Today's Three Things: The Bad Bryce Elder Bails Out Brewers in Series Finale
The Atlanta Braves didn't get the sweep thanks to the bad version of Bryce Elder, who got blown up in an eight-run second inning.
The Atlanta Braves dropped the series finale against the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-4, in Truist Park on Sunday afternoon.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Clearly, it was the 2nd inning.
Bryce Elder came in the start needing a good outing, and he started off well, getting two strikeouts looking in the first frame. But things quickly turned in the second, after Elder gave up back-to-back singles to open the inning and then both runners advanced to scoring position on a groundout.
Sal Frelick brought both runners in on a double, and at this point, all the batted balls were of the “good piece of hitting” type, not the “bad location” type - all four batted balls were on the black somewhere, with a hitter going out or up or down to get them and make quality contact.
But that’s when the location issues started for Elder. Cooper Pratt grounded out to short for the second out, on a hanging sinker. David Hamilton actually got a bad location, with Elder leaving a slider at the knees and on the inner third, but managed to go down and shoot it into the left-center gap for another double, one that scored Frelick from second. Christian Yelich than rebounded from being down 0-2 to draw a walk, with Elder being unable to spot and sinkers or cutters inside and down to the DH, before Jackson Chourio singled on an elevated slider. Brice Turang then singled on a hanging slider before William Contreras homered on an inside sinker, painted on the black and thigh-high, capping the eight-run inning.
Still, somehow Elder rebounded, finishing six innings with no more runs allowed and giving up just five singles and a walk (but no runs.). His ERA is now up to 3.71. Elder getting through six meant that the Braves could turn to Reynaldo López for the final three innings, which he got through with just one unearned run allowed on one hit and one walk. Throwing 58 pitches and averaging 95.3 mph on his four-seam fastball, it’s possible that López could continue to stretch out for either the longman role or a move back to the rotation if needed.
For Elder, it’s the third blowup start in the last five outings. He had a 1.97 ERA on April 27th, going into a start on the road in Boston. Since then: 22 innings, 24 runs on 34 hits (five homers) and seven walks. That's an ERA of 9.82.
The real Bryce Elder likely isn’t the 1.97 ERA version we saw earlier this season, but it likely also is not the 9.82 version of the last five starts. The question for the Braves is two-fold: Can they figure out what’s going wrong for Elder right now (Jake wondered aloud on the postcast if Elder was tipping his pitches somehow) and can they get him to the point where they’re comfortable if they need to throw him in October? The first one’s entirely possible, but I’m not sure the second one will be, given the underlying stuff.
Today’s Player of the Game
In the absence of a poll on the postcast, I’m giving it to Mauricio Dubón.
Starting in left field and leading off today, Dubón was an offensive catalyst from the very first inning. Getting a ground rule double to start the game, he advanced to third on a Drake Baldwin groundout to second and scored on a sacrifice fly from Ozzie Albies. He added two more singles later in the contest, finishing with a 3-4 day without any strikeouts. The Braves had just seven hits today, but not for lack of trying on Dubón’s part.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Outside of Elder’s performance today, I think it’s the rotation outlook in general. Excluding Chris Sale, there are major questions about the viability of every single rotation option, with several either having poor ERAs as starters or with significant deltas in their actual ERA and where the estimators project they should be.
It’s been somewhat common wisdom that the Braves need to target a starting pitcher at the deadline, but the difficulty is identifying that player and understanding what cost the Braves should accept to get one. Who are the ‘untouchable’ prospects, and are the remaining names good enough to get a player of the caliber that Atlanta needs? What caliber does that pitcher need to be, and will they even be able to answer that question until Hurston Waldrep and AJ Smith-Shawver and Spencer Schwellenbach and Spencer Strider are either back or confirmed not to be?
The continued mediocrity of the American League and the excellence of the National League are making this discussion even more difficult, as there are very few clear and obvious buyers and sellers already sorted into their respective lanes.
More on this in the coming days, on both the newsletter and the podcast.
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 are heading to the airport - they’ll fly to San Diego tonight in advance of Monday night’s series opener against the San Diego Padres. Here are the announced pitching matchups for the series:
Mon: Grant Holmes vs Michael King
Tue: JR Ritchie vs TBA (Griffin Canning would line up for this one)
Wed: Martín Pérez vs Randy Vásquez