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Having won six of their first seven series the Guardians head to Atlanta for their biggest challenge yet as they take on the team with baseball’s best winning percentage. The Braves are 17-6 and percentage points ahead of the Guardians. The Athletic’s latest Power Rankings have the Braves 1st and the Guardians 8th.
The Braves are a pitcher’s nightmare as they rank 1st in runs per game (5.96), OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, and batting average. As a team they are hitting .283 with the next highest being .268. They are 4th in home run percentage and extra base hit percentage. They tend to chase more than average, ranking 21st in outside the zone swing percentage, and they are 15th in walk percentage. Fangraphs has them first in WAR.
Their pitching staff ranks 12th in ERA, 7th in WHIP, and 24th in strikeouts per 9 innings. Fangraphs ranks them 16th in WAR for both starting and relief pitching. Their ballpark is the 11th more hitter friendly overall and 7th most conducive to home runs.
The Braves have won 10 of their last 12, but eight of those wins were against 7-19 Houston and 6-20 Miami. According to powerrankingsguru.com the Braves have played the easiest schedule in the majors by far. Of the eight series they’ve played only two were against teams over .500 (Phillies and Mets). They are 3-3 against those teams.
The Braves’ leading hitters are:
DH Marcell Ozuna, .344/1.094. Ozuna is a 33-year-old right-handed hitter with a career line of .270/.801. He has 29 RBI’s in 23 games and an OBP of .416. He’s hitting .372 at home.
C Travis d’Arnaud, .293/1.019
CF Micheal Harris II, .330/.858
RF Ronald Acuna Jr, .281/.778
2B Ozzie Albies, .317/.878. Albies is out with an injury as is C Sean Murphy, who only has 3 at-bats this year.
The Braves batting splits don’t vary much between home and away and against right-handed or left-handed pitching. They pretty much crush everything.
Their starting pitching this weekend will be both old and young.
Chris Sale starts the opener in a battle of lefties against Logan Allen. Sale is 35 and has a 2-1 record with a 4.38 ERA. He’s been very tough on left-handed hitters, who have gone 3-for-19 with one walk against him. Right-handers have fared somewhat better at .239/.651. He went seven innings in each of his last two starts giving up 3 and 5 runs. The Marlins, who rank 28th in scoring, got five runs off him, so he can have a bad day.
Logan Allen is 3-0 with a 5.06 ERA and has benefited from excellent run support and weak opponents as the Guardians have scored 33 runs in his five starts. He has two wins against Oakland and one against Seattle.
Allen has allowed 12 earned runs in his last 15 innings so he will have to pitch a lot better to keep the Guardians in this one. Nobody on the Braves has ever faced him. Ozuna, Okuna, and d'Arnaud hit right-handed. Right-handed hitters are batting .282/.886 against Allen with five home runs in 85 at-bats. I think Allen is going to get lit up, maybe in the first inning. He'll never make it through this batting order twice. Hope I'm wrong.
On Saturday Tanner Bibee will face Charlie Morton, the 40-year-old right-hander. Morton has a 2-0 record and a 4.70 ERA in four starts. Lefties are hitting .260/.762 against him.
On Sunday Ben Lively makes his third start against Bryce Elder, a 24-year-old right-hander. Elder was terrific in his second season last year with a 12-4 record and a 3.81 ERA. He has only made one start this year going 6.2 innings and allowing 8 hits but no runs. Kwan is 3-for-4 against him and the rest of the Guardians are 1-for-16.
So this weekend will be a huge test for Allen, Bibee, Lively, and the Guardians’ bullpen. The Braves are the highest scoring team in baseball and they are at home in a hitter friendly ballpark.
The best pitching staffs the Braves have faced are the Phillies (3.50 ERA) and the Mets (3.53), ranking 8th and 9th in team ERA. The Braves scored 25 runs against the Phillies and 17 against the Mets in three games each. The Guardians’ ERA is 3.15.
I look at this series as a chance for the youngest team in baseball to test themselves against a perennial powerhouse that currently has the best record in the majors and is playing at home. Last year the Braves won 104 games, the most in baseball. This year they are on pace to win 120, but their schedule has been very light in the early going.
I’m more interested in how competitive the Guardians will be as opposed to how many they win. The Braves' pitching staff has been very average; they've been winning by scoring a lot of runs against bad teams. The Guardians should be able to score some runs and make it interesting. The question is whether their starters can hold the Braves scoring down and keep the game close going into the later innings.
