Coming off the high of a successful west coast trip capped off by winning the series against the Dodgers, the Atlanta Braves will once again play one of the hottest teams in MLB when the Chicago Cubs come to town.
The Cubs have had two separate ten game win streaks and a fifteen-game win streak at home. They also have an incredible 11-5 win-loss record against teams above .500. For reference, the Braves have only played seven such games and have a 4-3 record. A ton of weight can’t be put into home and road
splits this early in the season, but the Cubs have struggled to a .500 record when playing away from Wrigley.
Grant Holmes will be taking the mound for the Braves today against Colin Rea. The Braves fortune with their rotation is slowing down outside of Strider coming back, and Grant Holmes is one of the reasons. Even though the Braves are 4-1 in his last five starts, Holmes has struggled to a 5.13 ERA and 5.36 FIP. During that time, he has surrendered five HRs and walked twelve in only 26.1 innings pitched. His saving grace is that he has still been able to produce groundballs at a high clip producing forty-one in that time span.
Only two Cubs players have ever faced Holmes before. Alex Bregman has two at-bats and is hitless. Michael Conforto has five at-bats and has a .600 average and 1.550 OPS.
Colin Rea has seen a slightly better path than Holmes in his past five appearances. In that time, he had a 4.39 ERA, 3.72 FIP, and walked nine and struck out twenty-five while giving up three HRs.
The Braves’ bread and butter has been hitting the ball hard. They have the third best barrel percentage in MLB while also having the third highest number of batted ball events.
It just so happens that Rea struggles in the barrel percentage arena. He is in the bottom 43.0 percent of MLB and in the lowest 14.0 percent of hard-hit percentage. If the Braves can make solid contact, they have a legitimate chance to do some damage.
Mike Yastrzemski is tied with Matt Olson and Austin Riley with the team lead in at-bats against Rea with eight and has leads the team with two HRs against him, which has resulted in a .375 average and 1.625 OPS. Tonight, may be the night when Yastrzemski gets out of his funk. Olson and Riley have also both been successful with an OPS of 1.681 and .958 respectively.
It will be interesting to see what the lineup will be tonight with Kim coming back and Dubón being hot. Logically it makes sense that Yastrzemski would get the night off with Dubón playing LF, but with Yastrzemski’s history of success against Rea, it may be worth the gamble to give him the start.
First pitch is at 7:15 EDT.
Game Info
Game Time: Friday, May 12th, 7:15 pm EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA.
Watch: BravesVision, TBS (out-of-market only)
Radio/Audio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
