. Jr. having a chance to throw out a runner with that howitzer for a right arm he carries.

What You’ll Be Talking About

What to do with Grant Holmes.

He was charged with six runs on six hits in his 3.2 innings, walking three and striking out three. We knew it was a tough matchup going in, but I didn’t expect it to unfold quite the way it did: Holmes getting absolutely shelled.

The Diamondbacks put 14 balls in play off of Holmes, with nine of those being hard-hit and the average exit velocity allowed an absurd 96.2 mph. Most of his batted balls allowed were in the air, as well, with only five of the 14 having a launch angle below 15°. He did manage to find 8 whiffs in there, but it took 27 swings to get them.

That being said, multiple members of the Braves beat at the ballpark reported that Walt Weiss, in postgame, said that Holmes will be making his next start as planned and that AJ Smith-Shawver, who was eligible to return to the majors as of Friday, is a candidate to come up and help out of the bullpen.

I’m sorry, but if this isn’t just Walt Weiss protecting his guy, I think that’s a mistake.

Holmes has shown concerning peripherals and enough instability when he gets to the second turn through the order that it feels pretty tense when he pitches.

For the record, he’s only allowed more than three runs in two starts this year, although some of that’s due to being pulled early - he has nine starts where he hasn’t finished five innings.

Similar to how the likely playoff lineup for the club includes Acuña in RF, Mauricio Dubón at short, and Sean Murphy behind the plate while Drake Baldwin DHs, the likely playoff rotation doesn’t include Holmes; instead, AJ Smith-Shawver would work behind Chris Sale and Tyler Mahle.

And it’s not like the tradeoff of carrying Holmes in the rotation is the length, because he’s not giving you that, either. At a certain point, Smith-Shawver needs more than the “27th man for a DH” start that he’s gotten so far since returning from the IL.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast where I went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s looking to avert a sweep tomorrow afternoon at 1:35, with Bryce Elder (8-7, 4.03) taking on old friend Michael Soroka (8-3, 2.92) on BravesVision.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 7:15 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta

• TV: Fox (National Broadcast)

  • Broadcast crew: Brandon Gaudin (PxP), Adam Wainwright (analyst)

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: Courtesy of @BravesWX on Twitter/X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
DH Drake Baldwin
1B Matt Olson
2B Ozzie Albies
CF Michael Harris II
SS Mauricio Dubón
LF Lane Thomas
3B Austin Riley
C Sean Murphy

Quick thoughts:

• With a lefty on the mound, Dubón kicks down to shortstop to make room for Thomas, while Murphy enters the lineup behind the plate.

Arizona Diamondbacks Lineup

DH Lars Nootbaar
RF Corbin Carroll
SS Geraldo Perdomo
C Gabriel Moreno
LF Max Kepler
3B Nolan Arenado
1B Tim Tawa
2B Ildemaro Vargas
CF Ryan Waldschmidt

Quick thoughts:

• Ketel Marte, who left last night’s game with “left knee soreness”, is out of today’s lineup for Arizona

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP Grant Holmes (7-4, 3.47)

Quick snapshot:

• 3.47 ERA / 4.73 xERA / 4.82 FIP

• 19.3% K / 9.9% BB / 9.4% K-BB%

Pitch mix:

• vs LHH: 34% slider, 29% four-seamer, 13% cutter, 11% curveball, 8% changeup, 5% sinker

• vs RHH: 40% slider, 29% four-seamer, 22% sinker, 3% cutter, 2% curveball & changeup

What to watch:

• Arizona doesn’t avoid chasing, it just makes contact when doing it. The Diamondbacks’ 22.3% whiff rate is well below the 25.1% MLB average, with above-average contact both inside the zone and on pitches outside it. Their chase rate is essentially average. Holmes can’t assume that he can just spam his slider outside the zone to get strikeouts; Arizona is particularly good at fouling those pitches off or putting them in play.

• Holmes needs called strikes more than extra fastballs. His first-pitch strike rate is only 59.5%, and Arizona swings less frequently than the average lineup. The opportunity is to steal early strikes with sliders and curveballs that touch the zone, not nibble into 2-0 counts against hitters who are difficult to finish.

• Don’t confuse “make them put it in play” with “feed them heaters.” Holmes’ four-seamer, sinker and cutter have produced expected wOBAs of .377, .410 and .424, respectively. His curveball has a .209 xwOBA and 35.8% whiff rate, while the slider remains his primary weapon at a 38.7% whiff rate. The curve should be a larger part of today’s plan, particularly as an early-count strike and a way to disrupt Arizona’s ability to track the slider.

• The slider still has to lead the way. Holmes faced this club on April 3 and threw six scoreless innings, getting nine of his 14 whiffs with the slider. Arizona’s lineup is not identical now, but that outing offers a blueprint: remain slider-heavy while adjusting his sequencing to disrupt when and where they’re expecting it to appear.

• Holmes’ defining stretch: the second trip through the order. Opponents have a .397 wOBA and .581 slugging percentage against him the second time through, and 14 of his 18 home runs allowed have occurred during that pass. He has been substantially better during both the first and third trips, so this isn’t fatigue. Watch whether he introduces more curveballs and changeups beginning around the fourth inning.

Who to watch:

• The only Arizona hitters with success off of Holmes are Nolan Arenado (1-7), Max Kepler (1-2 as a member of the Phillies), Ketel Marte (1-6), Gabriel Moreno (2-7, 2 RBI) and Geraldo Perdomo (1-8).

Opposing Starter: LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (11-4, 2.70 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 2.70 ERA / 4.78 xERA / 3.83 FIP

• 17.1 K% / 8.0 BB% / 9.2 % K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Four-seamer (39%, 92.0 mph)

• Changeup (27%, 85.7 mph)

• Cutter (13%, 88.6 mph)

• Curveball (12%, 79.6 mph)

• Sinker (9%, 91.5 mph)

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A well-rounded kitchen sink mix, one that dramatically cuts sinkers when ahead and both sinkers and cutters with two strikes in favor of more four-seam fastballs and changeups.

vs RHH: A pretty four-seam/changeup package, one that throws more curveballs early in the count and when behind to steal strikes and almost entirely leans on the four-seam/changeup combo to put hitters away.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Eduardo Rodríguez: remember the changeup. Rodríguez threw it 37 times (41% usage) while blanking Atlanta for seven innings in their April meeting. It has also been his most reliable weak-contact pitch this season. The Braves cannot sit on the four-seamer and treat the changeup as merely a two-strike offering.

• The pitches Atlanta should hunt are the cutter and sinker. Rodríguez’s cutter has allowed a .418 xwOBA and .580 xSLG, while the sinker has a .399 xwOBA and only a 7.2% whiff rate. Atlanta’s right-handed hitters have the slightly better matchup overall, but their success will depend upon recognizing the changeup and forcing Rodríguez back toward those two less effective pitches.

• Rodríguez’s 2.70 ERA slightly oversells his current form. He has a 4.30 second-half ERA with opponents batting .294, although his most recent start - seven innings, two runs and nine strikeouts against the Dodgers - was a strong rebound. This isn’t a pitcher in free fall, but he has been more hittable recently than his full-season ERA suggests.

• Braves to watch: Ozzie Albies is 4-7, while several Braves are hitting exactly .333 in a small sample like Ronald Acuña Jr. (nine ABs), Drake Baldwin (three ABs), and Lane Thomas (six ABs).

  • Matt Olson’s only 1-10 against Rodriguez, but that one hit? A homer, of course. Austin Riley’s 0-5 and Michael Harris II is 0-2.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• Raisel Iglesias and Dylan Lee have rebounded from their midweek back-to-backs and should be good to go for game two.

Potential limitations:

• 45 pitches in the last three days for Dylan Dodd? Yeah, I’m thinking he’s down today. Does Atlanta also hold out Didier Fuentes from a back-to-back if they don’t have Dodd? Probably an in-game decision based on how deep Holmes can make it into the game.

Quick takeaway:

• If Atlanta can manage to score, they have the pieces to hold that lead.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available/Potential Limitations:

• I’d guess the entire pen is available tonight, as neither of the outings from Brandyn Garcia or Juan Morillo were enough to hold them out of game two.

Quick takeaway:

• Arizona’s bullpen has the rest advantage for game two.

Final Thought

Atlanta is a slight favorite on the moneyline (-130 to Arizona’s +120), and FanDuel has set the over/under at nine runs. Eduardo Rodríguez’s 2.70 ERA makes the matchup look more imposing than his underlying numbers suggest, but that won’t matter if Atlanta allows his changeup to keep them off the barrel again. For Grant Holmes, the answer to Arizona’s contact-heavy lineup isn’t throwing more hittable strikes, it’s stealing early strikes with his breaking balls and changing the pattern before the second trip through the order. If he falls behind and has to lean on his fastballs, Arizona’s ability to extend at-bats could make the middle innings the difference in this one.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

Lost in the discourse of whether or not a salary cap would fix baseball’s ‘parity’ problem is one major flaw:

The owners don’t seem to be interested in presenting a good-faith offer the players would even consider accepting.

Representatives of the Players Association have explained on the record that not only are they not inclined to even consider the latest owners’ proposal, both because it includes a salary cap - the union’s central guiding principle since its inception has been opposing one - and because the proposal’s supporting details are heavily slanted toward ownership.

“The cap system they proposed is not just bad for all the reasons that we believe cap systems are always bad,” MLBPA interim executive director Bruce Meyer told The Athletic. “They’ve effectively managed to cobble together the worst system for players in any of the major sports, and (it’s) not even close.”

The common response when I point that out is that the owners’ proposal is just a starting point, and the players can negotiate the proposal to be more neutral. But to me, if you want the players to abandon their fight against a cap, why not make the rest of the offer attractive enough that the rank-and-file players are intrigued enough to actually engage with the proposal? Negotiate in good faith, y’know?

So that’s what I’ve done here.

If I were appointed baseball czar for a day and given the ability to unilaterally design the new CBA, tasked with giving the owners the salary cap they so desperately yearn for while making it worthwhile for the players to drop that fight, acknowledging that there is a middle ground that would give both sides what they want is the road we’d take to have a full season in 2027.

Let’s talk about it.

A valid player complaint

One of the issues with the latest owners’ proposal to split baseball revenues “50/50” is that it’s not actually 50/50.

Per the union (and verified by The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, using the text of the actual proposal), there are a significant number of deductions from the total revenue number before the split is instituted, including:

• 17% of local revenues and 22% of national revenues as “expenses”

• Unlimited (uncapped) deductions for:

  • Construction and renovation costs for ballparks

  • Construction and renovation costs for spring training facilities

  • Expenses for MLB Network costs

  • “New ventures” from the league

Additionally, baseball-adjacent revenues like expansion fees, mixed-use development, etc. are all excluded from the baseball revenue definition.

So it’s not actually a true 50/50 split; it’s a split of what’s left after the league deducts however much they want from the total pot.

The other issue with the owners’ proposal is that the 50/50 split isn’t just establishing the pool for payroll and related expenses; it’s for every single dollar spent on players, from benefits and medical expenses to amateur-signing bonuses, interpreters, and even meals in the clubhouse. These additional expenses severely cut down the amount left for payroll, with just the $23M in benefits per team in the league’s proposal establishing an effective salary floor of closer to $148M from the original $171M.

The players already estimate they receive 54% of all baseball revenues under the current system, so cutting that down to a skimmed-over 50% is a non-starter for the MLBPA.

This is just one example of several areas where the players feel that the surrounding details - like restrictions on both free-agent contract length and amount, limiting the length and eligibility for the amateur draft, etc. - are slanted heavily in favor of the owners.

Let’s fix it under a cap system, making sure that both sides get meaningful improvements over the current system.

My Proposal

1. A revenue-linked cap and floor

We’re going to set a hard cap and hard floor, subject to an audit of 2026 revenue, of $280M and $180M, respectively. These amounts are solely for payroll, not the related figures of benefits, pensions, and centrally funded bonus pools or other ancillary spending like translators.

After 2027, both of these figures will move automatically with baseball-related revenue, based on a percentage of the reference payroll (league-wide payroll allocation divided by 30): 125% for the cap and 80% for the floor.

That gives us a maximum-to-minimum ratio of roughly 1.56-to-1, being a conservative compromise between the league’s proposed $245.3M/$171.2M spread (1.43-to-1) and the union’s ‘soft cap’ of $300M/$150M (2-to-1). This leans toward the owners while making the minimum high enough to meaningfully improve spending levels and being the rising tide that raises all boats, if you will.

2. The revenue split is going to tilt slightly towards the players

Not to rehash the intro, but the league’s proposed 50/50 split isn’t actually a 50/50 split once you account for all the deductions coming off the top. Under the owners’ proposed revenue definition and the associated escrow system, the players would lose more than $500M relative to 2026, according to SportsNet.

So my plan does two things. The first is to establish a slight edge to players, a 52/48 split, because their acceptance of a cap is itself an enormous concession and we’re attempting to reward both parties here.

The second thing is to establish a three-year rolling window to future cap and floor figures, to smooth any single-season fluctuations in the figures, while classifying applicable revenue via an externally audited process.

Eligible for the 52/48 split: Media and streaming rights, MLB-controlled digital businesses (including MLB Network and MLB.TV), sponsorships, licensing, gambling and data revenue, tickets, concessions, parking, and baseball-related affiliate transactions. (Independent auditors would determine fair-market value when a club sells rights or services to an affiliated company).

Not eligible for the 52/48 split: standalone real-estate revenue (subject to restrictions on shifting baseball revenue into a neighboring development just to keep it outside the calculation)

There will be billable hours for those auditors, jointly paid by the union and MLB.

3. Aggressive revenue sharing between clubs

This one’s not hard, because there’s already some agreement here in the competing proposals.

We are pooling and dividing 100% of local television and streaming revenue equally, with continued equal sharing of national media and central revenue. Sharing of ticket, concession, and other game-day revenue will be capped at just 30%, allowing teams to be rewarded for putting a winning product on the field by keeping 70% of their home game revenue.

Every lower-than-median-revenue team will be guaranteed the greater of $240M or 85% of average club revenue, with an additional performance pool for lower-revenue teams that either finish above .500 or reach the postseason.

One requirement here is that revenue-sharing recipients are required to spend their new distribution on major-league payroll and associated costs - medical care and player development, for instance - with a required percentage of 85% going directly towards payroll. If you don’t hit that 85% target, you lose revenue sharing funds at a 150% penalty rate, with those penalties being reinvested in the revenue sharing pool. So if you miss the 85% target by $10M, you’re sacrificing $15M in revenue sharing funds.

4. The floor is going to contain anti-evasion provisions

We want to make sure the floor is going toward current player salaries, so let’s set some guardrails here. Clubs must be at 90% of the floor on Opening Day and at or above 100% by the end of the season.

If a team is not at the floor, they are assessed a penalty of 150% of the difference. 100% goes to that club’s players, paid in an inverse proportion to the size of the contract (the lower your salary, the more you get). The remaining 50% goes into the league’s pre-arbitration pool.

To prevent a team from acquiring a player on an unwanted contract and immediately cutting them as a floor circumvention measure, the trio of dead money, retained trade salary, and buried salaries (MLB contracts for players in the minors) count against the cap but not the floor.

5. The early-career player compensation will be a compromise

We’re setting the minimum salary at $1.25M, the midpoint between the two suggested $1M and $1.5M salaries. The minimum will increase annually at the greater of 5% or the YOY growth rate of baseball revenues. The pre-arbitration pool will be $120M- roughly the midpoint between the two current proposals of $65M and $180M - and will also be indexed to baseball revenue. From that pool, any rookie who earns a full season of service time will automatically receive a $100,000 bonus. The remainder will be divided similarly to the current system, based on award voting and independent performance metrics such as fWAR.

We’re expanding Super Two eligibility from 22% to 35%, guaranteeing the salaries awarded in arbitration, and establishing a minimum arb award of $2.5M that increases at either 5% per year or double the minimum salary, whichever is higher.

6. Preserve Free Agency

There’s a lot of overlap here already: Free agency after five years for players who are at least 30 years old on the cutoff date, with six years for everyone else. No qualifying offer at all, and increased service time manipulation protections. Keeping all of that, since they already agree on it.

But we’re also rejecting the owners’ proposals to cap free-agent contracts at five years and establish individual salary limits. You already got a cap, and the market will take care of the rest - if you want to spend 40% of your cap on a long-term deal for Juan Soto, have at it. A team should be able to spend $70 million annually on one player or spread it among five. That’s a baseball decision, not something we’re going to legislate.

7. Adjusting the Cornerstone Player Provision

I loved this idea when it was first proposed, but we’re removing the free-market restrictions. Let’s incentivize lower-revenue teams to do the behavior we want, not restrict higher-revenue teams.

Each club can designate one homegrown or tenured player as the cornerstone player, provided that player has spent at least five consecutive seasons with the organization. Up to $10M of his annual salary would be excluded from the team’s cap at the top end, although the entire amount will still count as player compensation and towards the payroll floor at the bottom. Additionally, revenue-sharing recipients can receive up to an additional $10M per season toward that player’s contract, with no limits on contract length, annual or total salary, or external offers.

(This $10M will come from the general revenue-sharing pool in the form of additional revenue sharing to the subject club.)

If you want to draft, develop, debut and eventually retain a superstar, we’ll provide incentives to help you do that. It’s an actual retention benefit, not a market restriction masquerading as a benefit.

8. Allow deferrals, within reason

A lot of fans get emotional about deferred money, like it’s some sort of circumvention of the luxury tax instead of it really being a tax-planning (players) and cash-flow-smoothing (team) mechanism. So we’re going to establish some realistic guardrails:

• No deferring more than 50% of the contract’s total value

• All deferrals require an interest rate within 1.5% of the Imputed Loan Interest Rate in the CBA, and will be charged at its stated value in salary cap calculations

  • A current rule, XXIII(E)(6)(b), states that if your deferral’s interest rate is within that 1.5% range, your CBT value is the stated contract amount, not the net present value with the deferrals calculated. We’re making all new deferrals meet this standard.

• Contract terms and present value must be publicly disclosed when the contract is officially announced by the club

• All deferred compensation must be fully funded within nine months of the conclusion of the season in which they are earned

  • The current standard is the 2nd June 1st after the season they’re earned, so 2026 money must be funded by June 1st, 2028. We’re shortening that by a year.

9. Enhanced competitive-integrity safeguards

We’re pulling some of these enhanced anti-tanking provisions from the union’s proposals, because they’re legitimately good ideas.

The MLB Draft lottery will expand from six clubs to eight, with revenue-sharing recipients being prevented from receiving a top-six selection in three consecutive years. We’re also going to award additional bonus pool space to revenue-sharing recipients that have a winning record and/or meaningfully improve their winning percentage year over year.

The 20-round draft will remain, and it will not have hard slots, meaning draftees will still be able to negotiate bonuses. All current draft eligibilities will remain in place, with no changes. An international draft will also be instituted, with a minimum age of 17 years old, the same bonus total as the domestic draft, but with hard slots and more rounds (to allow teams to completely fill out their Dominican Summer League teams). In the two seasons prior to being drafted, eligible players will play organized games as part of a new youth baseball initiative to be implemented in Latin America and paid for in part by the clubs, while being scouted at those games and through an MLB-run combine process.

The owners proposed reducing the domestic draft to 12 rounds, prohibiting preps from taking part, and instituting a fixed bonus system (hard slots) at a $200M total bonus pool. You already got the salary cap, so we’re giving concessions to the players and further incentivizing lower-revenue teams to win instead of further narrowing and restricting the draft.

Final Verdict

Both sides have wins in this system.

The owners finally get their long-awaited cap, but the players are compensated with a $280M/$180M cap and floor spent almost entirely on salaries, supported by enhanced revenue sharing (which will raise overall payroll spending). The baseball revenue split is both clean, without amounts skimmed off the top, and slanted slightly towards the players, to compensate them for accepting a salary cap in the first place. Contract freedom is still there, with no restrictions on contract length or salary amount other than what the market naturally settles on.

Again, while I can see the argument that a salary cap and floor help the rank-and-file of the MLBPA, the owners’ current proposal asks players to accept a team cap, individual salary restrictions, maximum contract lengths, and escrow while receiving a league minimum far below the union’s request. That is not a good-faith offer, to insist on a maximalist position both on the existence of the cap and the details that go into it. At the same time, the current system the players have proposed, merely tweaking it, makes it too easy for the biggest clubs to continue separating themselves through ever-increasing revenue disparity, and the mild incentives at the bottom do not impose a true spending obligation on the lowest clubs.

This, to me, is a workable grand bargain: The owners get certainty at the top, both in their team salary and the league’s maximum payroll spending, while the players get more money in the middle and low end of the player pool while retaining personal freedom of choice and a path to unrestricted free agency.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

It somehow ended up being the bottom of the first inning, although we didn’t know it at the time.

Geraldo Perdomo battled through a nine-pitch at-bat to finally rip a single through the left side. That brought up Corbin Carroll, in an at-bat that was more consequential than any second at-bat of the game has any right to be.

Carroll got a 0-1 fastball on the inner-third and shot it out to left, where Mauricio Dubón was waiting. He wasn’t waiting in the right place, though, with the ball going over his head and Carroll ending up on second base.

You can see on the high home camera that Dubón aggressively breaks in, but too far and can’t recover in time to make the plan, leaping as it goes over the outstretched glove.

A soft groundout to first base from Gabriel Moreno scored the run, which ended up being earned after the official scorer changed the call on Carroll’s play from a fielding error on Dubón to a straight hit.

Today’s Player of the Game

Chris Sale, with his team-leading 14th of the season.

Sale was charged with just one earned run in his six innings, striking out nine with no walks. And the one run was “earned”, so his ERA’s now sitting at 2.16.

This was a tough matchup for Sale, as Arizona entered the game with MLB’s second-lowest whiff rate at just 22.3%. You can see that contact ability reflected in several of Sale’s stats, including just 11 whiffs and needing 108 pitches to get through six innings.

(Sale said after the game that he appreciated Weiss letting him going over 100 pitches to finish the 6th, describing it as Weiss watching the pitcher, not the pitch count, and remarking that it was a much more common practice earlier in his career.)

But despite the lack of whiffs, Sale finished with nine strikeouts, partly thanks to 21 called strikes. Even though he got the strikeouts, though, Sale not only allowed a lot of contact (fourteen batted balls), but eight of them were hard-hit and the average exit velocity he allowed was an unusual 93.9 mph.

I feel like we say this twice a month at this point, but for Sale to get the results he did shows he’s one of the best pitchers in the league. Even though he’s likely behind Jacob Misioroswki in the NL Cy Young race, not many pitchers could manage to not only get through six innings with only one run allowed, but to do it with nine puchouts and no walks.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Jeez, Atlanta’s offense got dominated tonight.

The Braves punched out eleven times and didn’t walk once, despite starter Brandon Pfaadt entering the game with only 13 stirkeouts in 32 innings since returning from the minors. Pointing out they picked up just three singles, two of them coming off of Pfaadt, is somehow underselling the futility for the Atlanta offense tonight: They had ZERO flyouts opposite ten groundouts and had just four hard-hit balls, all of which were outs. The Braves had six innings where they went three up, three down, including a stretch of nine consecutive batters retired.

