Today's Three Things: Logan Webb Dominates Atlanta in Series-Tying Win
Bryce Elder wasn't great today, but it doesn't matter how bad he was when you get one hit and four total baserunners.
The Atlanta Braves got shut out by the San Francisco Giants 5-0 in Oracle Park on Saturday night, tying the series at one game each.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The third inning.
Atlanta was down 2-0, after Rafael Devers hit a solo shot off of Bryce Elder and Bryce Eldridge scored on a sacrifice fly in the second inning. But Elder was back at work, hoping to keep San Francisco at bay so the Braves could work on figuring out Giants starter Logan Webb.
(Spoiler alert: they never did.)
Bryce Elder opened the 3rd inning by inducing a groundout of #9 hitter Drew Cavanaugh before Luis Arraez and Casey Schmitt both singled to give San Francisco a mini rally. Elder rebounded with a strikeout of Jung Hoo Lee to bring up Devers for the second straight inning, with Elder needing to get past the slugger to get out of the inning unscathed.
He did not.
Elder quickly got ahead 0-2, but couldn’t seem to put Devers away - the first baseman fouled off an in-zone sinker and then saw just barely made contact with an inside cutter for a foul ball instead of a swinging strike. Elder then threw a slider below the zone…but just barely below the zone, with Devers going down to get it and clanging it off the right field foul pole for a three-run homer.
It’s a home run reminiscent of the one Willson Contreras hit off of Elder last month - it was a breaking ball below the zone, but not far enough below the zone to avoid the barrel of an elite power hitter.
Elder was charged with five runs in just four innings, walking one and striking out four. But this wasn’t the same type of blowup as he had against the Brewers last time out. Against Milwaukee, the Brewers just obliterated everything Elder threw in an eight-run second inning. This was almost entirely Rafael Devers’ doing - the Giants finished with just six hits, five coming off of Elder, with Devers driving in four of the five total runs on just two hits. Elder allowed only four hard-hit balls tonight and added an out with a pickoff, although he also had only one ground ball out as compared to three flyballs.
While Elder wasn’t good enough tonight, it was more getting beaten by one specific power hitter rather than just being completely dominated, as he was against the Brewers.
Today’s Player of the Game
The ‘utility pitcher’ appeared for the first time this season out of the bullpen, allowing just one hit and no walks across the final four innings with four strikeouts.
But let’s be clear here: He’s getting the award for giving the bullpen the night off, not for the way he pitched tonight.
If Elder’s night was one that was mostly good enough, outside of getting beat by one specific hitter, Holmes’ outing was one that doesn’t feel repeatable at all. The righty picked up just four whiffs in twenty-two swings, with six of San Francisco’s nine batted balls being hard-hit and his overall average exit velocity allowed being an awful 94.8 mph.
If you replay both pitching performances ten times, the results are likely flipped more often than not and Holmes is the one giving up multiple runs, not Elder.
With Holmes pitching tonight, he’s likely not available for a start early next week versus the Cardinals. Barring a minor league call-up, both Reynaldo López and Hurston Waldrep likely will be among the probable starters versus St. Louis, along with veteran Martín Pérez.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Atlanta’s lack of offensive performance tonight.
The Braves finished with just four baserunners, getting an early double from Mauricio Dubón and three walks. At one point, Logan Webb had retired sixteen straight Atlanta hitters, going seven innings with just the one hit allowed and two walks to six strikeouts.
But again, process over results, right?
Atlanta’s hitters allowed Logan Webb to pick up way too many called strikes, 22, and didn’t challenge any of the many borderline calls in this one, but they also had several hard-hit balls that just didn’t fall. Of Atlanta’s six batted balls with an expected batting average of .460 or greater, exactly one of them fell for a hit, including a lineout on a .810 xBA and groundouts on .530 and .490 xBAs. Atlanta’s average exit velocity off of Webb was 90.5 mph and they had five hard-hit balls, but again, only one hit.
The process for Atlanta’s two starters resulted in fluky results that likely should have been flipped for the two starters and the process against Logan Webb, while flawed, just didn’t have any random variance go their way in what was another quiet and disappointing night for the offense.
But the bright side is this: the last time Atlanta was one-hit shutout multiple times in a season was 2021, and we all know how that one ended.
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’s looking for a series win in a battle of lefties: Chris Sale (8-5, 2.14) takes on Robbie Ray (6-6, 3.70) at 4:05 PM ET.