When the Atlanta Braves swept the Dodgers it resulted in them having the most wins against teams above .500 in MLB, but they have since lost two games to sub .500 teams. The lineup has been one of the main reasons why there has been this rollercoaster of losing games that the Braves should win.
On the season, only eight teams have scored more runs than the Braves, but since the All-Star break, only seven teams have scored fewer runs. The pitching has been keeping the Braves afloat, and that needs
to change. The Nationals have one of the worst pitching staffs in MLB this season, so hopefully the offense can get the spark they need.
Over the past two weeks Michael Harris has been on fire with a 200 wRC+, with Sean Murphy not being far behind with a 181 and Drake Baldwin with a 126. Other than Ha-Seong Kim doing well in his very limited action of five games, everyone else has been struggling. To be fair, they did play the Dodgers for three of those games, but they also played the Rockies in that span as well.
Speaking of Kim, he does have a 135 wRC+ since he started getting some playing time, so the question of if he would get the start, especially after gong 3-3 last night, was definitely there. Players like Austin Riley could sure use a night off, so it would have made sense for Mauricio Dubón to fall back into his super utility role.
Brian Snitker was very predictable with his lineups. Walt Weiss is quite the opposite. He is obviously trying to shake things up to see what works, so it always makes it fascinating to wait and see what the lineup will be. Not many people had Mauricio Dubón ever hitting cleanup on their bingo card, for example.
Walt Weiss opted to let Dubón be the player to get some rest today. The other two decisions of note are that with Dubón resting it was a no brainer to put Kim back in the lineup after his solid performance last night, and Weiss also decided to play the hot hand and move Sean Murphy up to hitting sixth.
It looks odd at first having Albies hit cleanup against a righty, but he does own a .929 OPS against Lord, plus Lord is likely only an opener so the traditional making a lineup based on the SP is not as important.
The Nationals have scored the second most runs behind the Cubs this season. They have faded a little losing tow of their best bats to trades or injuries to scoring the eighth most since the trade deadline.
Holmes needs to keep an eye out for Jorbit Vivas and Dylan Crews. Both have a HR against him in six at-bats. Daylen Lile has been his nemesis with two HRs off of him in only four at-bats.
The key today is to score early and score often to get to the bullpen and stave off an offense that has not slowed down much as the season has progessed.
First pitch is at 1:05 EDT
