It’s tune-up time. The division is clinched, the chances of getting not-the-three seed in the NL are very low, and the Braves are presumably going to take it easy for their last two series before playoff action begins. For the first part of this week, they’ll host the Reds, and then complete the regular season down in Miami.
Much like the Braves are playing out the string, so are the Reds — though the latter’s been doing so for quite a while at this point. Fresh off a surprising playoff berth engendered
by a Mets collapse in 2025, the Reds were not projected to be good when the season began (78 wins central estimate, playoff odds of about 17 percent). It turns out that they were unable to meet even that tepid wins mark, as they enter this series at 72-84. Last year’s squad pushed above .500 on the back of a top-five pitching staff; this year, both the position players and arms have been bottom ten.
On the position player side, the Reds have a superstar in Elly de la Cruz (6.3 fWAR in 603 PAs and counting), a guy who hit a lot of homers in Sal Stewart, and not much else. They have three guys with 200-plus PAs and -0.8 fWAR or more, which has been brutal considering they haven’t gotten good production from anyone but de la Cruz. The pitching is similar: Chase Burns has been phenomenal (4.3 fWAR in 154 1/3 innings and counting), but no one else has done much of anything.
Despite all that, the Reds started out blazing, with a 20-11 through April 30… but an eight-game losing streak immediately thereafter basically plunged their season into a mire they haven’t been able to clamber out of — even their monthly hitting and pitching performances have almost entirely been bottom half or far worse.
So, for both teams, this is basically just a prelude to things in the future. For the Braves, that’s the playoffs. For the Reds, it’s… next year? Burns and de la Cruz are some really nice building blocks, but a lot of the rest of the roster could use some work.
The Braves will give the ball to JR Ritchie, who could also use some work and a step in the right direction as he heads towards an offseason shutdown. The Braves could also carry Ritchie in the playoff roster as a mop-up guy, but they have enough guys that can fit that role. Still, maybe he makes it anyway. Ritchie has really struggled in the majors so far, with a 119/135/115 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) in nine starts and six relief appearances spanning 62 2/3 innings of work. He’s been up and down and has had a few nice outings (two in long relief against the Mets to come mind), but he’s still chasing the performance (and vibes) high of his MLB debut, when he put up a 7/2 K/BB ratio (and was tagged for two solo homers) against the Nationals back in April.
In some ways, Ritchie looks like a good candidate for a Kyle Wright-esque reinvention as a sinker-curve-changeup guy with less emphasis on his four-seamer. The problem, though, is that he’s shown very problematic command to date. He has some nice pieces (curveball shape, great seam-shifted wake on some pitches, some truly picture perfect spin mirroring on his fastballs vis-a-vis his curve), but the erraticism of his ability to make any pitch go anywhere — or, more to the point, clip the zone without getting into the meaty part of it — has made everything play down. So, today is a chance for him to take a step towards a better future, against a team that just can’t hit at all. (After accounting for park effects, and not considering that they’re underperforming their inputs a fair bit, the Reds have the worst batting outputs in MLB… which may be partly because the style of offense they’ve been coaching in Cincinnati is a very throwback small ball style that isn’t generating results.)
The Reds will counter with 28-year-old left-hander Brandon Williamson, who has been part of the problem this year. To be fair, it’s not necessarily Williamson’s fault, as he’s working his way back from multiple serious injuries. Acquired in the pre-2023 trade that sent Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez to Seattle, Williamson had a nice-enough rookie season for his new team (97/101/108, 1.8 fWAR in 117 innings), but then fell victim to shoulder and elbow injuries that saw him miss most of 2024, all of 2025, and have lingered in 2026. Williamson started the season in the rotation and got absolutely blasted through six starts, and then sat out four months with shoulder fatigue. He returned in September, had a so-so start, and has been working in long relief since.
The Braves beat up on Williamson in one of his few outings in 2024 before he went down with one of his recurring arm injuries. The Reds haven’t faced Ritchie yet.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Tuesday, September 22, 7:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
TV/Streaming: BravesVision, Gray TV
Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM
