Verdugo and Murphy get the day off against the Cardinals

Drake Baldwin, Eli White, and Nick Allen get starts today

The Atlanta Braves are facing the Cardinals in a finale that could be filled with offensive fireworks as both starting pitchers have and ERA north of seven. The Braves’ offense has also shown some fight as well, scoring thirty-one runs in the past week.

The Braves’ big issue early on in the season was that they were floating around the bottom two teams with average with RISP. They are slowly moving up the list being ranked twenty-fourth with a .220 average with RISP. These numbers are clearly nothing to be excited about, but we are seeing an increase as the season goes on, which is certainly notable.

The Braves will be facing Miles Mikolas who currently sports an ERA of 7.64 over a span of 17.2 innings. That being said, he has been unfortunate in some areas. He has a much more palatable 2.97 FIP, an xERA of 4.64 and has yet to surrender a home run. His biggest issue has been that he issues a ton of walks at 3.6 per nine innings while striking out very few at 5.6 per nine innings. For those of you who prefer percentages, he has a 8.6 percent walk rate, and 13.6 percent strikeout rate (bottom 10.0 percent of MLB).

This will be an interesting matchup for the Braves since they seem to depend heavily on the HR, while also striking out more than twenty-one other teams.

The Braves will be going with Michael Harris leading off this time. Eli White and Jarred Kelenic will be manning the corners at LF and RF respectively. Struggling Nick Allen is back in the game starting at SS. Drake Baldwin with also get the start at catcher, batting sixth. It is interesting to see Alex Verdugo getting the day off after being on such a hot streak.

It makes sense to start Harris at leadoff in this matchup. In eight at-bats he owns a .375 average and .875 OPS against Mikolas. Of all the players in the starting lineup that have faced Mikolas before, the lowest OPS against him is Albies’ .787. It should be noted that Albies has faced him seventeen times and his average is a solid .294.

The results against Elder have been a mixed bag for the Cardinals. Burleson, Donovan, Gorman, and Winn all have an OPS north of .821 against him with .833, .821, 1.333, and 1.333 respectively. The rest of the team has either never faced him, or have struggled.

First pitch is at 12:15 EDT