At first glance, it seems like good news that the Atlanta Braves won’t have to deal with Paul Skenes once the Pittsburgh Pirates come to town since he’s going to be pitching against the Astros during the midweek series. With that being said, the pitching matchups still figure to be pretty tough for the Braves since Atlanta will likely be seeing Braxton Ashcraft for the Pirates. Before he comes to town with Pittsburgh, old friend Kevin Gausman will be returning with the Toronto Blue Jays during the midweek series.
While Atlanta’s lineup has frequently stepped up to the occasion whenever needed, this’ll still be a pretty stern test for the whole week as far as the opposing pitching is concerned. Atlanta’s offense will have to be on point this week if they want to keep this blistering run of form going in the right direction. There’s no reason to doubt them, right? Let’s get into what lies ahead for the Braves this week.
June 2-4: Toronto Blue Jays
Current Record: 29-31 Projected Record (via FanGraphs): 81-81
Needless to say, this is certainly not where the Blue Jays wanted to be after coming so agonizingly close in 2025 to winning the World Series for the first time since 1993. They’re a distant third place behind the Rays and the Yankees and while all isn’t lost for the Blue Jays at the moment (FanGraphs is still giving them a 43.5 percent chance of making the Postseason and the rest of the American League is pretty mediocre), I’d imagine that they would like to pull away from the rest of the pack in the AL Wild Card race sooner rather than later.
The one thing that’s been holding Toronto back has been their offense — or lack therof. As a team, the Blue Jays have produced a wRC+ of 94 so far this season, which is good for the fourth-worst mark in the American League and the seventh-worst mark in all of baseball. This isn’t to say that the Jays don’t have their fair share of dangerous hitters — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. may be struggling to find some pop in his bat right now but he’s still producing at the plate, nonetheless. Kazuma Okamoto has been bringing the pop with 12 dingers and a .205 Isolated Power number so far. Daulton Varsho has been pretty consistent and reliable and they’ve also gotten solid production out of Ernie Clement and Jesús Sánchez as well.
Outside of that, it’s been pretty tough sledding for the Blue Jays and it’s pretty clear that whatever magic tonic George Springer tapped into to produce a near-career year in 2025 has run out because he’s come crashing back down to Earth in terms of production here in 2026. Atlanta will have the top of their rotation going in this series and this feels like an opportunity for them to help keep this Blue Jays lineup quiet over the course of these three games.
With that being said, this could come down to which team has the more consistent pitching across this series. Old friend Kevin Gausman will be starting the series opener and that’ll be a tough task considering that he’s gotten off to a fantastic start to this season so far. He’s only had one start this season where he just got completely blown up, which was back in early-May when the Rays got him for seven runs (six earned) over 4.2 innings. It’s perfectly possible for this Atlanta lineup to do the same but if he keeps them quiet, it wouldn’t be a huge shock, either. Patrick Corbin is also scheduled to pitch during this season and while this would’ve been a green light for scoring a bushel of runs in the past, apparently the Blue Jays have fixed him because he’s actually been pretty solid so far. This won’t be a cakewalk at all!
Toronto’s pitching staff as a whole is sitting on an ERA- of 95 but a FIP- of 87 — that ERA- is above average but that FIP- number is top-five in all of baseball, which would suggest that they could also be vulnerable to making some mistakes in the field. They’re entering this series with a team OAA of -1 which isn’t horrible but could provide an opportunity for the Braves to take advantage of some gaffes in the field. This could be a (say it with me, now) tricky series for the Braves but it seems like a manageable one for this squad with the form that they’re in.
Tuesday, June 2 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision, Gray TV)
Wednesday, June 3 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Thursday, June 4 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
June 5-7: Pittsburgh Pirates
Current Record: 32-28 Projected Record: 85-77
As I mentioned right at the beginning, there’s no Paul Skenes for this series since he’ll be pitching on Wednesday. With that being said, that is very small comfort because Braxton Ashcraft is line to start the weekend series at Cobb County and both of them have been very good to start this season for the Pirates. Ashcraft in particular has been very tough to deal with and through 12 starts, he’s keeping pace with Paul Skenes and (according to fWAR) actually outpacing him a tiny bit as well as Ashcraft has 2.0 fWAR to Skenes’ 1.9. The only knock on Ashcraft’s body of work so far is that whenever he does give up a hit, it’s usually of the Hard-Hit variety and his average exit velocity is around 90-mph. He’s not un-hittable but it’s safe to say that there will likely be some tough sledding ahead once he takes the mound.
I’m also hoping that we’ll get a Mitch Keller/Bryce Elder matchup since that would be Elder’s second “Who’s going to keep getting away with it” matchup this season after he got one over on Justin Wrobleski back at Dodger Stadium. Keller is having a pretty solid year on paper but he’s also had a handful of starts so far where he’s gotten knocked around. In fact, earlier this weekend the Minnesota Twins got him for seven runs on 10 hits over four innings. If that version of Keller shows up then the Braves could be living lavishly against him this weekend. With that being said, Pittsburgh’s pitching staff as a whole has proven to be pretty tough to deal with as they’re carrying an ERA- of 95 and a FIP- of 92 as a staff. They can get the job done and this crew definitely won’t make life easy on the Braves this weekend.
The lineup will have to find a way to produce because the Pirates can definitely hit.They’re currently seventh in all of baseball when it comes to team wRC+ (107) and they’re coming off of a month where they actually went off at the plate a bit and scored the third-most runs in all of baseball during May. They plated 148 runs (trailing just the Yankees and Nationals) and put up a wRC+ of 116 for the month. For comparison’s sake, the Braves scored 139 runs in May and put up a wRC+ of 105. Assuming that they keep it up against Houston, the Pirates offense is going to be coming into town on a bit of a heater.
Brandon Lowe has hit the ground running with the Pirates, Bryan Reynolds is Bryan Reynolds, Oneil Cruz appears to be primed for a big bounce-back season and Spencer Horowitz is looking right at a potential breakout season, himself. They did lose Konnor Griffin to the IL but they got Ryan O’Hearn back as a corresponding move, so there won’t be too much of a dropoff when it comes to the level of production. It’s a lineup full of tough outs and they’ve also finally started to move away from former Braves player Marcell Ozuna as their DH as he has been absolutely scuffling in his new surroundings. Despite that, the Pirates are mashing the ball and Atlanta’s pitching staff will need to be on top of things if they want to keep the Buccos quiet once this weekend’s series rolls around.
Friday, June 5 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Saturday, June 6 at 4:10 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Sunday, June 7 at 1:35 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
