The Atlanta Braves are facing off against the Athletics in a series finale that fans of pitching should love. Both staff aces will be facing off as both teams look to take the series.
The Braves will bring Chris Sale to the mound and face Luis Severino in a matchup against two struggling offenses. Both the Athletics and the Braves are in the bottom twelve among MLB teams in runs scored per game.
Fortunately for the Braves, yesterday was the only game that the pitching struggled so far. The Braves have
surrendered the second fewest runs per game in MLB thus far. The Athletics cannot say the same as they are right at league average at fifteenth. Of course these are very small sample sizes against different opponents, but it is a small snapshot of where we are thus far in the season.
Chris Sale is coming off his Opening Day win in which he pitched 6.0 innings while surrendering zero runs while striking out six and only three hits. He did give up three walks and had an average exit velocity of 93.1 MPH against him though, so hopefully he can keep those two areas under control. Interestingly, he was able to induce a groundball 53.8 percent of the time which is well above his career average of 42.7 percent. Sale’s stuff plus a high groundball rate could be lethal.
Although Sale has been in MLB for sixteen seasons now, he has not faced the Athletics players very often. Only five players on their roster have faced him before with Jeff McNeil seeing him the most. Logically it makes sense that the longtime Met would be the one with the most at-bats against Sale since he is one of the oldest players on the roster and played as a division rival to Sale. However, he only has nine at-bats. In those nine at-bats he has been successful with a 1.000 OPS and .444 average. Another player to keep an eye on is Brent Rooker. Rooker only has four at-bats against Sale but has a HR. Andy Ibáñez, Shea Langeliers, and Austin Wynns are the only other players to face Sale in their careers.
Luis Severino had a solid start of his own on Opening Day where he pitched 5.0 innings and allowed two runs on three hits. He walked three and struck out three as well. Like Sale, he also did well on inducing ground balls. He induced them 5.5 percent more than his career 44.5 percent rate. He struggled with a 57.1 percent hard hit rate, so that may be a weakness that the Braves and hard-hitting Drake Baldwin can exploit.
Severino is almost the opposite of Sale in terms of how many opposing hitters he has seen. The only players on the Braves’ roster who have not seen Severino are Drake Baldwin and Eli White.
Mauricio Dubón leads the team with twelve at-bats against Severino. He does have a HR, but has struggled beyond that with a .167 average and .584 OPS. Matt Olson has the potential to be the X factor of this game. He has eleven at-bats against Severino and has a .455 average and 1.145 OPS. Interestingly he has zero HRs and only one RBI while facing Severino. Could today be the day where he gets his first HR? Michael Harris and Ronald Acuña both have a 1.500 OPS against Severino with eight and six at-bats respectively.
On paper it appears that the Braves have a clear advantage in this game, both from a lineup perspective and a pitching perspective. With the instability of the current Braves rotation, these are the types of games that the Braves have to win to stay competitive while they wait to get healthy. The Braves’ 3-1 start was much better in terms of bringing hope than the 0-7 start they had last season. Somehow, finishing the first six games of 2026 with a 3-3 record with a series loss to the Athletics seems like it would feel like that 0-7 start last season considering the opponents.
First pitch is at 12:15 EDT
Game Info
Wednesday, April 1st, 12:15 pm EDT
Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
Watch: BravesVision
Radio/Audio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
