Today's Three Things: Braves Pitching Falters in Series Opening Loss to Miami

We were the fish food tonight, as Atlanta's bullpen was tagged for seven runs in just six innings of work

The Atlanta Braves dropped their series opener to the Miami Marlins, 10-4, in Truist Park on Monday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

I’m going to go with the bottom of the 5th here.

With Miami holding a 6-3 lead (more on how they got there in a moment), Atlanta was looking to tie it up for the second straight inning and started off well - Ronald Acuña Jr. hit a leadoff single and Drake Baldwin drew a walk to give Matt Olson two on and no outs.

But the Marlins went away from starter Eury Pérez, taking the lefty out and replacing him with reliever Andrew Nardi, and the contrast from the flamethrowing righty Pérez to the low-90s lefty Nardi was too much for Atlanta to handle. After Matt Olson struck out, both runners advanced into scoring position on a passed ball by catcher Liam Hicks but Atlanta could only get one home, that coming via groundout to the right side.

The Marlins went on to score three more runs in the top of the sixth to put this one away, adding another insurance run in the 8th for an easy win.

Today’s Player of the Game

Some may balk at the idea of a player of the game in a loss, but we’re still doing it. The Postcast audience voted and the winner was Matt Olson.

Olson went 2-5 tonight, one of just two Braves hitters to collect more than one knock in a nine-hit night for Atlanta. He waited out Pérez in the fourth inning, getting up 3-0 and then ambushing the first pitch he saw in the strike zone for a single, eventually coming around to score on a Mike Yastrzemski single two batters later. He then picked up his second hit in the 9th on a 108.3 mph ground ball to center, although was thrown out at second as part of a game-ending double play in the very next at-bat.

Even the POTG had his struggles tonight, though. The strikeout I referenced in the bottom of the 5th was a strikeout looking on a center-cut slider.

What You’ll Be Talking About

It was not Atlanta’s night on the mound.

Grant Holmes was cruising for the first three innings of the game, perfect with two strikeouts and a surprising six groundouts…before completely falling apart in the fourth. After he lost the perfect game on a single to the leadoff batter, he then walked back-to-back batters to load the bases with no outs. Miami brought all three runners in, one via a sacrifice fly and two more via single. Holmes eventually got out of the fourth thanks to a flyout and a strikeout, but wouldn’t return for the 5th inning after throwing 30 pitches in his final frame. He had 10 whiffs (nine on the slider) and a 25% CSW, but the walks, as walks are wont to do, doomed him in the fourth.

Aaron Bummer relieved Holmes and immediately had some trouble of his own, inducing a groundball to start the inning that made it through the Braves defense to put a runner on. From there, another groundball single put two on for slugger Agustín Ramírez, who deposited the second of back-to-back in-zone curveballs into the left-center seats to push Miami’s lead back to three runs.

Prospect Rolddy Muñoz, called up on Monday to give the pen another long man, promptly gave up a solo homer on the first pitch he threw of the sixth inning. Muñoz would then give up a single, with that runner coming all the way around to score after a steal, a flyout, and a 67 mph single that died in the infield grass short of third base. A third run came around to score on a ground ball that deflected off Muñoz and died at Ozzie Albies’ glove. Even José Suarez, who came in to pitch the final two innings in what became a blowout was tagged for a run on four hits.

It was a classic “two things can be true at once” loss here - yeah, Atlanta’s pitchers got BABIP’d to death at times, but they also didn’t help themselves. Holmes lost his command in the 4th, while Bummer’s diminished stuff (he averaged just 90.4 mph on his fastball tonight) and Muñoz’s misses coming back over the plate meant they gave Miami too many pitches to hit.

I’m also beginning to wonder about the state of Atlanta’s left-handed relievers. After Dylan Lee, who remains solid and reliable, it feels like Bummer can’t be trusted in any sort of leverage situation and Dylan Dodd’s ability to handle those higher leverage moments is also an unknown. Barring either bummer regaining both his velocity and the coaching staff’s trust or the emergence of someone from Atlanta’s farm system, the Braves might be looking for a left-handed reliever at this year’s trade deadline.

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 2

Atlanta finally executed the Antoan Richardson timing-based steal tonight. In that fourth inning, both Austin Riley and Mike Yastrzemski stole second base. The caveat here is that there was a runner on third both times, so the defense wasn’t necessarily selling out to prevent the stolen base, but it still happened.

Riley’s steal was more of a standard steal, but Yastrzemski got the early jump and made the steal into an entirely non-competitive affair.

Here’s a middle-home shot of Eury Pérez releasing the ball as Yastrzemski is already three-fourths of the way to second base, having been in the frame for most of Perez’s pitching motion:

And here’s the high home camera, where you can see Yastrzemski start to get his secondary lead and then just…continue on to second, relying on the tell of Perez that Richardson identified to make it without a throw.

I’m personally excited for the Braves to integrate this more into their offense. In this inning, it was a huge help in eliminating the double play both times - in one of the two at-bats in which the steal was done, a ground ball was hit to the right side that potentially could have resulted in an inning-ending double play.

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 win/loss.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves will attempt to tie the series back up on Tuesday night, sending Reynaldo López (1-0, 1.15) to the mound opposite Marlins righty Max Meyer (1-0, 3.86). First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 PM on BravesVision.