Today's Three Things: Braves Take Down Blue Jays in Series Opener
The Atlanta Braves figured out old friend Kevin Gausman, despite his best efforts to surprise them at the plate.
The Atlanta Braves won a close battle against the Toronto Blue Jays 4-3 in Truist Park on Tuesday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Jake and I disagreed on this on the Postcast, but I saw the top of the 6th as a pivotal point of the game.
Elder entered the frame trying to protect a 3-2 lead, but Toronto started threatening immediately. Nathan Lukes singled on a 3-2 slider that hung a bit too much, with Vlad Guerrero Jr. then doubling on a 1-0 changeup on the inner third and down.
Runners on 2nd and 3rd, no outs. Given that Elder had already gone five, this is a moment where manager Walt Weiss would not have been out of character to pull Elder and ask one of his lockdown relievers to get out of the jam and preserve the lead.
Weiss, however, chose to trust Elder.
Elder gave up a sacrifice fly to Daulton Varsho (which tied the game at three) but then got Ernie Clement to ground out and Yohendrick Piñango to fly out.
To Jake’s point, the 7th inning had a similar jam, one that Elder didn’t survive. After a leadoff walk of Kazuma Okamoto (who already had a two-run homer in the game), Elder got a groundout and a strikeout before Robert Suarez entered for a crucial inning-ending strikeout of George Springer.
Today’s Player of the Game
By the closest vote we’ve ever had on the postcast - 45% to 44% - Bryce Elder narrowly beat out Matt Olson for the honors.
Elder finished with a quality start, allowing three earned runs across 6.2 innings pitched. He struck out six against only one walk, getting 12 whiffs (7 on his slider) and putting up a 26% CSW. Elder seemed to have the most trouble putting hitters away, getting first pitch strikes on 19 of the 27 hitters he faced, but not always being able to win the at-bat.
It was an interesting game plan from Elder to minimize the sinker in a game where he faced a team that was one of the league’s best at making contact and avoiding strikeouts. He threw just 17 of the groundball-inducing offering in his 103 pitches, choosing instead to lead with the four-seamer against lefties and pair it with the slider.
I’m really curious to see how Elder continues to evolve over the next two months. As the conversation continues about ‘impact starters’ and the postseason rotation as we approach the August 3rd trade deadline, Elder’s going to need to make his case that he has the stuff to be one of those three October starters.
What You’ll Be Talking About
With all due respect to Robert Saurez and Raisel Iglesias, who pitched 2.1 scoreless innings in relief to seal the win, let’s talk about the offense.
It’s clear that opposing starters are game-planning and adjusting what they do to face Atlanta. In The Scouting Report earlier today, we discussed how Kevin Gausman almost exclusively throws fastballs and splitters, reserving his slider for mostly early-count situations to righties.
That’s not what Gausman did tonight. The righty threw 23% sliders his first time through the order, with several Braves hitters clearly expecting splitters in late-count situations and being forced to react to the breaking ball instead.
But despite one of baseball’s best veteran pitchers making an attempt to throw the Braves off, Atlanta’s offense adjusted and found a way to get it done. Atlanta had eight hard-hit balls in 15 batted ball events, compared to Toronto’s eight hard-hit balls in 20 BBEs. The Braves finished with six runs for the game, five of which came off of Gausman, and had four extra-base hits among the five hits. Atlanta’s average exit velocity off of Gausman was 93.9 mph, just a shade below the threshold of hard-hit (95 mph).
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 come back to Truist Park at the same time tomorrow for game two, with Grant Holmes (3-2, 3.95) set to take on Patrick Corbin (2-1, 3.65) at 7:15 PM ET.