The second half of the season started well enough for the Braves with a 5-2 homestand against two contending teams.
Now, Atlanta hits the road for the first time in the second half, kicking off a six-game road trip with a weekend series at the Baltimore Orioles starting Friday night at 7:05 p.m. ET.
In some ways, the path the Braves and Orioles took the last few seasons was parallel, following up promising 2024 campaigns with being among the most disappointing teams last season.
Those paths have diverged
this season, though, as the Braves have bounced back and are atop the NL East at 60-42 while Baltimore is fourth in the AL East at 50-53 and three games back from the final AL wild-card spot.
Since the break, the Orioles are 4-2, following up a three-game road sweep of Houston with snapping the Red Sox’s 15-game win streak on Wednesday after losing the first two games of the series.
Leading a weekend rotation which shows why Atlanta needs to add a starter, if not two, before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, Grant Holmes (6-4, 3.70 ERA) will get the ball for Game 1 of the Baltimore series.
The right-hander is coming off his worst start since June 16 last time out, but it wasn’t a bad start by any means. He allowed three runs on seven hits of Atlanta’s 8-5 win over the Rangers on Sunday, recording the win for his second in the last three starts.
The metrics haven’t been especially great for Holmes lately. Since the start of June, he’s allowed 32 hits and 16 walks with 25 strikeouts over 35 1/3 innings, a 1.358 WHIP. And yet, he has a 3-2 record over that span and is 2-0 in July with a 2.40 ERA.
Holmes has faced the Orioles once in his career, taking the loss despite allowing two runs on four hits over six innings in a 2-1 defeat last July.
The Orioles will counter with left-hander Trevor Rogers (6-7, 4.28) on the mound. He was exceptional in his first full season with Baltimore in 2025, posting a 9-3 record and 1.81 ERA in 18 starts, but this season got off to a rockier start for Rogers. He allowed three-plus earned runs in seven straight starts from mid-April through the end of May, seeing his ERA rise as high as 6.96.
Since the start of June, though, he’s rediscovered his form. The southpaw has allowed less than three runs in seven of his last eight starts. In his last five starts, he’s allowed a combined three runs with 33 strikeouts and 10 walks over 30 2/3 innings.
There’s also been a bit of “getting away with it” to Rogers’ game of late. He has a 1.04 ERA through three July starts despite his 1.27 WHIP and 3.39 FIP. His saving grace over this span is that just two of the 14 hits he’s given up have been extra-base hits (one double, one homer), allowing him to hold hitters to a .281 slugging percentage.
That could be challenged by a Braves lineup which has mashed multiple homers in five of its first seven games back and trails only the Washington Nationals in home runs this month (33).
Rogers, who was a first-round pick by the Marlins and spent parts of five major league seasons there, has expansive experience against the Braves but doesn’t have a great track record. He’s 1-7 with a 4.81 ERA in 10 starts. Only one of those starts has come as an Oriole, when he threw 6 2/3 shutout innings to record his first win over the Braves last July in the same game Holmes started for Atlanta.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Friday, July 24, 7:05 p.m. ET
Location: Camden Yards, Baltimore, Md.
TV: BravesVision
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos
