Sean Murphy returns to the lineup hitting seventh

Jarred Kelenic hits eighth

Another day, another Braves lineup:

Sean Murphy returns after a breather yesterday and is hitting seventh. He hit eighth in his return from the Injured List for some reason, but has hit somewhere between fourth and sixth since. The only other notable thing in this lineup is that Jarred Kelenic is back to hitting eighth; he was actually hitting behind Nick Allen for a while.

For the Cardinals, this lineup is maybe a little less fearsome on paper than looking at some of their seasonal stats to date:

In this lineup, the raking guys include Lars Nootbaar and Brendan Donovan. Meanwhile, the set of guys who are struggling mightily to begin 2025 are Willson Contreras, Alec Burleson, Jordan Walker, Pedro Pages, and Victor Scott II. Nolan Arenado is a weird case as he’s outhitting a poor xwOBA by a ton, but that’s compensated for Nolan Gorman having the opposite happen. So this lineup is basically a hodgepodge of alternating struggling and non-struggling guys, which might be helpful for Spencer Schwellenbach.

The Cardinals have used this lineup and defensive arrangement once before: this past Thursday, when they lost 4-1 to the Mets to start their current four-game skid.

Everyone in the Braves’ lineup but Kelenic has faced Fedde at least once. Austin Riley has a .343 wOBA / .333 xwOBA against Fedde in 20 PAs; Ozzie Albies and Marcell Ozuna also have double-digit PAs against Fedde and are at .288 / .325 and .744 / .720, respectively. Yes, to be clear: Fedde has only retired Ozuna in five of their 17 meetings, which is the same number of times he’s walked Ozuna — plus Ozuna has a grand slam and a solo shot off him as well.

Schwellenbach hasn’t been around nearly as long as Fedde, but he did make two starts against the Cardinals last year. Still, Burleson is a triple shy of the cycle against him in six PAs, and Nootbaar has taken him deep as well. Pages, Scott, and Walker have yet to face him in the majors.