Bryce Elder looks to pick up where he left off in latest start against Nationals

ATLANTA, GA - MAY 22: Bryce Elder #55 of the Atlanta Braves pitches in the first inning during the game against the Washington Nationals at Truist Park on May 22, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images) | Getty Images After the Atlanta Braves ended up winn

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After the Atlanta Braves ended up winning the impromptu home run derby to start this four-game series against the Washington Nationals, the Braves will now be looking to ensure a split as Bryce Elder will be getting the ball to start Friday night’s contest.

In more ways than one, Elder will be looking to pick up where he left off. In general, he’s been doing fine over his past couple of starts — he went six innings against the Padres and only gave up two runs and then he racked up eight strikeouts

against the Orioles back on July 25 with just one earned run allowed and two runs allowed total. That’s a pretty solid start to the second half of the season for Elder, especially considering how badly he was wobbling for his final four starts heading into the break.

He’ll also be looking to continue being successful against the Nationals. Elder last faced the Nats back on May 22 and that’s when he threw another solid six innings with just one run allowed and four strikeouts. Naturally, the one run was conceded was a dinger to lead off the sixth inning where (surprise, surprise) he left a hanger right down the middle for Curtis Mead to send to the moon. With that being said, a lot has changed since then (Mead is now with the Red Sox and the walk-off hero from that night (Chadwick Tromp) is now with the Orioles) so it’s hard to really extrapolate a result tonight from back then. With that being said, Elder can ill-afford to leave any hangers for this homer-happy Nationals lineup to feast upon or else things could get sideways again.

Meanwhile, the Braves are going to try to figure out Foster Griffin and the results have been mixed for the Braves so far this season when it comes to solving this particular problem of a pitcher. Back in April, the Braves managed to score three runs off of Griffin but the Nationals came out swinging against Reynaldo López and the back of the bullpen (which included Ian Hamilton and Joel Payamps back then) so that game was a wash for Atlanta. It got worse for the Braves on May 24, since Griffin completely shut Atlanta down with six strong innings where he only gave up three hits, walked one batter and didn’t give up any runs against the Braves. That was a rare example of the Nationals winning a low-scoring game as the Braves were unable to figure anything out at the plate against Griffin.

The Nationals have a grand total of maybe three pitchers who they can genuinely trust on a regular basis and Griffin is one of them. Four pitchers for Washington have pitched more than 100 innings so far and two of them are actually good (Griffin and Cavalli) and two of them have negative fWAR for the season (Zack Littell and Miles Mikolas) so Atlanta’s actually going to have to be on top of things at the plate if they want to make sure that they’re going to take another win this evening. Washington’s lineup could break out at any moment so it’ll be huge for the Braves to figure out a way to do some damage against Griffin in tonight’s game.

On paper (or at least according to FanGraphs), the Braves are favored to win this with a near 60-percent win probability. It lets you know just how much the simulator believes in Atlanta’s offense potentially putting up some runs on the board against the left-handed Griffin — and maybe Elder can keep Washington quiet again. It’ll be interesting to see what happens but as long as Atlanta continues to fire on all cylinders like they’ve (mostly) done since the All-Star break, I like their chances against any team. Let’s see what happens, folks.