Hey, universe! Let Dominic Smith get some starts! Which means, stop making the Braves face lefty starters!
In tonight’s contest, the Braves will be taking aim at a lefty starter for the fourth time in five games. You have to go back to May 4, the start of a streak where the Braves faced four righty starters in a row, to create a span where the Braves have faced more righties than lefties. The kicker? Immediately before that four-game stretch, they had to face five straight lefties. (But, there were six straight righties immediately preceding that.)
So, with Drake Baldwin still out with injury, the Braves are turning the DH slot tonight over to… Jorge Mateo. Now, Mateo isn’t exactly eating gravel down in an alley, as he has a 124 wRC+ that’s the result of massively outhitting his xwOBA. Against lefties, it’s only a 66 wRC+, but he does have a decently-sized platoon split for his career. Actual useful full disclosure:
This will be Mateo’s first time starting at DH since his rookie season in 2020, when he did it all of one time. He’s actually “appeared” at DH a bunch due to pinch-running for slow-footed actual DHes here and there quite a bit, but he’s not really carried for his bat.
So, maybe not a very exciting DH choice, but the Braves have persevered through a lot of unexciting choices to yield exciting games, and exciting results, so far this season.
The Red Sox are using the exact same lineup as yesterday — which to their credit, worked out pretty well for them. They just got outscored.
The six guys in the Atlanta lineup that have faced Connelly Early did so two weekends ago in Atlanta. The other three (Chadwick Tromp, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Mateo) weren’t in that lineup. Early generally pitched pretty well but for allowing dingers to Baldwin and Michael Harris II. The collective result among the starting sextet here was a .248 wOBA / .281 xwOBA in 15 PAs. Meh.
Everyone in the Boston lineup has faced Bryce Elder at least once save Nick Sogard. Some of those PAs came earlier this season, some in years past. Only Willson Contreras and Cedanne Rafaela have hit Elder particularly well: the collective line is a .262 wOBA and .263 xwOBA in 49 PAs, though only Contreras, who hit a game-winning homer off Elder in Atlanta, has more than ten PAs against the right-hander.