While Arizona went an embarassing 0-for-14 with runners in scoring position tonight, at least they got a runner in scoring position - Atlanta had just three baserunners, all of who ended the inning still on first base.

For a game where you weren’t no-hit, it’s hard to draw up an outing with more offensive futility than what Atlanta was able to conjure tonight.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves are hoping to even up the series tomorrow night on Fox, with Grant Holmes (7-4, 3.47) opposite lefty Eduardo Rodriguez (11-4, 2.70) at 7:15 PM ET.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 7:15 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: Courtesy of @BravesWX on Twitter/X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

C Drake Baldwin
DH Ronald Acuña Jr
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
2B Ozzie Albies
LF Mauricio Dubón
RF Mike Yastrzemski
3B Austin Riley
SS Jim Jarvis

Quick thoughts:

• I’m starting to realize that Ronald at DH is more than just load management, given how often it’s happening.

Arizona Diamondbacks Lineup

SS Geraldo Perdomo
RF Corbin Carroll
C Gabriel Moreno
2B Ketel Marte
3B Nolan Arenado
1B Ildemaro Vargas
CF Tim Tawa
DH Tyler Locklear
LF Ryan Waldschmidt

Quick thoughts:

• Fun fact: Arizona has used six different centerfielders this season, with two of them on the injured list (Jordan Lawlar and Tommy Troy) and a third one (Alek Thomas) now playing for the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: LHP Chris Sale (12-7, 2.20)

Quick snapshot:

• 2.20 ERA / 3.11 xERA / 2.40 FIP

• 30.6% K / 5.7% BB / 24.9% K-BB%

Pitch mix:

• vs LHH: 38% slider, 33% sinker, 28% four-seamer, 1% changeup

• vs RHH: 45% four-seamer, 40% slider, 15% changeup, 1% sinker

What to watch:

• Sale’s defining statistic: Arizona cannot escape him simply by loading the lineup with righties. Right-handed hitters have managed only a .209/.270/.292 line against Sale, with 112 strikeouts in 370 plate appearances. That is actually worse than the .284 wOBA he has allowed to lefties.

• The four-seamer/slider separation remains the entire nightmare. Sale is using the four-seamer 40.8% of the time at 96.1 mph and the slider 39.4% at 79.5 mph. That gives hitters nearly 17 mph of velocity separation, with the two pitches moving in opposite directions from his low release point. Falling behind allows him to use the fastball in the zone before expanding with the slider.

• Sale is entering this matchup in even better form than his 2.2020 ERA suggests. Since the break, opponents are hitting .161/.198/.218 against him, and he has 34 strikeouts against three walks in 25 innings. Even the third-time-through penalty hasn’t materialized: Sale has 40 strikeouts against four walks with a .271 wOBA allowed on trip No. 3. Atlanta should expect real length if his pitch count stays manageable.

Who to watch:

• Catcher James McCann has two homers and five RBI off of Sale…but in 42 career at-bats, where he’s batting .238 overall. Nolan Arenado’s two homers come in just six at-bats, however, representing both of the third baseman’s career hits off of Sale.

Opposing Starter: RHP Brandon Pfaadt (6-1, 3.36 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 3.36 ERA / 3.63 xERA / 4.01 FIP

• 15.2 K% / 6.7 BB% / 8.4% K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Four-seamer (25%, 93.2 mph)

• Sinker (19%, 93.1 mph)

• Changeup (15%, 87.1 mph)

• Curveball (15%, 82.2 mph)

• Sweeper (13%, 84.3 mph)

• Cutter (12%, 90.2 mph)

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A well-rounded kitchen sink mix, one that dramatically cuts cutter and sinker use when ahead and with two strikes in favor of four-seam fastballs.

vs RHH: A sinker/sweeper-based package with pretty standard adjustments - ramping up breaking ball usage when ahead and with two strikes, while cutting them for sinkers and cutters when behind.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Pfaadt: Lean into the left-handed bats and force him through the order three times. Lefties have produced a .260/.305/.420 line against him, compared with .222/.296/.313 by righties, and have accounted for seven of the eight homers he has allowed. The third trip is where the larger opening appears: opponents jump from a .197 wOBA the first time through to .299 the second and .351 the third. He has struck out only six of 58 third-trip batters.

• Pfaadt’s resurgence is legitimate, but his current run prevention is probably too good to continue. Since returning from the minors, he has simplified his delivery, eliminated the over-the-head windup and stayed on the first-base side of the rubber. That has improved his consistency and tunneling. He owns a 1.13 second-half ERA and hasn’t allowed an earned run in his past three starts.

• Small-sample shenanigan to watch: Pfaadt has only 13 strikeouts in 32 post-break innings and has allowed zero homers. A 3.7 K/9 and 0.0 HR/9 generally won’t support a 1.13 ERA indefinitely. His full-season 3.65 xERA is close to his 3.36 ERA, so the reinvention isn’t entirely smoke and mirrors; the extreme post-break results are the questionable part.

• The Braves should hunt the sinker and changeup, not assume Pfaadt’s four-seamer is the vulnerable pitch. His six-pitch arsenal is unusually balanced, but the four-seamer has held hitters to a .205 average and .284 slugging percentage. The curveball and sweeper are his best swing-and-miss pitches, with whiff rates of 32.9% and 28.6%, so Atlanta’s best damage opportunity should come when a sinker or changeup leaks into the hitting zone.

• Braves to watch: Drake Baldwin is a hilariously dominant 5-for-8 off of Pfaadt with a homer and two RBI, while Austin Riley is 4-for-10, Mike Yastrzemski is 5-for-9, and Mauricio Dubón is 3-for-6. Ha-Seong Kim didn’t make today’s lineup, but he’s hitting .308 across 13 ABs with a homer and two RBI off of Pfaadt.

  • The counterpoint here is that Matt Olson’s just 2-for-11 off of Pfaadt and Ozzie Albies is 1-for-12.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• Holy bullpen reset, Batman. Love a good off day.

Potential limitations:

• That being said, I could see the argument to try and get Raisel Iglesias another day off, given that he’s at 46 pitches in the past five days and has pitched in three of the last four games.

Quick takeaway:

• Wouldn’t mind a blowout here to rest the leverage arms one more day.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available/Potential Limitations:

• Unless the team’s being careful with Gerardo Carrillo after his 31 pitches on Wednesday, the full bullpen should be available for Arizona.

Quick takeaway:

• Arizona’s bullpen is pretty rested…but that doesn’t mean they’re good and Atlanta definitely has the advantage here.

Final Thought

Braves are an easy favorite on the moneyline (-184 to Arizona’s +170), and FanDuel is projecting this with an over/under of just eight runs. Pfaadt is pitching with confidence and suppressing hard contact, but he isn’t missing enough bats to make this stretch feel invulnerable. If Atlanta’s lefties avoid expanding against the breaking balls and get him into a third matchup, that is where the statistical advantage swings sharply toward the Braves…plus, y’know, the whole “Chris Sale on the mound” thing.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

Herick Hernandez is the most unhittable pitcher in Atlanta’s farm system. He’s also the most unfinished.

He got the ball for Gwinnett against the Norfolk Tides on Wednesday and was dominant - eleven strikeouts in 6.1 innings, allowing just two runs on two hits. He had a Triple-A-leading 22 whiffs on Wednesday (56%) and an absurd 40% CSW.

He also walked four batters and threw three wild pitches, being in the zone just 37% of the time.

Herick Hernandez can already miss major-league caliber bats. Now he has to prove he can consistently find them.

Let’s talk about it.

This Isn’t Really a Surprise

The Herick Hernandez backstory bringing him to Atlanta shouldn’t surprise anyone who has paid attention to the way the Braves run their drafts: graduating from high school as a centerfielder, he didn’t start pitching until college. After sitting 86 during a brief stop at Barry University his freshman year, he transferred to Miami Dade and quickly became their ace, going 8-3 with a 2.86 ERA and 90 strikeouts in 78.2 innings as a sophomore.

