The Twins are 7-12 with a disappointing offense and rough starting pitching. The Braves are 5-13 with a disappointing offense and rough starting pitching. This oughta be interesting.
The Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins feel like kindred spirits at the moment. No, it’s not because they’re feeling nostalgic for that epic 1991 World Series (that a lot of these players weren’t even alive for, mind you. Wow, that’s an old man comment from yours truly) or anything like that. It’s because they’ve both gotten off to a pretty slow start here in 2025 for some of the same reasons.
Minnesota’s offense has not been getting the job done, as they’ll be entering into this series with a team wRC+ of 83. For all the frustration that we’ve had with watching the Braves scuffle about at the plate, Atlanta at least has a team wRC+ of 92 at this point. Now granted, that’s still very poor for the standards that this team has set but at least the Twins are showing that it can certainly be worse at the plate. Still, guys like Harrison Bader, Ty France and Matt Wallner have been trying their hardest to carry the team while Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa and Willi Castro are still trying to find their footing.
The Twins’ pitching staff has been a tale of two units. If the Twins have found themselves in the lead late, they’ve usually figured out a way to finish off those games as their bullpen has been a top-10 unit in all of baseball according to ERA- and FIP-, with Danny Coulombe, Louis Varland and Jhoan Duran among others helping to make this ‘pen a very formidable unit. The problem for Minnesota has been getting into a position to deploy that formidable bullpen, as their starting pitching has been largely underwhelming. You’ll see what I’m talking about as I get into the pitching matchups.
Friday, April 18, 7:15 p.m. ET (Apple TV+)
RHP Bryce Elder (2 GS, 10 IP, 7.20 ERA, 180 ERA-, 7.41 FIP, 191 FIP- 16.3 K%, 4.7 BB%, -0.3 fWAR)
I wanted to leave this part with just “Yep, he’s still here. Don’t yell at me,” but this is a Serious Baseball Website for Serious Baseball Fans so we’ve got to discuss it. Bryce Elder is making his third start of the season after two very underwhelming starts to kick off his 2025 campaign. The best thing I can say about his appearance against the Rays is that he pitched six innings in that one and seeing Braves starters make it that deep into the game has been a rarity for pitchers who don’t have the first name “Spencer.”
Another good thing I can say is that he’s done a good job of avoiding walking batters and he’s been good about inducing ground balls as well. The problem is that this has been the book on Elder for a while now and usually whenever he does get hit, he gets hit hard and even worse is whenever he serves up a meatball that gets crushed. If he can avoid that fate then we might have a shot at seeing Elder combine a long start with run limitation. However, if he continues to throw sinkers that don’t sink and sliders that don’t slide then problems are likely to once again ensue.
RHP Chris Paddack (3 GS, 12.1 IP, 9.49 ERA, 245 ERA-, 171 FIP- 6.66 FIP 15.0 K%, 13.3 BB%, -0.2 fWAR)
Despite the nightmarish-looking stat line that Chris Paddack has put up over his first three starts of the season, a lot of that is overinflated by the fact that he got absolutely bombed for nine runs over just 3.1 innings against the Chicago White Sox back on March 31. While that’s not the worst start of the season so far (Hello, Tanner Houck), it’s on the podium! He’s been working his way out of the crater that the White Sox left him in and his two starts since then have had mixed results. The Astros got him for four runs (three earned) over four innings on April 6 but then he bounced back and pitched five innings while only giving up two runs against the Tigers in his most recent outing.
So far, half of his pitches have been four-seamers, with one quarter being changeups and the other quarter being split up between a slider and a curveball. As we saw with Easton Lucas, one way to get in trouble with the Braves still is to feed them plenty of fastballs. If that happens, the Braves should (hopefully) be ready to pounce. There’s going to be a lot of grumbling if the Braves pull another one of their disappearing acts at this plate against this guy.
Saturday, April 19, 7:15 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports South/Southeast)
LHP Chris Sale (4 GS, 19 IP, 6.63 ERA, 166 ERA-, 35.7 FIP, 95 FIP- 27.3 K%, 4.5 BB%, 0.3 fWAR)
The good news about Sale’s most recent start is that I think we can all stop worrying about his velocity since he looked like his normal self — at least when it came to that. The bad news is that Sale he’s still dealing from a place of frustration at the moment. He’s getting batters to chase and he’s getting plenty of whiffs and strikeouts. Unfortunately, hitters have still been finding success while chasing his pitches and the majority of those runs that he gave up in his last outing against the Rays is proof that he’s doing the right things — he’s just not seeing results from it.
