The lineups are out for tonight’s contest as the Atlanta Braves are looking to knot up the series with the Tampa Bay Rays at one run apiece. Manager Walt Weiss has decided to go with a top-of-the-order look that we last saw when the Braves were in Philadelphia, which means that Drake Baldwin is getting the nod at DH and leading off.
Here’s the rest of the lineup for Atlanta:
This’ll be the 55th time that Baldwin has led off for the Braves
this season and so far through 54 games, he’s hit .305/.390/.500 in the leadoff spot, good for a wOBA of .388 and 146 wRC+. Compare that to his overall slash line for the season of .276/.352/.446 with a wOBA of .350 and a wRC+ of 121, it’s clear that Baldwin is pretty comfortable hitting in the leadoff spot.
Meanwhile, he’s swapped positions in the lineup with Michael Harris II as he’s gone from leading off on Tuesday to batting cleanup on Wednesday. There’s a bit of shuffling in the bottom half of the order but the names are the same — Mike Yastrzemski goes from eighth to sixth, Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley move down to seventh and eighth, respectively, and Sean Murphy will be the connector to the top half of the order in the ninth slot. None of these guys have an extensive amount of experience against Griffin Jax but I did mention in the preview that a handful of these guys did tag him for a few runs during a relief appearance in this ballpark for Jax back in 2025, so maybe they’ll continue that success here.
I’ll update this with the Rays lineup once it’s posted but for now, let’s focus on Atlanta’s lineup. What do y’all think?