That was enough to get the attention of some MLB teams, but just barely. Cincinnati took him as a draft-eligible sophomore in the 19th round, but he declined to sign and instead transferred to the University of Miami. His move to the ACC was…messy. He went 3-7 with a 6.14 ERA, but he did strike out 95 in just 70.1 innings. Atlanta looked past the ERA, selected him 129th overall in 2024 and signed him for $472,500.

And he’s already in Triple-A, having gone from an 86-mph converted outfielder to a Gwinnett starter who touches 97 in about five years. That lack of pitching experience prior to college is why Atlanta was so high on him in the first place, as one of their scouting lodestars is finding players who have more development ahead of them than their cohort, whether through injury, a multi-sport background, or a late position change.

What The Braves Have Built

What’s that, an undersized ACC pitcher with a great IVB fastball and gyro slider pairing that has questionable secondaries? There’s a reason he’s been called the “Spencer Strider Starter Kit” throughout his time in Atlanta.

But unlike Strider, the Braves had more work to do here.

Atlanta wasn’t taking an established college pitcher, sanding down the rough edges, and applying some polish. They identified the fastball’s shape, created a plus slider, and are attempting to add enough pitches and command around the pair of weapons to “Build-a-Bear” themselves a starter.

The four-seam fastball averages roughly 93, but he can run it up to 97 and it carries about 19 inches of induced vertical break.

The slider is a classic mid-80s gyro, pretty solidly considered a plus pitch by all evaluators. It’s produced a whiff rate of 50.7% in Triple-A so far this year, out of 142 thrown.

The split-change sits in the mid-80s and is still developing, but its ability to be a weapon that moves down and away from right-handed hitters means that they’re going to keep working on this until it’s there.

And the curveball, thrown in the upper-70s, might be the biggest thing keeping him in the rotation instead of the bullpen.

The Curveball Changes the Conversation

Most 5-10, fastball-and-some-other-stuff college pitchers end up as relievers at the next level. An undersized pitcher with a fastball-slider foundation and questionable command usually gets moved to shorter outings, where the arsenal can be narrowed and the velocity can play up.

Not Herick Hernandez, and it’s because of the emergence of the curveball.

Since he entered the system, Atlanta tweaked his arm slot, dropping it a bit, and refined his old college curveball into an actual weapon.

You saw it in action on Wednesday night.

In the outing vs Norfolk, Hernandez threw 90 pitches: 34 four-seamers, 28 sliders, 24 curveballs, and four offspeeds. Nineteen of his 22 whiffs came on secondary pitches, with the slider and curveball accounting for 17, a 58% CSW, and nine of his eleven strikeouts ended on one of the two pitches.

SIDEBAR: I’m sticking with “offspeed” here because while Hernandez has been throwing a splitter as his primary offspeed pitch per all the public scouting reports, Wednesday’s movement profile—14 inches of arm-side run and 11 inches of induced vertical break—looked more like a firm changeup than a traditional splitter to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And then the third time through the order, the curveball was the primary weapon, being used at a 43% rate.

And unlike its reputation, the fastball was merely an accessory player, filling out the company, rather than the top-billed star. Averaging 92.7 and topping out at 94.3, it picked up only three whiffs and a 12% CSW. The direct contribution of the fastball was soft contact, with one hit on nine batted balls and an average exit velocity allowed of only 83.6 mph. The other ‘glorious purpose’ of the heater was as visual contrast and to establish the top of the zone, being thrown upper rail to establish that part of the zone as a target to guard against and to keep hitters from committing entirely to spin.

Hernandez wasn’t surviving because Triple-A hitters couldn’t catch up to premium velocity. This was a breaking-out prospect thriving by overwhelming hitters with dramatically different vertical looks from the same general release area.

The slider’s dominance was…pretty much what we all expected at this point. The way Hernandez used his curveball was the meaningful development.

The curveball is roughly 4.5 mph slower than the slider, 79.3 mph to 83.8 mph, and features 14 additional inches of drop. Consequently, Hernandez used them differently.

The slider was the chase pitch (58%), used to finish plate appearances.

The curveball was thrown in the zone more frequently (46%), stealing eight called strikes and changing the eye level of hitters.

And Hernandez sequenced them well, too:

• First time through: 57% fastball, 29% slider, 14% curve.

• Second time through: 38% fastball, 38% slider, 22% curve.

• Third time through: 20% fastball, 27% slider, 43% curve.

That’s a real sign of maturity and confidence for a young pitcher. Hernandez didn’t just stick with the same fastball-slider combination and hope it remained unhittable. He altered the shape, eye levels, and speed of the matchup each time they saw him, and that’s the type of sequencing a starter needs to navigate a lineup repeatedly.

Not So Fast, My Friend

Despite the dominance and polish of the outing on Wednesday, some of the same problems remained for Hernandez.

He walked four in his 6.1 innings, a combination of being in the zone only 37% of the time and throwing only 56% first-pitch strikes. So many breaking pitches down below the zone meant he was charged with three wild pitches as well.

The outing really only worked because he got a 37% chase rate, which is partly a credit to him and his ability to induce that chase, but also something that likely takes a small step back in the majors, where the skill level is higher.

And this wasn’t just warning signs in one start, either; these are all known issues that have followed him throughout his minor league career.

He walked 68 hitters in 103.1 innings last season, and gave out 31 free passes in 45 innings for the Double-A Clingstones earlier this year. His second-half surge in 2025, one that saw him put up a 1.50 ERA after June 24th for High-A Rome, was mostly due to better batted-ball outcomes instead of fewer walks. He gave out 41 free passes in his 48 innings during that stretch (a .322 OBP), but held opponents to a .252 slug thanks to just nine total extra-base hits.

In 2026, his walk rate is hovering around 16% to both righties and lefties, and first innings have been particularly brutal from a command perspective - 16 walks to 27 strikeouts in 84 batters faced.

Wednesday was evidence that his stuff can absolutely overwhelm Triple-A hitters despite below-average control. It did not demonstrate that the control problem has been corrected.

And make no mistake, a 15% walk rate has to be corrected for Hernandez to be a viable major-league starter.

Major league hitters will be less willing to chase the slider, forcing more fastballs in the zone in predictable counts. His fastball shape can produce soft contact, but with only modest velocity, there’s a much smaller margin for error when it comes into the heart of the plate.

92 mph fastballs with 19 inches of IVB in the heart of the zone have allowed a .304 average and .594 slug, getting whiffs only 15.5% of the time and putting up a -2.57 RV/100.

Change that to middle-middle and it becomes a .357 average and .705 slug.

Can He Stick As a Starter?

There’s a case to be made either way here, and they both make a ton of sense.

The Case for Continuing to Start Him

He throws four distinct pitches, which include two legitimate whiff options in the breaking balls. He doesn’t have significant platoon issues, either. Lefties have a .684 OPS against him this season, while righties are at .662. The walks are essentially identical against both sides, while Hernandez has actually struck out righties more frequently.

He was able to handle 100 innings in his first full season, including both multiple outings of six or seven innings and the ability to hold his velocity through the seventh on Wednesday.

And most importantly, he showed he’s willing and able to change his pitching plan the third time through the order.

The Case for Relief

His walk rate consistently remains around that six per nine innings mark, and it’s not a Blake Snell-like “I’m not giving you anything to hit” walk rate. Being 5-10, 205 creates both workload and repeatability concerns. Most significantly, the fastball/slider pairing gives him an immediate high floor in shorter appearances, minimizing his need to focus on locating the curveball and changeup over six innings. Plus, the reliever velo bump might allow him to throw that heater at 95, instead of 93, and touch 98 or 99 instead of 97.

What To Do Here

Atlanta should keep developing him as a starter. His breaking ball depth and ability to hold the stuff deep into games remove any immediate need to kick him into the bullpen for developmental reasons. If the Braves need him in the majors soon-ish, the bullpen’s still his likely entry point, but that should be viewed as the path of least resistance rather than a predetermined ending point for him.

