If this was still May, the news of the day might have been the offense exploding over both games of the doubleheader, hopefully representing the turnaround we keep waiting on, the season is pretty much dead. With their playoff hopes in the toilet and eyes on next season, there were two main stories that mattered today: 1. Hurston Waldrep’s second successful outing in a row and 2. Drake Baldwin’s hot streak, boosting his high-stakes NL Rookie of the Year candidacy.
Waldrep had a solid spot start in the mess that was the Speedway Classic last weekend and earned himself another start today. He was even more impressive today, striking out 6 Marlins with 12 whiffs over 6.0 innings, with only 1 walk and no homers allowed for a 1 run outing. If it weren’t for his dominant splitter, Waldrep would be entirely unrecognizable from the pitcher he was last year, with new mechanics and a dramatically different pitch-mix, mixing in brand new sinkers and cutters and flipping his curveball and slider usage. That said, it’s working so far and the command has been much better, which was the critical problem for the former first rounder. Regardless of where things go from here, Hurston deserves a ton of credit for evolving so much as a pitcher in such a short time. If he can establish himself as a real major league starter for the remaining two months, that would be a huge development for Atlanta moving forward, especially with AJ Smith-Shawver and Grant Holmes likely unavailable for next season.
Baldwin racked up another 5 RBIs today (making it 10 so far in the series), going 4-9 on the day. All of his hits were singles, but he hit the ball hard and it was a productive day for the rookie catcher. Given the stakes for Drake personally and for the franchise with a first round pick at stake, Drake’s performance is the number one thing I am watching for the rest of the season.
The Braves made a flurry of roster moves to start the day, with the headliner being that Waldrep was recalled, rather than brought in as the extra player for the doubleheader, indicating that he will be given the chance to make multiple starts, especially after Saturday’s success.
