Atlanta Braves at Miami Marlins preview: Can Ervin Santana bounce back?

The Atlanta Braves ended the skid yesterday with a 3-2 victory in the opening game against the Miami Marlins, and will go for the series victory this afternoon.

Before we jump into the pitching matchups, I saw this interesting stat on twitter:

It’s not often that a team baffles Freddie Freeman entirely, but apparently that’s exactly what the Marlins have done this season. I wouldn’t  look too much into stuff like this, but I did think it was pretty odd. Hopefully Freeman gets out of the funk against the fish today.

On the mound for Atlanta in this one is Ervin Santana, while Jacob Turner gets the call for the Marlins:

Turner: This season probably hasn’t gone the way Turner envisioned in Spring Training. He’s struggling to keep the ball inside the park and because of that is looking at a 5.35 ERA, 4.27 FIP and 3.73 xFIP. Like the latter two numbers suggest, he’s probably been a bit unlucky, but he’s giving up 1.07 homers per nine innings and his HR/FB ratio is a pretty high 15.4 percent. Opposing hitters are also hitting .351 on balls in play. So, there’s hope for Turner if he can start limiting the long balls, but he’s also striking out just 5.08 batters per nine innings.

Santana: The past three starts have been a nightmare for Santana. In those games he’s given up three home runs and 17 runs to push his ERA above 4 and cause some doubt to be cast in his direction. In addition to the home runs, walks have been a bit of a problem for him during this stretch and he needs to make sure he limits the free passes today.

Here are today’s particulars:

Date: May 31, 2014

Start Time: 4:10  PM

TV Channel: SportSouth (Local in the South)

Radio: 680 AM/106.7 FM (Local in Atlanta), Full list of Local Affiliates

Live Stream: MLB.tv (Click Here, $)

Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@ATLBeatBlog) for more information (including all of your Atlanta Braves action), and check back after the game for a full recap. Sound off in the comments!