The Atlanta Braves offense must be better against Philadelphia this week
Hey, you're struggling at the plate right now? Here's Zack Wheeler and the Philadelphia Phillies
No one said it was going to be easy.
After a season-opening road trip against last year’s NL Wild Card opponent, the San Diego Padres, and the defending World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the Braves finally got in the win column against the Miami Marlins. After splitting the rain-shortened series at home, Atlanta’s got another tough test: the defending NL East champion Philadelphia Phillies.
The Braves and Phillies are slated for three games this week, starting tonight in Truist Park. And these teams enter in drastic different places: Atlanta’s holding the worst record in baseball at 1-8, while Philadelphia is fresh off a 2-1 series win against the Dodgers and holding the best non-West record in the National League.
Let’s break down the matchups and what to watch for.
These pitching matchups are something else
This is the rare series where the pitching matchups aren’t drastically slanted one way or the other on any of the three days:
Game One: Chris Sale (0-1. 5.40) vs Zack Wheeler (1-0, 1.38)
Game Two: Grant Holmes (0-1, 7.20) vs Taijuan Walker (1-0, 0.00)
Game Three: Spencer Schwellenbach (1-0, 0.00) vs Jesús Luzardo (2-0, 1.50)
Game one is one of the best matchups you’ll see outside of Opening Day - last year’s Cy Young winner in Sale versus the runner-up in Wheeler. Game two is a battle of back-end starters with potential in the converted reliever Holmes versus a rebounding Walker, while game three is an offseason trade acquisition in Luzardo against a breakout ace in Schwellenbach.
Let’s get into all three.
Game One: Sale vs Wheeler
2024 Wheeler: 16-7 in 32 GS, 200IP, 139H, 62R (57 ER), 52BB (2.3 BB/9), 224 Ks (10.1 K/9)
2024 Sale: 18-3, 2.38 ERA in 29 GS, 177.2 IP, 141 H, 48R (47 ER), 39 BB (2.0 BB/9), 225 Ks (11.4 K/9)
(BOLD denotes led National League, italics denotes led MLB)1
2025 Wheeler: 1-0, 1.38 ERA in 2 GS, 13IP, 5H, 2R, 2BB and 1 HBP to 18 Ks
2025 Sale: 0-1, 5.40 ERA in 2 GS, 10IP, 10H, 6R, 1BB and 2 HBP to 12 Ks
Zack Wheeler’s a known quantity at this point - he’s faced Atlanta 30 times in the regular season and is 13-8 with a 2.95 ERA in those outings. But that understates how good he was against the Braves last season - 1-1 in three starts despite a minuscule 0.95 ERA. He allowed a total of two earned runs in 19 innings pitched, striking out twenty with NO walks.2
He’s not really changed his pitch mix this season, either - it’s a fastball and sinker a combined 55% of the time, backed up be a sweeper, split finger, and a curveball all around 11-13%. A cutter takes the last bit of usage, coming in around 9%.
But just like last week against the Dodgers, a lot of these potential options can be eliminated by certain batters based on their handedness.
Wheeler mostly throws the sinker to righties, throwing four-seamers to more hitters but favoring it to lefties. The sweeper’s his primary breaking ball to righties, and that combo’s a doozy - the sinker runs 17.6 inches arm-side and the sweeper moves 12.5 the other way. It’s a deadly horizontal game.
(Video courtesy of Pitching Ninja)
Against lefties, there’s more of a vertical component to the attack-plan - the four-seamer up, with the split-finger (arm-side) and curveball (glove-side) serving as the primary secondaries. He has only thrown the cutter to lefties in his two starts (and that’s normal - of the 301 cutters he threw last season, a whopping five went to righties).
SIDEBAR: Wheeler doesn’t throw the sweeper that often to lefties (4.4%), but it’s a lethal combo with the bender. Check out this punch out of Ryan McMahon - he busts him with a sweeper inside for strike two, so when McMahon looks for it again, he’s swinging over the curveball. It’s a fine line to walk - if you leave the curveball too far inside, it’s where he was looking for the sweeper to be - but Wheeler can do it.
Also, beware the sinker, lefties. He won’t throw it to you often, but it’s almost always to the front hip with two strikes. You’ve been warned.
No Braves regular has a great track record off of Wheeler. The best returner is probably lefty Michael Harris II, hitting .250 in 16 at-bats, although Bryan De La Cruz is batting .267 in 15 career at-bats and Jarred Kelenic is, somehow, 2-5 off of Wheeler. While Matt Olson and Marcell Ozuna both having two career homers off of the ace, they’re also batting .192 and .185, respectively. Austin Riley’s 10-40 with a homer and three RBI.
Game Two: Holmes vs Walker
2024 Walker: 3-7, 7.10 ERA in 19G (15 GS), 83.2 IP, 107H, 68R (66 ER), 58BB (4.0 BB/9), 58 Ks (6.2 K/9)3
2024 Holmes: 2-1, 3.56 ERA in 26G (7 GS), 68.1 IP, 66H, 27R (all earned), 15BB (2.0 BB/9), 70 Ks (9.2 K/9)
2025 Walker: 1-0, 0.00 ERA in 1 GS, 6IP, 3H, 0R, 1BB and 1 HBP to 4 Ks
2025 Holmes: 0-1, 7.20 ERA in 2G (1 GS), 5IP, 4H, 4R/ER, 4BB to 5 Ks
Of the three pitching matchups, this is the one that’s most up in the air for me. Walker was dreadful last year as he was dealing with a multitude of injuries - a shoulder issue that delayed the start to his season, a left foot contusion, and right index finger inflammation.
