Today's Three Things: Atlanta Gets Dominated in Ugly Loss to Padres
The Atlanta Braves couldn't seem to get anything going in a loss where the opponent had the same number of home runs as Atlanta had hits
The Atlanta Braves dropped game two to the San Diego Padres by the score of 8-3 in Truist Park on Tuesday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
I’m torn on this one, so we’re going to discuss two of them.
The first is the bottom of the 2nd inning. Atlanta went down quietly in the first against struggling starter Walker Buehler (5.36 ERA entering tonight’s game), mustering just a walk.
But that was an omen of the next frame, with Atlanta pushing Buehler’s pitch count towards the moon from the jump. Michael Harris II grounded out to open the inning, but it took a ten-pitch at-bat, with Harris fouling off seven different pitches before finally getting sawed off on an inside fastball and weakly grounding out to first base.
Mauricio Dubón then immediately drew a four-pitch walk, with all four pitches missing both down and away, before Mike Yastrzemski weakly flew out on a mistake cutter (middle-middle). Brewer Hicklen then drew his own six-pitch walk before Jim Jarvis ripped a triple to the right-center gap, scoring both runners. Drake Baldwin continued the pressure with a five-pitch walk of his own, all up and away, but Ozzie struck out to end the rally and bail out Buehler after a 35-pitch inning.
It was a frustrating escape for a struggling pitcher, one the July version of the Braves offense needed to punish.
The second turning point, this one on the other side of the ball, came in the top of the 4th inning.
Reynaldo López had worked through traffic all game, giving up six singles but allowing only one run thanks to some timely strikeouts, a caught stealing, and a clutch double play.
He’d finally crash the car in the 4th inning.
Jackson Merrill, seeing ReyLo for the second time in the game, led off the frame with a solo homer off a 0-1 curveball that caught too much of the zone. López rebounded with a strikeout of Luis Campusano, but Gavin Sheets walked and advanced to third on a Xander Bogaerts double. Luis Rengifo scored Sheets on a groundout to short on the 2nd pitch, advancing Bogaerts to third, where Fernando Tatis Jr. immediately drove Bogaerts in with a first-pitch double to right. A 2-1 lead became a 4-2 deficit in the span of three pitches, and the Braves wouldn’t score again until the two-run Padres lead had grown to four runs.
Today’s Player of the Game
Despite the loss, we’re still recognizing Jimmy Baseball, Jim Jarvis himself.
Jarvis had two of Atlanta’s four hits today, with the aforementioned triple and then adding a single off a 103 mph Mason Miller fastball in the 9th inning. Jarvis also scored the team’s third run, walking to open the 7th inning, advancing to third on a Matt Olson single, and then being balked in (!) by reliever Bradgley Rodriguez.
Not to be outdone, though, Jarvis also had a hand in several of Atlanta’s double plays tonight. The first, coming on a 100 mph chopper up the middle, looked to be slow enough where all the Braves could do would be to get the out at first. Jarvis made an exceptionally quick transfer to Ozzie in time for the out and allowed a relay throw to first to complete the double play.
The second was again from a Machado chopper, with Jarvis ranging into the hole to make the catch, transfer, and throw quickly enough for Albies to get the jogging Machado at first for a double play, the team’s fourth of the game.
The two transfers, per the MLB Research Tool, came in at 0.53 and 0.57 seconds.
Jarvis then had an unassisted double play in the 9th inning, snagging a liner up the middle and beating the runner on second back to the bag.
As Alex Anthopoulos said on Sunday’s radio appearance, “we knew the defense was elite.”
While it’s not worthy of an honorary Player of the Game award, Austin Riley’s night was worth mentioning. He didn’t collect a hit, not weird for a Braves team that had only four tonight, but he had two very well-struck balls (111.4 and 100.5) that very likely could have fallen for hits (xBAs of .620 and .340). Additionally, his 2nd-inning strikeout was not the usual ‘ugly chase down and away’, but actually a very well-executed elevated slider away, dotted on the outside corner. Similar to the Eli White pickoff last night by Kyle Hart, I’m frustrated it happened, but more inclined to give credit to the pitcher for a fantastic effort than fault the player for getting got by something that was so well executed that it would get most of MLB.
The inning-ending strikeout in the 7th could be quibbled with a bit more - Riley was up 3-0 with a runner on second before fouling off a sinker and two changeups, all inside. You hate the result, but they were well executed and located 91 mph changeups inside - too close to take, but very hard to make quality contact on.
Ultimately, it was another data point if you’re looking for evidence that the mental disconnect Riley got during the All Star Break was helpful and that we’re going to get a much better version during the ‘second half’ of the season.
What You’ll Be Talking About
This team needs pitching.
I don’t really know what Reynaldo López was doing in this one. His slider was fantastic, getting ten whiffs in 15 swings and with the three batted balls in play off of it having an average exit velocity of just 74.2 mph.
But his four-seam fastball, which averaged 95.3 mph and maxed out at 97.7, was torched today. There were ten batted balls off of it in 21 swings (against just three whiffs), with eight of those ten falling for hits. Five batted balls were hard-hit, and the average exit velocity off of the four-seamer was 93.1 mph.
And those were essentially the only pitches he threw today.
Of the 85 total pitches from López, just four were something different, with three curveballs and one changeup. It’s a very strong reliever-like pitch mix, one that isn’t going to work when you turn over a lineup a 2nd and 3rd time.
Additionally, López had some odd locations for the four-seamer, as well, with most of the damage off of it coming when it was thrown middle or lower in the zone. Typically, a backspinning fastball is best when elevated, so that the induced vertical break helps it stay above the barrel of a bat, but whether by design or just poor locations, that’s not what López did with it tonight.
I don’t know if the game plan was to only throw those two pitches and to do it down in the zone, but if it was, maybe rip that one up, yeah? López swapped the usage for the second time through the order, ramping up the slider and dropping the fastball, but by that point the Padres were looking for the early-count fastball down in the zone to set up the slider and were ambushing early. More variety in both pitch usage and locations was needed tonight, and whether it was an intentional game plan or poor pitch calling by Drake Baldwin, Atlanta didn’t find the variety.
JR Ritchie took the bulk of the innings left in this one, and actually looked decently impressive in the outing. He struck out four in his 3.2 innings, mostly thanks to his curveball (six whiffs on eight swings), and other than a costly two-run absolute BOMB by Fernando Tatis Jr. in the 8th, managed to keep San Diego’s offense at bay.
That Tatis homer went 474 feet, the longest homer in baseball this season and among the ballpark’s longest since it opened in 2017.
Ritchie threw 68 pitches for his 3.2 innings, meaning he is almost certainly being optioned down to Gwinnett tomorrow morning. With that being his fourth option to the minors (and given that the MLB limit in a single season is five), we might not see Ritchie again for a while, assuming he’s not traded at the deadline.
Tyler Kinley, who once pitched leverage innings, instead was given the 9th inning with Atlanta down by five runs. He faltered a bit, giving up a leadoff double at 104.2 mph off the bat of Ty France, but Jim Jarvis bailed him out with an unassisted double play and then a strikeout ended the inning without further damage.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves are activating injured lefty Martín Pérez (6-6, 3.54 ERA) off the IL for tomorrow night’s start. He’ll be opposed by Michael King (6-7, 3.34) at 7:15 PM ET.