The Braves are two games behind the Mets for the final spot in the wild card standings. This Marlins series could be pivotal in determining if they have a shot at getting in.
With nine games remaining, the Atlanta Braves are set to face the Marlins while being two games behind the final wild card spot.
Charlie Morton takes the hill for the Braves and has done well since his terrible eight run start on August eighth. Since then he has started seven games to a 2.68 ERA, 3.20 FIP, with hitters slashing .233/.324/.353 against him. He has forty-nine strikeouts to sixteen walks while hitting four batters.
The Marlins will bring rookie Valente Bello to the hill who has started eleven games this season to a 3.70 ERA. Based on his 5.59 FIP and 1.286 WHIP, odds are he has been fortunate in the ERA department. His expected ERA according to Statcast is 5.08 which is the bottom 9.0 percent of MLB. His expected slugging percentage of .500 is in the bottom 2.0 percent of MLB.
That being said, the Braves have a weird habit of not scoring many runs after scoring eight or more runs in the previous game. So far this season, they have score eight or more runs nineteen times before yesterday’s offensive onslaught. In the game those nineteen games scoring at least eight, they have averaged three runs per game. Nineteen games is a small sample size, but it is at least of some note.
The Braves’ offense has done a lot better over the past few weeks than they seem to be getting credit for. Since the start of September they have the eighth best wRC+ in MLB and they are tied with Seattle with the six most runs scored in that span.
The Braves have faced Bellozo before. Back on August second they tagged him for two earned runs over 5.0 innings. The Braves ultimately won the game 5-3. In that game Orlando Arcia was the hero with HR off of Bellozo in the fifth inning. Whit Merrifield also had a triple off of Bellozo in the second inning. Those were the only two hits off of Bellozo in that game. It is a very small sample size, but it is concerning that the Braves could only muster two hits.
Even though Morton has been in the league for a long time, the Marlins have a young team. This leads to most of them not facing Morton much. Catcher Jesús Sánchez leads the team with twenty at-bats against Morton and has struggled to a .150 average and .461 OPS. Vidal Bruján leads the team with a 1.000 OPS against Morton but only has three at-bats against him. Outside of Bruján, no other player on the roster has an OPS higher than .666 against him in very limited sample sizes.
This is a very important series for the Braves as they ramp up to face the Mets on Tuesday of next week. This is one of those series where the team that is supposed to win, has to win in order to stay in contention. This is ramping up to be potentially a fun, yet stressful, wild card race to finish out the season.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Thursday, September 20, 7:10 p.m. ET
Location: loanDepot park, Miami, Fl.
TV: Bally Sports Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan