The Atlanta Braves are headed out west to face the Padres and they could use a series victory to get back on track. The. The Braves did take two from the Brewers, but they won in games where the Braves did not produce much offense.
The Braves will likely need their offense to kick it into gear tonight since Grant Holmes is on the mound. Holmes has arguably had the worst two game skid in his career his last two outings. In his last two starts he combined for only 5.2 innings pitched while giving up
six runs, eight hits, and walking five hitters to only four strikeouts. He also got saved a few times when he loaded the bases multiple times where a lot more damage could have been done.
It is no secret now that Holmes struggles the second time through the order. The average hitter is hitting .320/.395/.660 against him. If a hitter had that slash line for an entire season, they would get MVP votes. For reference, if a hitter had an OPS of 1.055, they would have the second highest OPS in MLB behind the otherworldly Yordan Alvarez.
No player on the Padres has faced Holmes in more than five at-bats, so there is not a lot of past matchup data to draw conclusions from. Ty France has seen Holmes the most and in his five at-bats is hitting .400 with a 1.100 OPS. Manny Machado has a hit against Holmes both times he faced him.
Unless something crazy happens, it is likely that we will see a lot of bullpen arms used today. It will be interesting to see if it will be a planned long reliever like Didier Fuentes or someone like that.
Michael King will be taking the mound for the Braves. The last time King faced the Braves it was his first start of 2025 where he only lasted 2.2 innings when he gave up four hits to include a HR, four walks, three earned runs, and three strikeouts. The Padres ended up winning that game, but it was not because of King.
King has been very good this season when looking at his on the field surface numbers. He has a 3.60 ERA in 85.0 innings over fifteen starts with a WHIP of 1.188. His underlying metrics show a different story with his expected ERA (xERA) being 4.79 which is in the bottom 25.0 percent of pitchers. He also has an expected batting average against (xBA) him of .252 which places him in the bottom 37.0 percent of pitchers.
Hopefully King’s regression to the mean will start tonight with the Braves. The difficulty with King will be that his best skill this season is preventing hard contact, and that is what the Braves’ greatest strength is offensively.
Every player on the Braves’ active roster outside of Eli White has faced King before. Rowdy Tellez leads the team with fourteen at-bats against King, but likely won’t get the start. Unfortunately, no one on the Braves has established success. Albies has a HR in two at-bats, and Kim has a hit in his one at-bat, but everyone else has an OPS that is .715 or lower against King.
On paper, the Padres seem to have the advantage in this game, but you never know when one of the Braves start to get hot. That seems to be the trend this season. Dominic Smith had a spurt, Matt Olson had a hot streak, Drake Baldwin and Michael Harris have been steady, and Ozzie Albies seems to now be heating up.
Grab your coffee because the first pitch is at 10:10 pm EDT.
Game Info
Game Time: Monday, June 22nd, 10:10 pm EDT
Location: Petco Park, , San Diego, Ga
Watch: ESPN
Radio/Audio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
