Chris Sale eyes bounce-back start in Braves-Guardians rubber match

Two teams will enter, one team will leave when the last teams that haven’t lost a series this season, the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Guardians, battle Sunday night in a rubber match at Truist Park. The Braves will be looking to bounce back from a 6-0 shutout Saturday night, their first time being

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Game Thread XVI: White Sox vs Royals

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Two teams will enter, one team will leave when the last teams that haven’t lost a series this season, the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Guardians, battle Sunday night in a rubber match at Truist Park.

The Braves will be looking to bounce back from a 6-0 shutout Saturday night, their first time being blanked since July 22 of last year.

Fittingly given the stakes, this one will be a batter of No. 1 starters. Atlanta will start Chris Sale (2-1, 3.94 ERA) coming off a shocking start last time out against

the Angels. After he allowed one run on four hits over his first two 2026 starts, Sale was tagged for six runs (all earned) on five hits over four innings — tied for his shortest outing with the Braves — walking two and hitting two batters.

Here’s hoping his control is a bit better this time so he doesn’t feel compelled to hit himself in the head with a baseball.

But let’s be real, that’s the type of psycho behavior you want to see from your ace.

Cleveland will counter with Tanner Bibee (0-1, 3.29), who has moved to the top of the Guardians’ rotation with a quickness since debuting just under three years ago. The 27-year-old righty has a 3.61 ERA over 90 career starts. The Guardians have lost his last two starts, but that hasn’t remotely been on Bibee, who allowed two runs on nine hits over 8 2/3 innings against the Dodgers and Royals. He got a combined three runs of support from the offense in those two starts, two of which came after he was out of the game.

Bibee’s homers/9 are notably up early this season (1.98), but all three homers he’s allowed were solo homers he gave up in his first start of the season against Seattle.

This game will be the first for the Braves of the season on NBC/Peacock’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast it now has the rights for. Jason Benetti will be the broadcaster, a notable vibes upgrade from Karl Ravech. NBC has also elected to use a rotating crew of color commentators depending on the teams playing, which means soon-to-be Braves Hall of Famer Andruw Jones will be on the call alongside C.C. Sabathia and Corey Kluber.