The Atlanta Braves took on the New York Yankees faced off in Northport for a spring training in which Didier Fuentes took the mound in hopes of proving he is ready for a rotation spot.
The game started off with a bang for the Braves. Didier Fuentes looked like seasoned veteran with a 1-2-3 inning while picking two strikeouts, one of which was to former MVP Cody Bellinger. Then, Mauricio Dubón seems to be getting hot with a HR. Mark Bowman said it best:
The Braves continued to roll in the first, scoring four total runs thanks to Ozzie hitting a double, Austin Riley getting a single, a Mike Yastrzemski HBP, Jonah Heim single, and Kyle Farmer single. Of note, Albies may end up hitting second this season against lefties. Before last season he had one of the best splits in MLB against LHP with a wRC+ of 136 or higher in six different seasons to include two seasons above 174. However he struggled by his standards last season with only a 91. All in all, the Braves were able to put up seven runs on fourteen hits.
Didier Fuentes was on fire this game. Through his first eight hitters, he struck out five of them and was perfect through three innings. He consistently hit 97 MPH and reached 98.6 MPH on his fastball, and his sweeper looked absolutely filthy. Unfortunately, we only got to see his 3.0 innings because he was replaced by Dylan Dodd after only pitching forty-two pitches.
Pitcher List gave us an in-depth look of his outing, showing that he may have been a bit lucky based on his location and stuff, but he did get seven whiffs.
The Braves late inning guys came in the game and looked solid. Raisel Iglesias, Robert Suarez, and Aaron Bummer all combined for 3..1 perfect innings before Bummer was replaced by Frey who gave up a single in the eighth with two outs. Between Fuentes and the three aforementioned pitchers, they combined for 7.1 innings of perfect ball. The only real blemish for Braves pitching was Dylan Dodd giving up a double and single in an inning where he too looked decent with two strikeouts.
The story of this game was that this may have been the best overall output in terms of an entire game from Braves pitching from players who that have a shot of potentially making the MLB roster at some point this season. They had thirteen strikeouts while only allowing two hits and zero walks in 7.1 innings. This includes the numbers from Fuentes because he does have a shot of appearing at some point.
The scoreboard does not show the true dominance because Ian Mejia, who came in to pitch the ninth, gave up five earned runs without retiring a single batter.
In the game thread post, it was mentioned that Kyle Farmer was a player to keep an eye on because he may make the Opening Day roster to start games against LHP. Farmer went 3-3 today, boosting his spring average to .481 and OPS to 1.130. José Azocar continued to fight hard for a spot as well, picking up two hits and raising his average to .393 and his OPS to .950.
The Braves will face the Red Sox at North Port where Bryce Elder is scheduled to start, looking to cement a spot in the rotation. It will be hard for him to top what Fuentes did today.
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