At the end of the day, Herick Hernandez no longer looks like a two-pitch reliever that Atlanta’s trotting out there as a starter every fifth day. He’s beaten the bullpen allegations…to an extent. He looks like a starting-pitching prospect who happens to be carrying substantial bullpen risk. The curveball keeps the potential rotation outcome alive. The command will decide if he ever reaches it.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Let’s talk about the bottom of the seventh.

Atlanta was holding a narrow 3-2 lead as the Mets moved from lefty starter Zac Thornton to the bullpen. With righty Dedniel Núñez coming on, the Braves went from the LHP-mashing Lane Thomas (who opened the scoring with a home run in the 2nd) to RHP-mashing Mike Yastrzemski.

That was the right lever for Walt Weiss to pull.

Yastrzemski got a mistake pitch from Núñez, a 1-0 center-cut fastball, and Yaz just barely got it out, depositing it into The Chop House’s flower box at 102 mph off the bat.

Austin Riley then came on and got a mistake pitch of his own, an upper-rail slider, and absolutely obliterated it - 438 feet into the left-center stands at 108.5 mph off the bat.

After an ABS-assisted strikeout, Ronald Acuña Jr. hit a fly ball off the wall in right; he thought it was a homer off the bat and admired it for a beat too long before taking off, but still made it safely to second on the play.

With Jefry Yan coming on to replace Núñez, Drake Baldwin singled Ronald home with a flare single to shallow left field, pushing Atlanta’s lead to 6-2. New York would threaten only one more time all game, with the crooked number all but ending the contest.

Today’s Player of the Game

Receiving just over 50% of the vote on the podcast, it’s Tyler Mahle.

Coming off six scoreless innings against the Yankees with nine strikeouts, Mahle showed mercy on the Mets…but just a little, striking out seven and allowing a single run in his six innings of work.

Mahle rode with the simplified fastball/splitter pairing at the behest of catcher Sean Murphy, picking up 13 of his 15 whiffs on the pairing and throwing his cutter and slider only a combined 13 times among his 93 pitches.

It’s hard to find fault here with the outing: he had more groundball outs (five) than flyouts (three), kept his average exit velocity allowed under 90 mph at 89.8, and put up a 35% CSW thanks to the 15 whiffs and another 18 called strikes.

His ERA in Atlanta through two starts is a minuscule 0.75, and he’s lowered the 5.13 he had at the time of the trade to 4.64 through two outings.

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 1

Atlanta’s offense tonight, both the good and the bad.

The Braves had twelve hits tonight, mashed three homers with six total extra-base hits, and went 3-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Riley was a triple away from the cycle, while Drake Baldwin had three singles of his own and both sides of the left field platoon hit homers.

But at the same time, the Braves had opportunities to hang some crooked numbers on Zac Thornton and mostly biffed them. Runners on first and third in the 3rd with no outs? Matt Olson gets one in on a double play (no RBI’s get awarded on a GIDP) and Ozzie Albies flies out. Runners on 1st and 3rd with no outs in the 5th? Acuña singles one in but gets hung up between first and second, and then a groundout (Baldwin) and strikeout (Olson) end the threat with only the one run scoring.

It’s mostly the little things that are keeping the Braves from blowing these innings open, and I’m still a bit worried that they won’t get cleaned up by October.

And yes, the offense was mostly quiet against the New York Yankees, which was to be expected against the caliber of the opponent and that awesome rotation. But to not cash in these opportunities against the 2026 Mets? To have the middle four in the order (Olson through Dubón) go a combined 0-16 with three strikeouts? It’s frustrating, and hopefully this is just me kvetching about something that won’t be an issue in October.

WYBTA, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

The bullpen, and I’m not talking about the solo shot given up by Dylan Dodd in the 7th.

To caveat this from the jump: I’m not worried about Raisel Iglesias.

But my goodness, we’ve got to stop asking the man to pitch in non-save situations. He gave up a home run in the 9th to Bo Bichette on a poorly sequenced five-pitch at-bat where nothing was elevated, at all. Is it really a surprise that Bichette was ready to go down and elevate a sinker when he saw two sliders, a sinker, and a four-seamer all down?

Iglesias then followed that up with a 2-0 double on a changeup that caught entirely too much of the zone before issuing a seven-pitch walk, all without a single out in the inning. Only a very Mets-like sequence - groundout, pop-up, groundout - was able to get him out of the inning and strand the runners on 1st and 3rd.

Again, I’m not worried about Raisel Iglesias. He’s only blown three saves this season, and has consistently been one of the best closers in the game outside of that usual two-week stretch every season (a month last year).

But this was avoidable. Atlanta pushed the lead to four in the seventh inning. They had time to finish getting Tyler Kinley warmed up and ready to pitch, and should probably just sit Iglesias down in those situations rather than asking him to pitch in a non-save situation. Anecdotally, he feels like one of those closers that aren’t nearly as effective in those game states.

“LOLMETS” Moment of the Game

In the fourth inning, outfielder Carson Benge got a ground ball past a diving Matt Olson and into right field, and despite Ronald Acuña Jr. needing to run 212 feet to the warning track near the corner to get it, he decided to hold up at first…which was good, because Ronald’s throw to second base was 90.7 mph and would have easily beaten him to the bag.

(Ronald doesn’t get enough respect on defensive metrics for plays like this, where the runner just doesn’t even attempt to advance.)

So what did first baseman Jared Young do the very next inning when he hit a line drive that one-hopped in front of Acuña and died at his feet?

He tried for second base.

Ronald uncorked a laser that got to the bag when Young was still at the edge of the grass cutout and just beginning his slide, with Mauricio Dubón easily making the tag to erase a leadoff base hit.

The outfielder won’t try to run on Ronald but YOU, a first baseman, think it’s a good idea? What did you think was going to happen here, exactly?

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta has a sorely needed off day before hosting the Diamondbacks for three in Truist Park this weekend. Both teams have announced their rotation for the series:

Fri: Chris Sale vs Brandon Pfaadt
Sat: Grant Holmes vs LH Eduardo Rodriguez
Sun: Bryce Elder vs Michael Soroka

Game Info

• First Pitch: 7:15 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta

• TV: BravesVision

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos

• Weather: Courtesy of @BravesWX on Twitter/X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
DH Drake Baldwin
1B Matt Olson
2B Ozzie Albies
CF Michael Harris II
SS Mauricio Dubón
LF Lane Thomas
3B Austin Riley
C Sean Murphy

Quick thoughts:

• With a lefty on the mound, Lane Thomas and Sean Murphy both check into the lineup.

New York Mets Lineup

LF AJ Ewing
SS Francisco Lindor
3B Bo Bichette
RF Carson Benge
CF Luis Robert Jr.
1B Jared Young
DH Francisco Alvarez
2B Brett Baty
C Luis Torrens

Quick thoughts:

• Veteran Marcus Semien gets the finale off.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP Tyler Mahle (3-9, 4.83)

Quick snapshot:

• 4.83 ERA / 4.02 xERA / 4.17 FIP

• 23.0% K / 9.1% BB / 13.8% K-BB%

Pitch mix:

• vs LHH: 51% four-seamer, 33% splitter, 16% cutter, 1% slider, <1% sinker

• vs RHH: 45% four-seamer, 20% cutter, 17% splitter, 16% slider, 2% sinker

What to watch:

• What Mahle changed in his Braves debut: Being caught by Sean Murphy, he stripped the repertoire down to three pitches. Of his 92 pitches against New York, 49 were four-seamers (+5% versus this season’s usage), 31 were splitters (+9%) and 12 were cutters (-3%).

  • Shelving the slider makes statistical sense: It has been Mahle’s worst pitch by a considerable margin, allowing a .472 wOBA, .576 slugging percentage and .420 xwOBA while accumulating minus-six Run Value. His four-seamer, splitter and cutter have xwOBAs of .306, .283 and .316, respectively. Atlanta concentrated almost entirely on his three credible pitches against the Yankees.

