The Atlanta Braves began their road trip with an uninspiring performance on Tuesday night, but recovered to win the next two games and secure a series win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Atlanta is 29-18 on the season and are 6.0 games back of the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East.
The Braves struggled with runners in scoring position throughout the series in Chicago but homered six times in the series. Marcell Ozuna homered in Wednesday’s win, but saw his 15-game hitting streak end Thursday. Atlanta got another complete game effort from Max Fried on Wednesday and then a shutout performance by AJ Smith-Shawver and the bullpen Thursday.
Austin Riley missed his eleventh straight game Thursday. He began swinging a bat while in Chicago and has been working out on the field before games. It feels like he is getting pretty close to a return. Sean Murphy is currently on a rehab assignment and is scheduled to catch again for Gwinnett Thursday and then DH on Friday. It is unclear if he might return while the team is in Pittsburgh or wait and rejoin when they get back to Atlanta on Monday.
The Pirates come into the series with a 23-28 record and are 6.0 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central. They started the season with a five-game winning streak and were 9-2 through 11 games, but have collapsed since. Mid-April featured a six-game skid and then they carried a five-game skid, including a sweep at the hands of the Athletics in Oakland, into May. They’ve won literally two series since that 9-2 start, and one of those came against the Rockies. They just dropped two of three to the Giants, and are 5-5 in their last ten games.
The Pirates have really struggled everywhere. They’ve been a bottom-five unit offensively (88 wRC+) and are bottom-ten defensively. Their pitching staff is bottom ten as a whole. Pretty much the only particularly gratifying thing you can say about them as a team is that their offense isn’t as bad as it seems because they’re suffering from one of the league’s bigger xwOBA underperformances, but it’s been a struggle in Pittsburgh over the last six-plus weeks.
That said, there have been some relative bright spots. Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz are playing pretty well; the latter continues to light up exit velocity leaderboards and hit two balls over 120 mph earlier this week, but has also struck out in over a third of his PAs. Jared Jones has been amazing, and Paul Skenes is basically must-seeing viewing when he starts a game; fortunately for the Braves, they’ll miss both of those guys in this series. Starter Mitch Keller and reliever Hunter Stratton have also chipped in some great work.
On the flip side, there’s been a huge position player group that’s struggled mightily — the combination of Jared Triolo, Henry Davis, Alika Williams, Jack Suwinski, and Rowdy Tellez have basically taken up a third of the team’s PAs to date, and none of these guys has a wRC+ above 65 or an xwOBA above .300. David Bednar was insanely good last year despite a relatively pedestrian xFIP; regression has hit him all at once in the early going. A number of other key relievers for Pittsburgh have also struggled, including Aroldis Chapman and Josh Fleming.
One thing to keep an eye on this series will be the bullpen usage. The Braves did use five relievers on Thursday, but they benefited from a Max Fried complete game on Wednesday and generally didn’t use their top relief arms in a loss that maybe could’ve been avoided had they done so on Tuesday. The Pirates, meanwhile, had a combined 13 reliever outings across their three-game series with the Giants. All of their relievers save the just-recalled Jose Hernandez have been heavily used over the past three days.
Friday, May 24 – 6:40 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
TBD
The Braves were expected to announce Darius Vines as the starter for the season opener, but have apparently pivoted, with Mark Bowman now tweeting that the odds are that someone not yet on the roster will be tabbed to get the start. Vines replaced Bryce Elder on the active roster last weekend and was available to pitch out of the bullpen but wasn’t needed; it’s not clear whether he’s suffered an injury or the Braves have found a different, preferred alternative.
Bailey Falter (9 GS, 51.0 IP, 14.6 K%, 6.5 BB%, 3.53 ERA, 4.80 FIP)
Lefty Bailey Falter will get the nod for the Pirates in the series opener. Falter’s been okay so far, but his 86 ERA- comes with a 121 FIP- and 124 xFIP- in nine starts. A pitch-to-contact guy, Falter has three or fewer strikeouts in six of his nine starts so far this season. He’s had a few long, low-run starts this season, and they always have wacky lines. In April, he threw six shutout, one-hit innings against the Orioles… with one walk and one strikeout. Most recently, he threw 7 2⁄3 shutout innings against the Cubs… with two walks and two strikeouts. He’s also not a groundball guy, so weak contact in the air has been the name of the game for him so far.
Falter’s breaking pitches are pretty poor; for him, it’s all about a high-”rise” four-seamer that gets a lot of underswings despite its relatively unimpressive velocity. The Braves smashed him last August and he also faced them twice with the Phillies in September 2022, where they knocked him around once and let him Houdini his way out of trouble in the other game.
Saturday, May 25 – 4:05 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Reynaldo López (8 GS, 46.2 IP, 24.2 K%, 9.3 BB%, 1.54 ERA, 2.90 FIP)
Reynaldo López will start the second game of the series Saturday on normal rest after pitching in Monday’s doubleheader against the Padres. Lopez turned in another fine effort in that game, allowing two runs over 6 1/3 innings. He has logged at least five innings in every start and has allowed two runs or less in seven of his eight starts this season. Though his xFIP is not particularly impressive at this point (94 xFIP-), he’s avoided the longball thus far.
Mitch Keller (10 GS, 61.0 IP, 20.8 K%, 7.3 BB%, 3.84 ERA, 3.82 FIP)
Righty Mitch Keller will make his eleventh start of the season for the Pirates Saturday. Now a sixth-year veteran in this young rotation, Keller is off to a decent start for the Pirates despite a dip in strikeouts. Two starts ago, he dominated the Brewers with six scoreless innings and a 7/0 K/BB ratio, and then followed that up with a much more pedestrian 3/3 K/BB ratio in six innings against the Cubs where he was charged with two runs. He had given up a homer in five straight starts leading up to the game in Milwaukee, including a complete game defeat of the Angels where a solo homer was the only blemish against him.
After a 2023 season in which one of Keller’s big improvements was actually throwing his four-seamer towards the top of the zone, letting it better set up his sinker while also generating more swing and miss, he’s seemingly back to leaving it over the middle of the plate, where it’s been getting hit hard.
The Braves faced Keller twice last season, crushing him once and doing a decent job knocking him around in the second outing. In total, he allowed three homers in ten innings and was charged with 11 runs despite an 8/0 K/BB ratio. The Braves have also crushed Keller in three past starts; he’s actually never had an outing against them where he hasn’t gotten blasted in one way or another.