But he’s somewhat righted the ship this year, making a successful first start against Colorado. It’s not a huge sample size on the arsenal, but we can see a few early trends.
The first trend is Walker continuing to mix up his fastball usage. He throws all three and led with the sinker last season (27.4%), followed by the four-seamer (12.5%) and the cutter (9.3%). That’s completely changed this year - the cutter leads in usage (21.6%) among the three fastballs, followed by the sinker (13.5%) and the four-seamer in the back (8.1%).
The second trend is that he’s abandoned last season’s sweeper for a traditional4 slider, a pitch he hasn’t thrown since 2022. He only threw them to righties in that first start, similar to the majority of his sweeper usage last season, pairing it with the sinker. Lefties get majority four-seam, curveball, and split-finger, with the cutter being the bridge pitch to both-handedness.
Several of Atlanta’s regulars have performed much better against Walker than they have against Wheeler in their careers: Riley is batting .417 with a homer, while Olson and Ozuna are both hitting .273 and Bryan De La Cruz is sitting at .391.
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Game Three: Schwellenbach vs Luzardo
2024 Luzardo (w/ Miami): 3-6, 5.00 ERA in 12GS, 66.2 IP, 61H, 37R/ER, 22BB (3.0 BB/9), 58 Ks (7.8 K/9)
2024 Schwellenbach: 8-7, 3.35 ERA in 21GS, 123.2 IP, 106H, 49R (46 ER), 23BB (1.7 BB/9), 127 Ks (9.2 K/9)
2025 Luzardo: 2-0, 1.50 ERA in 2 GS, 12IP, 7H, 2R/ER, 4BB to 19 Ks
2025 Schwelly: 1-0, 0.00 ERA in 2GS, 14IP, 3H, 0R/ER, 1BB to 14 Ks
To be honest, I was very jealous of this trade when it happened. It was a buy-low on an incredibly talented but sometimes streaky pitcher who appeared to struggle simply because of significant injuries last season (both a stress reaction in his back and elbow tightness.)
Philly’s definitely winning this trade so far.
Now fully healthy, Luzardo’s back to his 2023 velocity and broke out a new pitch earlier in the year. He still leads with a blazing fastball, averaging 96.8 (3.7 mph harder than the average lefty fastball), but now pairs it with a sweeper that he didn’t have last year. The sweeper’s by far his heaviest used lefty pitch5, with the four-seamer and sinker both picking up the slack there. Righties get a more robust arsenal - primary four-seamer and changeup with the slider, sinker, and the occasional sweeper all playing supporting roles.
Look for the Braves to start Drake Baldwin over Sean Murphy in this one, simply because that’s who Schwellenbach threw to last Friday night against the Marlins and to get his lefty bat in the lineup. More of a limited track record among the Braves regulars here - Riley (.222) and Olson (.167) haven’t really figured him out in eighteen at-bats, but Marcell Ozuna (.300) and Ozzie (.308) seem to be comfortable enough.
Braves hitters need to be better
This all comes down to Atlanta’s hitters.
Listen, Bryce Harper is going to get his. Kyle Schwarber will get his. We all know Philly’s already found some way to manufacture grievance for this outing - “Atlanta says we only won the division because of all their injuries” or something.
But will Olson and Riley and Ozuna get theirs? Can Michael Harris figure out the lefty Luzardo in game three? Can Ozzie Albies make Taijuan Walker uncomfortable in game two? Can anyone hit Wheeler?
Last Saturday night worried me if we’re being honest. There were two different occasions when Atlanta had a runner in scoring position with no outs and the heart of the order up to bat and didn’t score - after Harris led off the game with a double and then in the 8th, after Stuart Fairchild led off the inning with a triple. In the first, Ozzie, Ozuna, and Olson couldn’t even advance Harris to third. In the 8th, neither Harris or Ozuna could even get the ball in play, striking out for the 1st and 3rd outs of the inning. Ozzie hit a harmless grounder to second base for the second out.
No amount of bad batted ball luck can explain that.
This team’s batting .173 with RISP. The heart of the order isn’t doing enough, either - Olson, Ozuna, Ozzie, and Riley are a combined 10-40, which is fine, but not good enough when you consider that six of those ten hits came on Friday night against the Marlins. They’re 4-30 outside of that game.
All winter, I’ve been writing and podcasting about the front office’s belief that when fully healthy, this lineup was closer to 2023’s Team Silver Slugger Award group than 2024’s somewhat anemic offensive lineup.
Prove me right, Atlanta.
For the sake of being fair, Wheeler led the NL in WHIP (0.955) and H/9 (6.3) last season. Also, yes, that’s a footnote on a parenthetical. Hold on to your butts; this one’s off the rails
The loss came on August 20th in Truist Park - he allowed two runs on six hits across six innings in a 3-1 Atlanta win. Reynaldo López was better, though - five innings of one-run ball, striking out ten with only one walk allowed.
For those of you who noticed, yes Walker allowed more earned runs and walks than Wheeler did last season despite throwing 116.1 fewer innings
*boring-ass
Remember, sweepers have the biggest platoon splits of any pitch in baseball, being great against same-handed hitters but not against opposite-handed hitters. Makes sense when you think about the sweeper breaking into their bat path, as opposed to away from it.