  • Did the Braves do this? It’s worth pointing out that Mahle’s last Giants start, one in which he struck out nine Padres, was also just these three pitches, so Atlanta might just be leaning into an idea Mahle already had.

• Mahle since returning from the injured list: In eight starts since coming back from the hamstring strain, he has a 3.27 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 41 strikeouts against 15 walks across 44 innings. He has allowed only three homers during that period. Before the injury, he had a 6.04 ERA and 1.54 WHIP with 11 homers allowed in 56⅔ innings. The improvement is real, particularly in limiting hits and home runs, and it indicates why Atlanta acquired him for the discounted cost they did over some of the more expensive veteran starters.

• The post-IL improvement has not been because of punchies: Mahle’s strikeout rate is actually slightly lower since returning than it was before the injury - his turnaround has come from avoiding barrels and reducing traffic, not suddenly overpowering everyone. The nine strikeouts against the Yankees were the ceiling of this version, not his normal post-IL performance.

• Watch Mahle against New York’s righties: Right-handed hitters have produced a .304/.388/.462 line and .374 wOBA against him, compared with a .291 wOBA by lefties. The splitter gives him an excellent weapon against opposite-handed batters, while his problems with the slider have contributed to the reverse split. If he again shelves the slider, tonight will give us useful evidence as to whether the simplified plan can help close that gap.

Who to watch:

• Catcher Francisco Alvarez is 1-2 with a homer off of Mahle, while Marcus Semien is 2-4 with a homer.

Opposing Starter: LHP Zac Thornton (3-2, 2.52 ERA)

Quick snapshot:

• 2.52 ERA / 4.60 xERA / 3.69 FIP

• 17.6 K% / 7.8 BB% / 9.8% K-BB%

The arsenal:

• Cutter (29%, 88.5 mph)

• Four-seamer (25%, 92.1 mph)

• Slider (15%, 84.9 mph)

• Sweeper (14%, 79.8 mph)

• Sinker (11%, 92.3 mph)

• Changeup (4%, 83.9 mph)

• Curveball (2%, 75.3 mph)

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: A multi-fastball/sweeper based mix that ramps up sinker and sweeper use when ahead, cutters use when behind, and heavily focuses on sweepers and cutters with two strikes.

vs RHH: A multi-fastball/sweeper-based arsenal, one without very many changes based on the state of the at-bat.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

What This Means for the Braves

• Atlanta’s path against Thornton: Get the right-handed bats involved, attack strikes early and avoid chasing the sweeper. Righties have produced a .288 wOBA against Thornton, compared with .230 for lefties. More importantly, he throws nearly half his pitches in the zone while generating only a 19.4% whiff rate. This is not a pitcher Atlanta needs to treat like an overpowering strikeout threat.

• An obvious regression candidate: Thornton owns a 2.52 ERA, but his xERA is 4.63, and his FIP is 4.60. Opponents have produced only a .268 wOBA against him despite a .330 xwOBA. His strikeout rate is also just 17.6%, leaving him unusually dependent on balls in play becoming outs, and that plan’s eventually going to stop working with this Mets defense behind him. Atlanta should expect something much closer to a league-average starter than his ERA suggests.

• The pitch to hunt: Thornton’s sinker has allowed a microscopic .123 wOBA, but its expected wOBA is .398. It has generated only a 16% whiff rate and an expected slugging percentage of .570. The four-seamer also carries a .315 xwOBA and 46.2% hard-hit rate. Atlanta’s best damage opportunities should come against those two fastballs, especially before Thornton can expand with the sweeper.

• The pitch to respect: His upper-80s cutter is the pitch he throws most frequently, but the sweeper has been his best bat-missing offering. It owns a 28.6% whiff rate and .265 xwOBA. Righties should be looking for the cutter or fastball over the plate without following the slower sweeper away.

• The first inning is Atlanta’s best opportunity: Thornton has a 6.43 first-inning ERA, with opponents hitting .333/.375/.467. His ERA falls to 3.86 in the second and is 0.00 in the third. That is only seven starts, but Atlanta already followed that script on July 27, collecting three first-inning hits and scoring immediately before Thornton settled down.

• Atlanta has seen the entire arsenal: Thornton threw all seven of his pitches against the Braves on July 27, allowing six hits and three runs in 6⅓ innings. Ozzie Albies drove in all three runs. Thornton needed only 81 pitches, however, so Atlanta’s previous familiarity matters only if it results in more prolonged at-bats and fewer quick outs.

• Braves to watch: Ozzie Albies is 2-3 off Thornton with a homer, while Acuña, Baldwin, and Harris all collected hits off of the lefty.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder, these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available:

• Dylan Dodd and the middle relief contingent are the freshest here, all with somewhere between one and three days off.

Potential limitations:

• The high-leverage trio of Raisel Iglesias, Dylan Lee, and Didier Fuentes all worked yesterday, but with an off day tomorrow, it’s possible that Iglesias and/or Lee get called on to help win the series.

Quick takeaway:

• Atlanta has the pieces they need to close out a close one.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely available:

• The leverage contingent is entirely fresh, having had Tuesday off.

Potential Limitations

• Not many - Chayce McDermott is a starter by trade and so he’s likely down for today, but that’s possibly all the unavailables for New York.

Quick takeaway:

• The Mets should be good for just about any scenario today.

Final Thought

Braves are an easy favorite on the moneyline (-172 to New York’s +158), and FanDuel is projecting this with an over/under of 8.5 runs. Thornton’s surface stats are of someone Atlanta should respect, but his contact and strikeout indicators make the 2.52 ERA look a bit fake. Mahle’s ERA conceals the opposite story: a starter who has performed much better since returning from the IL and may have found his cleanest formula by concentrating on the four-seamer, splitter and cutter.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

But prospect rankings can only tell you so much.

There are always players who slip under the radar for one reason or another. Maybe they were a late-round draft pick. Maybe they never had much prospect hype to begin with. Sometimes it’s simply because they are older than the players we typically get excited about in the minor leagues.

Whatever the reason, good baseball deserves to be recognized.

Atlanta has a lot of exciting names throughout its farm system, and while the top prospects naturally get most of the attention, I want to make sure some of the other guys get their flowers too. This season, there are six players in particular who have caught my attention despite rarely being discussed among the bigger names in the system.

So that is exactly what we are going to do.

Patrick Clohisy (24)

.291 AVG | .372 OBP | .485 SLG | .857 OPS | 127 wRC+

The first guy receiving his flowers might be playing so well that I need to move him way up our prospect rankings just to catch up. Patrick Clohisy has seemingly broken out.

The 11th-round selection in 2024 out of Saint Louis has improved every year since entering the organization, and this season has easily been his best yet. In 26 games after being drafted in 2024, Clohisy batted .234 with a .626 OPS and 92 wRC+ between Single-A and High-A. The following year, he improved to a .254 average, .681 OPS, and 111 wRC+ between High-A and Double-A.

This year, Clohisy played 70 games with Double-A Columbus and batted .261 with a .788 OPS and 110 wRC+, earning himself a promotion to Triple-A Gwinnett. Since arriving there, he has somehow found yet another gear.

Through his first 24 games with the Stripers, Clohisy has batted an absurd .388 with a 1.087 OPS and 185 wRC+. Is it a small sample size? Absolutely. But he is leading the team in each of those categories, so I am not going to completely brush it aside either.

He has 31 hits in 80 at-bats, including eight doubles, a triple, three home runs, and 14 stolen bases. Maybe even more encouraging is what has happened with his plate discipline. His strikeout rate has fallen from 21.4% in Double-A to 17.4% in Gwinnett, while his walk rate has climbed from 10.0% to 12.0%.

Yes, he is already 24, which can almost feel ancient in prospect circles now that we regularly see players reaching the majors at 20 or 21. But this is actually a pretty reasonable age for the level, especially for an 11th-round college selection.

