The Braves got all they needed from the pitching staff Friday, but couldn’t do anything on offense. Today’s game features a pitching matchup between Eduardo Rodriguez and Grant Holmes.
Rodriguez has a massive gulf between his 2.70 ERA and his 4.41 xFIP. I trust the xFIP more than the ERA to tell us how good he actually has been, but that is an impressively large gap through 143.1 innings. His strikeouts have cratered to a tiny 6.34 K/9, but he remains a serviceable MLB starter. His five-pitch arsenal of four-seamer, changeup, cutter, curveball, and sinker all look fairly average in terms of movement, with sub-average extension. That said, he has been locating those pitches well in the spots you would want for each pitch. The Braves’ offense would do well to hit a couple homers off of him, taking advantage of the high contact rate.
Meanwhile, Grant Holmes is coming off of two productive outings of 6.0 innings each. The team would obviously love to see that depth again, but I think that is unlikely to come with another 2 strikeout performance like last time, Grant will need to miss a few more bats to be reasonably expected to be that productive again. That slider continues to be an absolute weapon for him and we’ll have to hope it can vex the Diamondbacks during this tough stretch of games for Atlanta.
Game Info
Game Time: Saturday, August 15, 7:15 PM ET
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
Watch: BravesVision
Radio/Audio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM