Today’s Three Things: Mauricio Dubón and the Bullpen Power Braves Over Pirates

The Atlanta Braves took down the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-3 in Truist Park on Friday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 5th for Atlanta.

The Braves entered the frame having had opportunities to get to Pirates starter Mitch Keller, but not being able to get the crooked number on the board. They did it in this frame.

Michael Harris II started off with a line drive back up the middle, coming on the first pitch, before Matt Olson did the same thing on a center-cut sinker.

Ozzie Albies perhaps tried to do too much, flying out to the warning track on a changeup down, but after that, Atlanta went back to the simple approach. Mauricio Dubón, as he tends to do, shortened up his swing and shot an upper rail fastball down the right field line for a double, scoring Harris from 2nd. Dom Smith followed that up by going down to get a changeup below the zone and hitting a sac fly to center, allowing Matt Olson to score from third. The final run of the inning came from none other than Austin Riley, who got a sweeper that caught too much of the zone and shot it out to center for his own RBI double.

That spelled the end of the night for Mitch Keller, who battled but just couldn’t overcome all the batted ball contact. He finished with six runs on seven hits and three walks, striking out four in his 99 pitches but also allowing a homer.

Today’s Player of the Game

The Mitch Keller home run was surrendered to none other than Mauricio Dubón, his third in the last three games. The Postcast chat rewarded him with his third POTG award in that same stretch.

The homer was in the 3rd inning, where Dubón got a hanging curveball and didn’t miss it, pulling it to left at 101.2 off the bat. (This was the first time in Dubón’s career he’s hit three homers in three consecutive games.) The homer cashed in an Ozzie Albies walk, which he drew on five pitches immediately before Dubón came to the plate.

After tonight’s RBI double, Dubón is batting an absurd .353/.411/.608 (184 wRC+) with 30 RBI in 56 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. While RISP isn’t a direct correlation for clutch performance - FanGraphs has a separate leaderboard for performance in leverage situations I plan to dive into and compare with the team’s RISP stats next week - but Dubón’s noteworthy approach change in those situations makes it apparent that this is a sustainable skill for the utilityman.

What You’ll Be Talking About

With all due respect to Atlanta’s offense tonight, I can’t get over what the pitching did in this one. Martín Pérez allowed three runs in his five innings, coming on just three hits. All three of those hits and runs came in the third inning, where he allowed a leadoff walk, a double, a sac fly, and two more singles.

In the game, Pérez’s 13 balls in play came out to an average of just 81.2 mph, with the only two hard-hit balls being the first two hits of the third inning. It’s a remarkable achievement for a changeup-dominant pitcher who averaged just 88.8 on his fastball tonight and maxed out at 90.0 mph. While he’s usually not good for more than five innings or shutout outings, he’s proven to be pretty reliable as a backend starter that can five-and-dive while keeping you in the game.

After Pérez, Atlanta executed their high-leverage pitching plan. Didier Fuentes, Dylan Lee, and Robert Suarez all pitched scoreless innings to get things to the 9th, combining for only one strikeout but also allowing no hits or walks. Raisel Iglesias was a bit shaky in the 9th, allowing a base hit and a walk, but got out of it for his 30th consecutive save opportunity converted (dating back to last season).

The backend quartet of Fuentes, Lee, Suarez, and Iglesias have pitched more than 100 combined innings this season with an ERA of just 0.99. Add in that Tyler Kinley appears to have regained a lower limb perch in the Bullpen Tree of Trust and Atlanta’s relief corps is as deep and strong as it’s always been.

What You’ll Be Talking About 2: Electric Boogaloo

Michael Harris II was removed from tonight’s game for the start of the 9th inning, with Eli White going in to play defense for the final half-inning. Manager Walt Weiss said after the game that it was some mild back soreness for Harris, per friend-of-the-program Chad Bishop of the AJC, and that Harris would likely be available and in the lineup for Saturday’s game.

Jake and I discussed this on the Postcast, but with Atlanta’s lead in the NL East being 8.5 games and the team currently being 22 games over .500, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he gets the day off as a precaution.

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 has a late afternoon start for game two of the series, with Spencer Strider (3-1, 3.77) taking on Braxton Ashcraft (5-2, 2.77) at 4:10 PM ET.