The Guardians’ bullpen leads the majors in ERA, FIP, and WAR so this will be a great test for them.
The Braves are a pitcher’s nightmare as they rank 1st in runs per game (5.96), OBP, slugging percentage, OPS, and batting average. As a team they are hitting .283 with the next highest being .268. They are 4th in home run percentage and extra base hit percentage. They tend to chase more than average, ranking 21st in outside the zone swing percentage, and they are 15th in walk percentage. Fangraphs has them first in WAR.
Their pitching staff ranks 12th in ERA, 7th in WHIP, and 24th in strikeouts per 9 innings. Fangraphs ranks them 16th in WAR for both starting and relief pitching. Their ballpark is the 11th more hitter friendly overall and 7th most conducive to home runs.
The Braves have won 10 of their last 12, but eight of those wins were against 7-19 Houston and 6-20 Miami. According to powerrankingsguru.com the Braves have played the easiest schedule in the majors by far. Of the eight series they’ve played only two were against teams over .500 (Phillies and Mets). They are 3-3 against those teams.
The Braves’ leading hitters are:
DH Marcell Ozuna, .344/1.094. Ozuna is a 33-year-old right-handed hitter with a career line of .270/.801. He has 29 RBI’s in 23 games and an OBP of .416. He’s hitting .372 at home.
C Travis d’Arnaud, .293/1.019
CF Micheal Harris II, .330/.858
RF Ronald Acuna Jr, .281/.778
2B Ozzie Albies, .317/.878. Albies is out with an injury as is C Sean Murphy, who only has 3 at-bats this year.
The Braves batting splits don’t vary much between home and away and against right-handed or left-handed pitching. They pretty much crush everything.
Their starting pitching this weekend will be both old and young.
Chris Sale starts the opener in a battle of lefties against Logan Allen. Sale is 35 and has a 2-1 record with a 4.38 ERA. He’s been very tough on left-handed hitters, who have gone 3-for-19 with one walk against him. Right-handers have fared somewhat better at .239/.651. He went seven innings in each of his last two starts giving up 3 and 5 runs. The Marlins, who rank 28th in scoring, got five runs off him, so he can have a bad day.
Logan Allen is 3-0 with a 5.06 ERA and has benefited from excellent run support and weak opponents as the Guardians have scored 33 runs in his five starts. He has two wins against Oakland and one against Seattle.
Allen has allowed 12 earned runs in his last 15 innings so he will have to pitch a lot better to keep the Guardians in this one. Nobody on the Braves has ever faced him. Ozuna, Okuna, and d'Arnaud hit right-handed. Right-handed hitters are batting .282/.886 against Allen with five home runs in 85 at-bats. I think Allen is going to get lit up, maybe in the first inning. He'll never make it through this batting order twice. Hope I'm wrong.
On Saturday Tanner Bibee will face Charlie Morton, the 40-year-old right-hander. Morton has a 2-0 record and a 4.70 ERA in four starts. Lefties are hitting .260/.762 against him.
On Sunday Ben Lively makes his third start against Bryce Elder, a 24-year-old right-hander. Elder was terrific in his second season last year with a 12-4 record and a 3.81 ERA. He has only made one start this year going 6.2 innings and allowing 8 hits but no runs. Kwan is 3-for-4 against him and the rest of the Guardians are 1-for-16.
So this weekend will be a huge test for Allen, Bibee, Lively, and the Guardians’ bullpen. The Braves are the highest scoring team in baseball and they are at home in a hitter friendly ballpark.
The best pitching staffs the Braves have faced are the Phillies (3.50 ERA) and the Mets (3.53), ranking 8th and 9th in team ERA. The Braves scored 25 runs against the Phillies and 17 against the Mets in three games each. The Guardians’ ERA is 3.15.
I look at this series as a chance for the youngest team in baseball to test themselves against a perennial powerhouse that currently has the best record in the majors and is playing at home. Last year the Braves won 104 games, the most in baseball. This year they are on pace to win 120, but their schedule has been very light in the early going.
I’m more interested in how competitive the Guardians will be as opposed to how many they win. The Braves' pitching staff has been very average; they've been winning by scoring a lot of runs against bad teams. The Guardians should be able to score some runs and make it interesting. The question is whether their starters can hold the Braves scoring down and keep the game close going into the later innings.
The Guardians’ bullpen leads the majors in ERA, FIP, and WAR so this will be a great test for them.
