Today's Three Things: Bryce Elder Dominates as Braves Win Series on Sunday

The Atlanta Braves took down the Los Angeles Dodgers to win their series, but weathered some scary moments to get there

The Atlanta Braves took down the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-2 in UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The victory in the finale gives them the series win, as well as securing a 6-3 West Coast road trip for the Braves.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 6th inning.

Starter Bryce Elder entered the frame on absolute cruise control. After a first-inning single to Andy Pages and a walk to Max Muncy, Elder retired the side in each of the next four innings, facing just the minimum.

The sixth started off the same way - Elder got a strikeout looking of Alex Freeland and induced a flyout by Shohei Ohtani…but then got into trouble. In thirteen pitches, Elder walked all three batters to load the bases. Only the first batter of the three even saw a strike, with Freddie Freeman taking a 3-0 fastball for a called strike.

Atlanta called a mound visit after the second walk, buying time for the bullpen, and quickly had to go to Robert Suarez after the third walk was issued. Suarez was clearly not ready, getting down 3-1 to Max Muncy, but the high-leverage righty battled back and induced a towering fly ball to right field. Outfielder Eli White raced to the wall and made the catch at full speed, crashing to the padding but holding on to end the inning and preserve Elder’s shutout.

The decision to go to Suarez deserves some flowers for Walt Weiss. Last season, when the bullpen had mostly predetermined pitching plans for each game, this likely would have been Tyler Kinley entering to take care of Muncy. (Fun fact: Muncy hit a homer off of Kinley later in the contest.) But Walt Weiss went with one of his best high-leverage arms in Suarez, asking him for one out and then bringing him back for the 7th inning (which he got through mostly without incident).

Today’s Player of the Game

By a narrow margin, Bryce Elder won the Player of the Game from the live chat of the Postcast.

Minus the walks in the fifth inning, Elder was superb - 5.2 scoreless innings with one hit allowed, walking four and striking out eight. The way he did it deserves some attention.

Elder’s historically been a sinker/slider guy, but his best-performing pitch today was the four-seam fastball. Both it and the slider drew ten swings, with the four-seamer getting five whiffs to the slider’s four as well as a higher CSW (36% to 33%). The contact off of each pitch was better, with Elder allowed two hard-hit batted balls off the slider and three non-hard-hit batted balls off the fastball.

Elder finished with fifteen whiffs and a 33% CSW overall, getting swing and miss on all five of his pitches. He cut back on the cutter usage a bit today, throwing only 6 of them (7% usage) when he normally sits about 12% per start, but his changeup was working and he gave the extra usage to it instead.

Today’s outing drops Elder’s ERA to a stellar 1.81, currently the fifth-best mark in baseball for qualified starters ahead of the Sunday night game. HIS ERA estimators (FIP, SIERA, xERA) still how a pitcher that’s slightly overperforming, but even regression to the mean would put him solidly into the #3 bucket with a high 2s or low 3s ERA.

What You’ll Be Talking About

With respect to very real and valid questions about the struggles of Tyler Kinley recently, the discussion is likely about Atlanta’s potential injuries coming out of this one.

Eli White stayed in the game after the above catch, striking out for the 2nd out of the top of the 7th inning, but was later removed after complaining of head pain and is currently being evaluated for a concussion.

Given how solidly he hit the wall, I get it.

But that wasn’t all. Sean Murphy was hit with a catcher’s interference after his glove was contacted by a swing from Dodgers shortstop Hyeseong Kim in the bottom of the 7th.

Murphy was later pinch-hit for by Dominic Smith in the 9th, and the Braves announced after the game that he was given an X-ray on his glove hand. Kim’s bat caught him on one of the fingers; initial x-rays didn’t show an obvious break and manager Walt Weiss said that Murphy would likely be fine. With the team not facing another lefty starter until Wednesday, the backstop has time to rest his hand.

The third potential injury was to Mike Yastrzemski. Checking in for White late and being asked to face a lefty, Yastrzemski took a 94 mph fastball to the helmet off of Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski.

Here’s another angle of the scary HBP:

The pitch apparently clipped Yaz’s shoulder before hitting his helmet, and the rightfielder stayed in the game to run the bases and play defense in the bottom half of the inning. Per the Braves beat in Los Angeles, Yastrzemski said he felt fine after the game.

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?

Atlanta is flying home for a Monday off day before starting a six-game homestand at Truist Park. Here are the matchups for the first series, coming against the Chicago Cubs.

Tues: Grant Holmes vs Colin Rea
Wed: JR Ritchie vs LHP Shota Imanaga
Thur: Chris Sale vs Ben Brown