The Braves have a little run going. The Cardinals have a little skid going.
This weekend, the Braves turned things around a bit, sweeping the Twins without the offensive inconsistency or pitching blow-ups that have marred their attempts to go on a run earlier this season. Now, they’ll host the Cardinals for a three-game set where they’ll hope they can keep racking up wins and propel themselves back to where they were hoping to be when the season started.
While the Braves had a pleasant weekend, the Cardinals did not — they were swept in four games by the Mets at Citi Field, scoring a combined nine runs in the process. It’s been a bit of whiplash for the Redbirds here through the first few weeks of the season: they’ve already had a sweep, been swept, and had two four-game losing streaks, while also taking two series off two teams that are expected to be pretty good this year (Phillies, Astros).
Overall, the Cardinals come in as far and away MLB’s best defensive team, with a 107 team wRC+. Devil magic is also alive and well in St. Louis, as they currently lead MLB in xwOBA overperformance — we’re talking a bottom ten xwOBA but a top ten wOBA. Pitching-wise, they’ve more than held their own, but a lot of their aggregate numbers are boosted by the great start that Matthew Liberatore, whom the Braves will miss this series, has had thus far in four starts. A lot of the rest of the roster is really split between great starts and poor starts: Brendan Donovan is on fire and already has 1.2 fWAR; Nolan Arenado already has 1.0 fWAR and a 135 wRC+ despite a .299 xwOBA. A bunch of other guys like Ivan Herrera, Lars Nootbaar, Thomas Saggese, and Yohel Pozo are also raking. But then a bunch of the roster is mired in early-season slumps, with Willson Contreras and Alec Burleson having a miserable time so far. Journeyman reliever Phil Maton has been great, and Steven Matz has killed it in long relief as well.
Monday, April 21, 7:15 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports South / Southeast)
RHP Erick Fedde (4 GS, 21 IP, 87 ERA-, 126 FIP-, 139 xFIP-)
Acquired in the middle of last season from the White Sox, Fedde had a nice stretch run for the Cardinals (0.8 fWAR in 55 2⁄3 innings), but has reverted back to fifth starter levels of performance that send him abroad earlier this decade, at least in the early going. He has more walks (11) than strikeouts (10) through four starts, though both those totals are really low and he’s mostly just lobbing it over for contact. That’s not great, but it’s ameliorated by the great defensive play his teammates have been engaged in behind him, and as a result, he’s had three starts with only zero or one run charged to him, and an outing where got thrashed in Boston to show for it.
The Braves could either get the big hits they need after some walks and cruise here, or be endlessly frustrated by ball-in-play stuff not going their way in the same manner that Fedde bamboozled the Pirates and Astros in his last two outings.
The Braves routinely crushed Fedde when he was with the Nationals (ten total starts, collective 7.79 FIP and 5.67 xFIP), but that was a somewhat different Fedde and some different Braves teams as well.
RHP Spencer Schwellenbach (4 GS, 24 2⁄3 IP, 63 ERA-, 92 FIP-, 77 xFIP-)
Schwellenbach was hilariously dominant to start the 2025 season, but had one of his worst major league starts last time out against the Blue Jays, getting socked for a couple of homers and not surviving the fifth. As a guy that seems to be just as happy pitching to contact as he is eviscerating opposing hitters with strikeouts, Schwellenbach’s relatively infrequent troublesome outings seem to come when he isn’t able to conjure up punchouts, and some unexpected command issues really put a damper on his last start.
The young right-hander made two starts against the Cardinals last year, and, well, it was a very 2024 Braves-y set of experiences for him and the team. His combined K/BB ratio in those two games was 14/0, but he was charged with eight runs in the process (four in each game) — in the first it was hyper-BABIP time, and in the second, he gave up three homers. Maybe tonight’s the night when he gets past the devil magic.
Tuesday, April 22, 7:15 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports South / Southeast)
RHP Andre Pallante (4 GS, 22 1⁄3 IP, 82 ERA-, 113 FIP-, 87 xFIP-)
Now in his fourth season in the majors (but perhaps his first as a full-time starter — we’ll see), Pallante has a bit of a weird line right now because of a 25 percent HR/FB, while he’s pitched quite well in general. He’s gotten a ton of grounders but nonetheless allowed a homer in three of his four starts, and while each of those has been a solo shot, teams have still managed to string together some walks and singles off him here and there.
The Braves have only faced him once as a starter, back in 2022, where they hit two homers off him despite a 5/0 K/BB ratio and cruised to a 7/1 win.
RHP Spencer Strider (1 GS, 5 IP, 89 ERA-, 125 FIP-, 115 xFIP-)
Strider will make his second start of the season against the Cardinals, and look to build on a mixed bag of an outing against the Blue Jays that saw him come out of the gate strong, and then struggle at times before giving up a homer and a walk the third time through, ultimately marring his line. The Cardinals have definitely been slapping at the ball, and that sort of thing has frustrated Strider here and there, so it’ll be interesting to see how that mixes in with his attempts to return to full speed in all respects.
He dominated the Cardinals twice in 2022 (combined 19/3 K/BB ratio, no homers, a single run charged to him in 12 innings, though the Braves lost one of the games), but had one of his worst starts of 2023 against them as well in a blowout loss where he just didn’t have it the whole way through — a quite-infrequent happening in his career to date.
Wednesday, April 23, 12:15 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports South / Southeast)
RHP Miles Mikolas (4 GS, 17 2⁄3 IP, 195 ERA-, 77 FIP-, 129 xFIP-)
What a bizarre early-season line for the veteran right-hander — his ERA is inflated due to a comical sub-50 percent strand rate and he has just an 11/7 K/BB ratio in four starts, but hasn’t yet allowed a homer. Basically, he’s had two fine-ish outings, one torching at the hands of the Red Sox, and then a struggle bus start most recently against the Mets where he didn’t get blown out but was pitching pretty horrible (1/2 K/BB ratio in 4 2⁄3 innings) anyway.
The Braves, at this point, are intimately familiar with Mikolas — they’ve faced him in each of the last three seasons and eight times in general. One thing I’ll say is that while, in aggregate, Mikolas hasn’t succeeded against them or anything, the games with him often end up kind of weird, with a lot of them being either a case where he gets BABIPed while pitching well or stifles the Braves despite struggling.
RHP Bryce Elder (3 GS, 15 IP, 179 ERA-, 181 FIP-, 110 xFIP-)
I don’t know what we can really say about Elder that hasn’t been said already. He at lest had a nice K/BB ratio against the Rays (4/0) but got shellacked anyway, and then followed that up by not doing that against the Twins and also getting knocked around there. The exaggerated sink we saw on his pitches in 2023 is gone, and so far this season, his command has been an utter disaster as well, as his sinker is no longer even hitting the armside edge the way it once did, while his slider mechanics are no longer even vaguely repeatable. The Braves will likely be hoping this is another wacky game that involves Mikolas, or it could be a real bummer for everyone on the Atlanta side of the aisle.
Elder faced the Cardinals twice last year (across just ten total starts) — the Braves lost both games, but he actually had a nice 13/1 combined K/BB ratio, and pitched really well in one of them (but got blasted by homers, despite the 9/1 K/BB ratio, in the other). He also stifled them in his first start of the year in 2023, so I guess if you want something to dream on, it’s that the Cardinals hit his offerings to Atlanta’s infielders for much of the afternoon.