Today's Three Things: Pitching and Defense Falter in Ugly Loss to Rangers

The Atlanta Braves followed up last night's thrill of victory with the agony of defeat

The Atlanta Braves dropped an ugly outing to the Texas Rangers 7-6 in Truist Park on Saturday night. The series is now even at one game each ahead of Sunday afternoon’s finale.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Prospect Owen Murphy, making his first career MLB start, allowed a two-strike homer to leadoff man Joc Pederson, but stabilized after that, allowing only two walks before the third.

But sometimes, when you’re a young player being thrust into the majors, that composure can evaporate in an instant.

Texas opened the third inning by getting the #9 hitter on via defensive error. Kyle Higashioka hit a lazy fly ball to the left-center gap, where Michael Harris II camped under it…and promptly dropped it when Marucio Dubón ran into his glove arm while trying to also make the play. (The error was charged to Dubón).

And the complexion of the inning changed after that. With the top of the order back up, four of the first five hitters recorded singles, all off either changeups left too high in the zone or four-seamers that were placed too low in the zone. By the time Murphy got a strikeout of Ezequiel Duran to record the second out, manager Walt Weiss went to Dylan Dodd to clean up the inning and strand the final two runners.

Murphy’s final line was five hits and three runs (two earned) with two walks and two strikeouts. Owen just never really seemed to figure out how to miss bats tonight, getting three whiffs on his slider (in five swings) and just one more, coming on one of the fourteen swings against his fastball. Weirdly, he didn’t really use his curveball or sinker tonight, throwing just one of each (and getting called strikes out of each of them).

Of the eleven balls put into play off of him, four were hard-hit, but several were close, resulting in an average EV allowed of 94.5 mph.

You can see the package and how it could work, but the adrenaline/nerves making him miss towards the center of the zone and the lack of velocity on his fastball (avg 92.8, max 94.6) mean that it’s still a lift to get him to the point where you’re comfortable giving him a regular rotation spot.

Today’s Player of the Game

I’m giving it to Eli White.

Checking into the lineup against a lefty in MacKenzie Gore, White flashed his bona fides to be one of the best qualified fourth outfielders in the league. The speedster, commonly considered the greatest performing player for MLB games staged in the state of Tennessee, took Gore deep in the 2nd inning to stake the Braves to a 2-1 lead.

White’s homer is his 5th of the season, but four of them have come against left-handed pitching. In a season where Mauricio Dubón hasn’t shown his usual prowess against lefties (only a 93 wRC+, compared to his career 111 wRC+ entering this year) and Mike Yastrzemski’s protected from as many lefties as possible, White’s shown to be able to hold the short side of the platoon in the absence of better options.

Not to be a one-trick pony, White also had a sliding catch near the right field line to end the third inning that saved the lead for Atlanta, keeping at least one Texas run off the board. He covered 93 feet at nearly 30 ft/sec to make the catch, proving that you can’t spell “Elite” without “Eli”.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Atlanta’s odd bullpen management tonight, and how it came back to bite them.

Dodd finished the third inning for Murphy and came back out for an uneventful fourth inning. Manager Walt Weiss then inserted youngster JR Ritchie, with many of us thinking he’d cover multiple innings, given that the Braves were up 5-2 at the time.

That was not the case.

Weiss lifted Ritchie after just one scoreless frame, one where he allowed just one hit, to start the leverage pitcher parade with Tyler Kinley. The problem was, no one told Kinley that it was a leverage situation. The righty slider specialist got rocked today, allowing three runs on two hits and a walk while recording only one out. Two of those runs scored on a homer to lefty Evan Carter, coming on a slider in the zone down and in, making it the 7th homer of the season surrendered by Kinley to a southpaw. Dylan Lee was rushed in to relieve Kinley, giving up three hits and being charged with one run before he was finally able to get out of the inning.

As of publication time, we still don’t have any comments from Weiss about the decision to shorten the outing of Ritchie, who wasn’t exactly thriving, but was effective enough to keep runs off the board. It felt at the time, proven right in hindsight, that getting JR Ritchie a second or even third inning would have allowed the Braves to keep some fresh relievers for this stretch of seventeen games in seventeen days.

Weiss’s decision will have lingering repercussions for the finale on Sunday.

Due to Lee needing to rush into the game and taking 18 pitches to get out of the 6th, Atlanta used (in order) Danny Young, Didier Fuentes, and closer Raisel Iglesias for the final three innings of the game. Had it gone to extras, the only options remaining in the pen would have been Victor Mederos (who threw over 30 pitches on Friday) or a starter.

And now, with Grant Holmes having not pitched in the sixth inning of a start since June 3rd and having three of those end prior to him finishing the fifth inning, the Braves will enter the finale with every single pitcher having been used and at least one (Didier Fuentes) likely being completely down for the finale absent a roster move in the morning.

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?

The Braves will attempt to win the series on Sunday afternoon at 1:35 with Grant Holmes (5-4, 3.61) taking on Nathan Eovaldi (9-7, 4.04).