There’s no place like home and the Atlanta Braves will surely be grateful to have spent some time in their own respective beds instead of what they had to deal during what ended up being a terrible road trip against the White Sox and Mets.
With that being said, it’s not like the Braves are coming home for a cakewalk. The Giants may have a poor record but they’ve been known to spring some upsets this season and the Brewers will be bringing arguably the most talented pitcher in all of baseball to town
in the form of Jacob Misiorowski. Atlanta’s going to really have to work to get things back on track, so let’s see what the week ahead has in store for them.
June 16-18: San Francisco Giants
Current Record: 29-43 Projected Record (via FanGraphs): 74-88
On paper, the Braves probably couldn’t have asked for a better opponent to take on upon returning home from a rough road trip. The Giants have been pretty bad this season and outside of Casey Schmitt launching a bunch of dingers, there hasn’t been much for the fans in San Francisco to cheer about — either on or off the field.
San Francisco’s offense has been mostly middle of the road in terms of performance, as they have produced a team wRC+ of 102 off the strength of a team slash line of .257/.307/.416 with a .316 wOBA. As I mentioned before, Schmitt has largely been responsible for the power as he’s currently the only Giants hitter with over 10 homers so far this season. Unless there’s a complete disaster on Atlanta’s part, we aren’t going to be seeing the Giants hitting a ton of balls over the fence during this series.
With that being said, this lineup isn’t full of pushovers, either. Luis Arraez seems determined to continue hitting nothing but singles, Matt Chapman and Jung Hoo Lee have been productive with little-to-no power and Bryce Eldrige has been playing the role of “exciting young player” for the struggling Giants. Atlanta’s pitching staff will have to be on their game to keep this crew quiet and they have to be taken seriously — this same Giants team won a series at Wrigley Field and split a four-game series in Milwaukee against the Brewers (more on them later) so this is not a team to be taken lightly.
Still, the lineup will have to get the job done against a pitching staff that has largely struggled. Considering what ballpark the Giants spend most of their time in, it is honestly kind of shocking that they have the fifth-worst team ERA- in all of baseball (113) along with a bottom-10 FIP- (108). Then you look at what two of their three probable starters for this series have done so far this season and it all makes sense.
Adrian Houser is set to start for San Francisco during the season opener and he’s looked very vunerable on the mound all season. Of the the 13 starts that he’s made so far, he’s given up at least three runs in 10 of those starts. Five of those 10 starts saw him give up at least four runs and he hasn’t had a start of the “three runs or less” variety since May 17 against the Athletics. Meanwhile, Wednesday’s starter Robbie Ray has been a bit better but his stats have been skewed a bit after he got lit up on May 18 against the Diamondbacks for 10 runs on 11 hits. With that being said, the Nationals did get him for five runs on seven hits in his last outing so it’s entirely possible that the Braves might punish him like the Nats did.
Landen Roupp will be a different story, as he’s proven himself to be the top guy in San Francisco’s rotation so far and could really give the Braves some problems during his scheduled start on Thursday. Even if all of San Francisco’s starters do a solid job, the Braves could still turn things around late in the game if San Francisco’s bullpen continues to have issues. JT Brubaker and Keaton Winn have given opposing batters fits but outside of that, nobody else in this bullpen has really stood out as being of the shutdown variety. If the Braves are going to bounce back from that awful road trip, this should hopefully be the series to make it happen.
Tuesday, June 16 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision, Gray TV)
Wednesday, June 17 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Thursday, June 18 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
June 19-21: Milwaukee Brewers
Current Record: 43-26 Projected Record: 92-70
Well, there’s no two ways around it: The Braves will probably have a serious fight on their hands once the Brewers come to town. For starters (for lack of a better term), Jacob Misiorowski will likely be starting the series opener against the Braves. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Misiorowski has essentially been dominating hitters so far this season with his near-overwhelming stuff. His heater is five mph above average, his slider and curve are both seven mph above average, and his cutter and change-up are both six mph above average. No matter what he’s throwing, it’s going to have high velocity and it’s going to be nasty. He’s thrown 54.1 innings since May 1 and has given up a grand total of two runs (only one of which were earned) on nineteen hits with just nine walks and a whopping 80 strikeouts.
Miz’s most recent start was astonishing. He pitched a complete game against the Phillies where he only gave up one hit and struck out fifteen batters on 95 pitches (a Maddux!). He was a Kyle Schwarber hit away from what would’ve been one of the more dominant Perfect Games that you’ll ever see. Assuming Milwaukee sticks to their current rotation plans, the Miz will be coming to town and the Braves are going to have their hands full.
Oh yeah, the rest of the team is still pretty good too. At this point, picking against the Brewers before the season to do well is one of those things where I’ll only believe it where I see it because this team has been a buzzsaw so far. Brice Turang has been productive in all facets of the game, old friend William Contreras has been raking, Jackson Chourio continues to be exciting, Jake Bauers is a true threat at the plate and then guys like Garrett Mitchell and Andrew Vaughn are tough to deal with. Even Christian Yelich and Gary Sanchez have been handing out lumps to opposing pitchers so far.
All that has combined for the Brewers to have one of the best offenses in baseball so far. They’ve hit for 107 wRC+ as a team (for reference’s sake, they’re right behind the Braves who have a team wRC+ of 108) and have collectively delivered a slash line of .255/.341/.392 with a wOBA of .326. Their stats are pretty similar to Atlanta’s except the Brewers are getting on base a bit more while the Braves have done a bit more damage in the slugging department. Still, Milwaukee’s offense has been getting the job done in a major way and Atlanta’s pitching staff will have a real challenge on their hands this weekend.
Friday, June 19 at 7:15 p.m ET (BravesVision)
Saturday, June 20 at 4:10 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
Sunday, June 21 at 1:35 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
All stats referenced were from FanGraphs before Sunday’s action so they may be slightly different
