Well the Braves were able to absolutely cruise to a game 1 victory in Philly behind Martin Perez and Jose Suarez, who combined for 9.0 shutout innings. The offense broke out for 9 runs and Austin Riley hit 2 homers, a very promising sign.
Beating up on Taijuan Walker is one thing, but we will have a very different level of pitching matchup today, as two of the most effective pitchers of the last few seasons will face off. This battle of lefty aces perhaps favors Atlanta from a platoon split perspective,
as Atlanta has hit the ball pretty well off lefties, while Philadelphia has been absolutely brutal at the plate facing southpaws. While there is certainly some small sample size theatre involved in these stats, Chris Sale isn’t an easy pitcher to hit from either side of the plate, so any platoon advantage he may see, particularly against Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber can only help. Austin Riley seems to be finding himself at the plate, which is huge for this Braves team in general, but especially in adding a bigtime right-handed bat for a team with a ton of left-handed hitters.
Cristopher Sanchez will be taking the ball for Philly and he is a formidable matchup. Sanchez has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since the beginning of 2024. Sanchez boasted an xFIP of 3.19 over 181.2 innings in 2024 and 2.77 over 202.0 innings in a monster 2025. He has had a strong record of avoiding walks in his career, but dramatically improved his strikeout rate from below average to above average last year and has carried that into this young season. He pitches primarily with a sinker and changeup, with his slider in distant third in terms of usage. Sanchez has solid mid-90s velocity on his sinker, but has elite extension from the left side that makes it that much harder for hitters to pick up his pitches. All of his pitches lean towards the arm-side, as compared to average movement for the pitch types. His slider is very vertical, but his changeup and sinker have exceptional arm-side run and drop. This pitch-mix produces an elite ground ball rate, so getting the ball in the air against Sanchez may be a challenge for Braves hitters. The Braves could really use some production from Acuna, Riley, and Albies from the right side of the plate to plate some runs against Sanchez.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Saturday, April 18, 7:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Citizens Bank Ballpark, Philadelphia, PA
TV: FOX
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
