The Braves will try to avoid BABIP shenanigans, or at least aim to have them work out in their favor, in the second of three against the Pirates in Pittsburgh
Well, the numbers are in, and last night was weird, even for a regular baseball game. The Braves and Pirates finished near-identical xwOBAs in the .390 range. (For reference, about 200 team-games so far have had that mark out of about 1,530 team-games overall, so it’s like an 85th percentile mark.) The Pirates outhit their xwOBA and finished with a wOBA around .450 (a 95th percentile-ish outcome this year for a team-game); the Braves horribly underhit theirs (a 30th percentile-ish outcome this year for a team-game), continuing Bailey Falter’s magical BABIP-infused reign of terror. Oh, and they lost, 11-5. Weird stuff.
Anyway, it’s a new day and the Braves still have a chance to win the series. Doing so would be helped by Reynaldo Lopez continuing to do what he’s done so far — namely, pitch reasonably well, and benefit from balls not going over the fence. To wit, Lopez has a 38 ERA-, 74 FIP-, and 94 xFIP-. He’s allowed just two homers in eight starts so far, and he’s riding his second three game homerless streak of the season.
Lopez also had a nice pseudo-bounceback last time out — after a 5/4 K/BB ratio against the Red Sox and a 4/2 K/BB ratio in five innings against the Cubs, he went back to a 4/1 K/BB ratio, somewhat closer to what he was doing before, in his last start against the Padres. The Braves are 5-3 in Lopez’ starts this year, which is kind of wild because of how good he’s been when you keep in mind that he’s only allowed two homers, but it is what it is.
The Pirates will be starting Mitch Keller, who is having an okay season that might be a bit disappointing given his pseudo-breakout in 2023. Keller’s 93/96/98 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) is pretty much generic middle-of-the-rotation stuff, but he was at 95/87/85 last year, which was a big step forward from his career line of 118/98/105 to that point. That said, Keller’s issue this year is more inconsistency than just a straight-up worse baseline every time out. As a case in point, he dominated the Brewers with a 7/0 K/BB ratio in six shutout innings two starts ago, but then managed just a 2/2 K/BB ratio against the Cubs in six more frames following that outing. FIP-wise, he’s had two starts with an FIP- below 50 and five with an FIP- above 115; xFIP-wise he has as many starts (three) with an xFIP- below 80 as he does with that mark above 120. Still, the Pirates are 6-4 in his ten starts so far.
Maybe the Braves will draw a poor Keller outing, or maybe they’ll flip the script on the Pirates and pull out a ridiculous xwOBA overperformance or something of their own.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Saturday, May 25, 4:05 p.m. ET
Location: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, PA
TV: Bally Sports Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
XM Radio: Online / Ch. 179