Today's Three Things: Miami's Reminded of the Need to Respect Your Elder

The Atlanta Braves took down the Miami Marlins 4-1 in Truist Park on Wednesday night, pushing their winning streak to a season-best seven games.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The top of the fifth inning.

Bryce Elder had been cruising, having not allowed a hit and only walking one, while sitting on top of a three-run lead. Miami immediately challenged it, though.

After a leadoff groundout, slugger Owen Caissie fouled off three potential strike threes en route to an eight-pitch walk, with Elder just missing below the zone on a changeup.

Jakob Marsee battled Elder as well, getting a softly-hit double to left on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, an upper rail cutter that caught too much of the middle of the plate.

Second and third, one out, tying run coming to the plate in the form of rookie catcher Joe Mack. No worries, as Elder sawed him off on a groundout to second, with the team trading an out for a run. Elder then got a flyout of Javier Sanoja to end the inning.

(Runner-up was the eighth inning: after two one-out singles, Dylan Dodd got a flyout to get a second out and then Didier Fuentes came in and used one pitch to get the inning-ending ground out.)

Today’s Player of the Game

With a whopping 96% of the postcast’s vote, it’s Bryce Elder.

Elder didn’t allow his first hit until one out in the fifth, ultimately being charged with one run on that one hit across seven innings. He struck out three and walked two, lowering his ERA to 3.69. This was his 13th quality start of the season, tying Chris Sale for the most on the roster and at 8th for all of MLB.

Elder had increased his sinker usage recently (at the expense of the slider), but today was a different game plan - the cutter. Elder threw a season-high 29% of them (almost double his season average of 15%), getting only one whiff but also not allowing any hard-hit balls in play.

While he did give up six hard-hit balls overall (three on the sinker), all but two were on the ground and resulted in outs. Of his batted balls, he recorded nine groundouts to just five flyouts.

Is it safe to say that the version of Elder from down the stretch last year and early this year is back? That’s now three quality starts in his last four outings, albeit while still running an abnormally low BABIP that’s likely going to regress towards the mean at some point.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Outside of Bryce Elder, where the offense came from tonight probably deserves a bit of attention.

Atlanta picked up their four runs on eight hits, not hitting a single homer and having only two extra-base hits. Both were doubles, and ground rule ones at that, and both were good pieces of hitting.

Austin Riley’s double was shot down the left field line, coming after he pulled his hands in to catch up to 98 inside. It wasn’t a jam shot, either: 109.5 mph off the bat. Riley’s now hitting .303/.352/.545 since the All-Star Break with 13 RBI.

Michael Harris had the other double, this one coming on an 0-1 sinker middle-away, and he drove it to the opposite gap at 101.2 mph off the bat.

In all, the Braves weren’t daunted by the velocity of Eury Pérez, making him use 91 pitches for just five innings and hanging four runs and seven hits off the righty. They also didn’t ground out for Pérez even once, getting most of their batted balls either in the air or through the infield defense. (It wasn’t all copacetic, though - he did strike out nine Braves).

For not hitting a single home run, it wasn’t a bad night.

What I’ll Be Talking About

This winning streak was fueled by the pitching, which has now gotten a 2.88 ERA from the rotation since the All-Star Break.

The conversations about October aren’t going away, however, based on how Atlanta is doing this. The rotation’s strikeout rate is 23.5%, which is 12th in this stretch, but almost entirely being carried by Chris Sale and his 38.2% strikeout rate.

But we’re starting to see signs that the Braves may be able to find strikeouts from other places, if needed. Dylan Dodd, who struggled a bit tonight, has a 33% strikeout rate since the ASB. Didier Fuentes, who bailed Dodd out of the 8th, came back and pitched a scoreless ninth inning with two strikeouts for his second career save.

Fuentes has now been used for more than three outs in five of his last seven outings, and today was more diversified with his pitch mix thanks to having Sean Murphy behind the plate - he threw 16% splitter and 16% slider, not just mainlining 99 mph fastballs until he ended his outing.

I’m starting to wonder if the Braves keep pushing Fuentes a bit farther down the stretch; not enough to fully stretch him out, but getting him to the point where he’s comfortable with two or even three “ups” (where a pitcher finishes an inning, sits down on the bench, and then gets back up to go out and pitch again). Being able to get nine outs from Fuentes goes a long way to covering for the lack of a postseason starter acquisition at the deadline, especially if he can do it twice in the same series thanks to off days.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, where I went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta has the chance to go for their second consecutive sweep tomorrow night at 7:15 PM, with Martín Pérez (7-6, 3.24) taking on Jansen Junk (5-6, 4.58) on BravesVision.