That’s reason to believe that Sale should eventually be fine down the road. Hopefully, we’ll start to see him get some positive results starting this weekend against the Twins. As much as the Braves have been scuffling at the plate to start this season, the Twins have ben struggling even more. Sale has already faced three of the top ten offenses in baseball so far (according to team wRC+) so the obvious hope is that facing a scuffling Twins lineup could be the tonic that cures Sale’s woes at the moment.
RHP Simeon Woods Richardson (3 GS, 14.2 IP, 4.30 ERA, 111 ERA-, 3.83 FIP, 98 FIP- 24.2 K%, 7.6 BB%, 0.2 fWAR)
It would’ve been neat if Simeon Woods-Richardson and Spencer Schwellenbach pitched in the same game. That would’ve been an incredible matchup just for the jerseys alone. In all seriousness, Woods-Richardson has gotten off to a pretty decent start so far. He delivered his first positive start of the season in his most recent outing, which is when he went five innings and struck out five batters while only giving up one run. For a starting rotation that’s been struggling so far this season (and don’t we know about that around here), that was exactly what the Twins needed.
With that being said, that only came after he had a rough outing against the Royals where he gave up eight hits, four walks and four runs over 5.2 innings against the Royals and only pitched four innings with two runs allowed against the White Sox. Simply put, Woods Richardson has been pretty underwhelming — at least until his most recent start. He’ll be sticking with a four-seamer and a slider for the most part, which a change-up and a curveball peppered in there from time to time. His fastball has below-average velocity but his slider is pretty solid and both of those were plus-pitches for him back in 2024.
Sunday, April 20, 1:35 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports South/Southeast)
RHP Grant Holmes (3 GS, 16.2 IP, 3.78 ERA, 94 ERA-, 4.57 FIP, 119 FIP-, 22.4 K%, 14.9 BB%, 0.0 fWAR)
Boy, oh boy, did the Braves need that last start from Holmes or what? While it may not have been the highest-quality start of the season, having Holmes go out there and pitch into the eighth inning was fantastic to see — even if he ended up with three runs on his line. He wasn’t spectacular (he only racked up for strikeouts and walked two batters) but he was effective (only gave up two hits and two runs) and at this point, the Braves will gladly take “effective” over “spectacular” with the way that their rotation has started this season so far.
Holmes last saw the Twins back in August of last season, which is when he faced 10 batters over two innings and gave up three hits and a run in a slugfest that the Braves won 10-6. While you’d prefer for Holmes to keep the Twins quiet while the Braves hopefully do some damage, I think everybody would be happy if Holmes picked up where he left off — both against the Blue Jays and against the Twins last season as well.
RHP Joe Ryan (4 GS, 22 IP, 2.45 ERA, 63 ERA-, 2.92 FIP, 74 FIP- 27.4 K%, 2.4 BB%, 0.5 fWAR)
While the Braves may have gotten a favorable draw (on paper) with the pitching matchups for the first two games of this series, that changes once Sunday rolls around. Joe Ryan is getting the start for Minnesota in the series finale and the Twins’ bats might be a little fired up to back him in this one.
That’s because he called them out a bit following his most recent outing where he went five innings and struck out eight while only walking two batters, giving up three hits and one run against the Mets. Despite that strong outing (which came after he threw seven shutout innings against the Royals on April 9), the Mets ended up winning 5-1 and Ryan was none-too-happy about his lack of run support. Here’s a quote that he gave to Bobby Nightengale of The Minnesota Star-Tribune:
“It would be nice to have a little bit more time between innings,” Ryan said. “Like I turned around and got my water bottle and I was running back out there real quick. Like a minute or two would be nice. [New York pitcher Clay Holmes] pitched the ball really well.”
So yeah, Joe Ryan might be fired up and the Twins might be trying to heed his word in this one. We’ll see if the Braves are up to the challenge of extending their misery, however.