Last year, the Braves randomly swept the Tigers late in the year, pulling down the relatively competitive team into their own 2025 muck for a bit. This year, the Braves are rocking and rolling and having a great time, and can sweep the Tigers again with a successful performance on Thursday afternoon.
The Braves largely cruised to a 5-2 victory in the series opener, and then won the series when Matt Olson hit a walkoff two-run homer off old pal Kenley Jansen to deliver a victory in a game started by
reigning Cy Young awardee Tarik Skubal. Will they have more heroics in store for us today, or will it be another ho-hum, wire-to-wire win? Or, dare they actually lose a game? We’ll see.
On the hill for Atlanta will be Bryce Elder, who comes in with a 47/77/92 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-). That line is surprising in some ways, especially because his fWAR is a top-30 mark among starters in baseball right now due to his teeny-tiny HR/FB rate. Elder really turned heads during his first four starts of the year, where he was stellar in three of them, but he’s been more in line with expectations in the two since. He had a 6/2 K/BB ratio and gave up a homer against the Nationals, and then had a very weird game where he lasted seven frames but managed just a 2/1 K/BB ratio against the Phillies, which was the Braves’ most recent loss.
Opposing Elder and the Braves will be Framber Valdez, who is, in some ways, having a pretty unusual start to his year. Valdez signed a large, $115 million, three-year (ish, it’s a little complicated) deal with the Tigers relatively late in the offseason, after concerns about his personality cooled his market coming off another 4 fWAR year. Before free agency, Valdez was a model of consistency, between 3.7 and 4.4 fWAR over his past four seasons, with FIP- and xFIP- marks all tightly clustered between 75 and 82 in all four seasons. That’s kind of absurd when you think about it.
But, 2026 has been a different story so far as Valdez takes the ball in a uniform other than the one he wore for all eight prior seasons of his career: his strikeouts are down, his walks are up, hitters are finding it easier to elevate against him, and he’s getting by in part because of a low HR/FB. His line is 81/90/104, which vaguely resembles his 79/80/77 line over the past four seasons, but definitely not on the back of his pitching. In his six starts, three have been good, one has been so-so, and two have been problematic — including his most recent, where the Reds thrashed him and chased him after just 13 outs, while he posted a 4/5 K/BB ratio and gave up a homer. Even if the Braves battle Valdez to a relative standstill, they’ll still have a chance against a beleaguered and ineffective Detroit bullpen, so don’t count them out if Elder hangs in there, even if Valdez is lulling them to sleep with his sinker in the middle innings.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Thursday, April 30, 12:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
TV: BravesVision
Streaming: MLB.tv (and Braves.tv if you’re in-market, etc.)
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
