Atlanta Braves news and notes from Saturday
The Braves lost arguably their most painful of three painful losses to start the season on Saturday. Spencer Schwellenbach was very good and by far the better of the two starting pitchers, but both exited the game with 6.0 scoreless innings. The Braves were the better team, drawing five walks to the Padres’ two, in a game that featured no homers and a nearly identical xBA in the upper 100s for each team. The one batted ball that really might have been a homer was off the bat of Matt Olson, but Fernando Tatis deflected it back into play for a double and the Braves were unable to convert with runners in scoring position, as has been a painful theme of this early season. The Braves were better than the Padres, but not decisively good enough to win and suffered some spectacularly bad luck between the Olson non-homer and the infield ground-rule double off of Aaron Bummer’s foot that turned into the winning run that overcame their modestly better play than the Padres.
The Braves have seemed to change their approach at the plate, seeing more pitches and taking more walks, but have thus far seen some worse batted balls as a tradeoff and have suffered from chronically bad sequencing that has prevented them from capitalizing on many non-homer scoring opportunities. The luck should change, but time will tell if this new approach is actually more effective, even though it does feel better to see them at least make opposing pitchers work harder in general.
Braves News
The Braves signed infielder Eddys Leonard to a minor league deal.
The Braves lost a brutal 1-0 game in San Diego in which they were brutally unlucky but simply not good enough to overcome that.
MLB News
Top prospect Kristian Campbell and the Red Sox are reportedly deep in negotiations on an early extension for the flexible batter.
Jose Ramirez left Cleveland’s game early on Saturday with a sprained wrist, but is day-to-day, so should not miss significant time.
Max Scherzer left Saturday’s game early with lat soreness that he connected to a thumb issue he was trying to pitch through as the future Hall of Famer really has struggled with injuries these last two years.
Former Brave (briefly) Jay Jackson has retired after 17 years as a professional in the sport.