At the rate he is going, it is becoming difficult to imagine Clohisy not getting a legitimate opportunity in Spring Training next year. Whether he wins a job is another conversation, but he is quickly becoming someone I could see competing for a bench outfielder role.

Dalton McIntyre (23)

.271 AVG | .353 OBP | .397 SLG | .750 OPS | 104 wRC+

Stop me if you have heard this one before, but another late-round Braves draft pick is starting to make some noise in the minor leagues.

Dalton McIntyre was selected in the 19th round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of mid-major powerhouse Southern Miss. He made his organizational debut in 2025, recording a .665 OPS at the complex before Atlanta aggressively pushed him to High-A Rome, where he understandably struggled.

This season, however, the bat-to-ball skills he showed at Southern Miss have started to come back.

McIntyre opened the year with Single-A Augusta, batting .320 with a 132 wRC+ across 29 games before earning another shot at Rome. This time around, the results were much more encouraging.

Compared to his previous stint at the level, McIntyre improved his batting average by 80 points to .241, raised his OPS by more than 150 points to .627, and dropped his strikeout rate by 7.5 percentage points to 20.3%. That was enough for Atlanta to challenge him again.

After only 18 games in Rome, McIntyre was promoted to Double-A Columbus, where he has slashed .238/.344/.362 with a .706 OPS and 95 wRC+ through his first 33 games. Those numbers are not going to jump off the page, but I think the context matters here. This is a 19th-round pick who has already played at three different levels this season and continues to hold his own as Atlanta pushes him up the ladder.

He is one of several outfielders in this system jockeying for position to potentially become that fourth or fifth outfielder type at the big league level. There is still a long way to go before we can confidently project him into that role, but for a player drafted as late as he was, simply putting himself into that conversation is noteworthy.

Cooper McMurray (24)

.244 AVG | .371 OBP | .396 SLG | .766 OPS | 110 wRC+

Cooper McMurray is a little older than I would ideally like for the level, so I want to get that disclaimer out of the way immediately. Still, his improvement is worth paying attention to.

McMurray signed with Atlanta as an undrafted free agent following last year's draft after playing at Auburn. The 6’4 first baseman jumped directly into High-A after signing, but things did not go particularly well. He managed only nine hits across 21 games while striking out at a 36.3% clip.

Similar to what Atlanta did with Alex Lodise, McMurray was sent down to Single-A Augusta this season to work through some of those swing-and-miss issues. Have they completely disappeared? Definitely not.

McMurray is still striking out 33.6% of the time, which is much higher than you would like to see from a 24-year-old in Single-A. His 36.6% whiff rate and 69.1% zone contact rate remain legitimate concerns that cannot just be ignored.

But there has also been real progress.

His .244/.371/.396 slash line has improved by more than 100 points in each category from last season. His OPS has jumped nearly 300 points to .766, his wRC+ has climbed more than 30 points to 110, and his walk rate has increased by more than six percentage points to an impressive 16.4%. That is enough improvement for me to at least keep watching.

The biggest question is going to be whether McMurray can tap into enough power to offset the swing and miss. At his size and position, the offensive bar is naturally going to be higher. I am certainly not sitting here telling you we have found Matt Olson's eventual successor, but a left-handed bat with above-average pop becomes interesting if Atlanta can continue cleaning up some of the holes in his offensive profile.

Kevin Kilpatrick Jr. (25)

.251 AVG | .333 OBP | .390 SLG | .723 OPS | 96 wRC+

A 17th-round selection back in 2022 out of Central Florida by way of Redan High School, Kevin Kilpatrick Jr. is starting to come into his own.

Across three seasons between High-A and Double-A, Kilpatrick batted just .228 with a .632 OPS. At 25 years old, it was fair to wonder if he was beginning to settle into more of an organizational depth role than someone we should continue viewing as a prospect to watch.

This season has at least reopened that conversation.

With Double-A Columbus this season, Kilpatrick is slashing .251/.333/.390 with a .723 OPS. Those numbers by themselves are solid, but they are not necessarily why he made this list. It is what he has done lately that really caught everyone’s attention.

Over the past 30 days, Kilpatrick has posted a .974 OPS while slugging .588 with five doubles and three home runs. Narrow it down to just the past two weeks and his OPS jumps all the way to 1.200, which ranks fourth best in the entire Braves system over that stretch.

More importantly, there has been a noticeable increase in power.

Kilpatrick has already set a new career high with six home runs despite doing so in significantly fewer at-bats than previous seasons. There’s probably never going to be huge power in his profile, and I do not think anyone should suddenly view him as some massive breakout prospect because of one hot stretch. But finding even a little more impact with the bat changes the conversation.

At the very least, Kilpatrick has put his name back on the map as someone worth keeping an eye on. For a 17th-round pick who appeared to be trending toward organizational depth, that alone deserves some recognition.

Brett Wisely (27)

.278 AVG | .396 OBP | .420 SLG | .816 OPS | 121 wRC+

The old man of this group is one who has actually appeared in 168 career big league games.

Brett Wisely was originally a 15th-round selection by the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019 before being traded to the San Francisco Giants in 2022. He eventually made his MLB debut with San Francisco, but the last few years have turned into quite the journey.

The Giants designated him for assignment in September 2025, when Atlanta claimed him off waivers. He was then traded back to Tampa Bay for cash considerations or a PTBNL, traded back to Atlanta for cash, designated for assignment by the Braves, and ultimately outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett this season. Got all of that? Good.

Because through all of the roster moves and uncertainty, Wisely has quietly done just about everything he can to make a case for another big league opportunity.

Across 95 games with Gwinnett, Wisely is batting .278 with a .816 OPS and 121 wRC+. His 59 walks lead the Stripers, while his OPS trails only Patrick Clohisy, Brewer Hicklen, Jim Jarvis, and Rowdy Tellez.

At 27, we obviously are not talking about Wisely like a traditional prospect anymore. We know a lot more about what he is than we do with the younger players on this list. But that does not mean his season should go unnoticed.

The most likely outcome is another opportunity to compete for a big league job next Spring Training. Whether that comes with Atlanta or another organization remains to be seen, but his performance in Gwinnett has been more than good enough to warrant another look.

Jordan Groshans (26)

.259 AVG | .329 OBP | .523 SLG | .852 OPS | 119 wRC+

Among Braves minor leaguers with at least 100 plate appearances this season, only three have slugged at least .520: Conor Essenburg, David McCabe, and Jordan Groshans.

Back in 2018, Groshans was selected 12th overall by the Toronto Blue Jays, and plenty of hype followed. From 2020 through 2022, he comfortably found himself on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list and was viewed as a potential piece of Toronto’s future.

Baseball, of course, had other plans.

Groshans was traded to the Miami Marlins in 2022, beginning a journey that would eventually take him through a total of five organizations before he landed with Atlanta on a minor league contract.

He has spent the entire 2026 season with Double-A Columbus, and while that is obviously not where anyone expected the former 12th overall pick to be at 26 years old, he has quietly been one of the team’s most consistent offensive performers.

Among Columbus hitters with at least 100 plate appearances, Groshans ranks inside the top five in AVG (.259), SLG (.523), OPS (.852), wOBA (.366), and wRC+ (119).

At this stage of his career, the conversation around Groshans is obviously different than it was four or five years ago. We are no longer wondering whether he can become the cornerstone player Toronto once envisioned. Now it is about whether he can play himself back into a major league opportunity.

Similar to Wisely, there may not be an obvious long-term future for Groshans in Atlanta. But there does not necessarily have to be. He is putting his name back on the radar for organizations looking for depth and giving himself a fighting chance to compete for a roster spot next spring.

Groshans got his first taste of the majors in 2022 after being traded to Miami but has not made it back since. Four years later, the former top prospect still has some juice left in the bat and is doing everything in his power to get another opportunity.