Braves To Face Pirates Back At The Ted

The 10-game West Coast road trip is over!  The Atlanta Braves (26-27) will face the Pittsburgh Pirates at home for a three game set starting tonight.  Never have I been more excited to see our boys playing at The Ted.  It was awful staying up past 1AM watching our bullpen blow leads.  Hopefully the Braves have left their bad luck on the west coast as Pittsburgh is a very good ball club.

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The Pirates enter tonight’s game with a 29-24 record and winners of 8 of their last 10.  Andrew McCutchen is on an absolute tear the last 28 days (.386 AVG, 5 HR, 20 RBI, .467 OBP).  While Bryce Harper has been the NL MVP through the season’s first two months, Cutch has already won an MVP Award is one of the most electrifying centerfielders I have ever seen.  A white-hot Andrew McCutchen is the last thing our pitching staff needs to deal with at the moment.  Also, it’s going to seem weird because he doesn’t have his trademarked dreadlocks anymore.

Atlanta and Pittsburgh are both middle of the pack offensively in baseball.  Across the board, these former NLCS rivals are spitting images of each at the plate.  Atlanta has a .252 team batting average.  Pittsburgh is light years better at a .253 mark.  Pittsburgh has scored two more runs this season than Atlanta (PIT 214, ATL 212).  The Braves actually do a slightly better job of getting on bases than the Pirates (ATL .315 OBP, PIT .311).

May 30, 2015; San Diego, CA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen (22) hits an RBI double during the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Where Pittsburgh is clearly better than the Braves is in the pitching department.  The Pirates have the better rotation (PIT 2.9 WAA, ATL 0.6 WAA) and the far superior bullpen (PIT 0.8 WAA, ATL -2.0 WAA).  The Pirates’ pitching staff has won them 3.5 more games than an average team and the Braves’ staff has cost them 2.6 games.  And there lies your difference in record between these two teams with playoff aspirations.

Tonight’s starters are Williams Perez (1-0, 2.66 ERA) for Atlanta and Charlie Morton (2-0, 1.93 ERA) for Pittsburgh.  Perez has pitched sensationally for the Braves since joining the starting rotation May 20th.  He has an ERA of 1.00 in his first three big league starts.  Perez might have staying power in the Atlanta rotation, but the 4 BB’s in his last start against San Francisco is a little concerning.

Since recovering from hip surgery, Morton has been terrific in his first two starts of the season for Pittsburgh. He has gone seven innings in both starts and has a 0.86 WHIP on the year.  While Morton has only 5 K’s on the year, he is getting a ton of ground outs this season.  For every fly ball out recorded by Morton, he has induced 10.67 ground ball outs.  His GO/AO ratio is off the chart, given that he is usually around 1 or 2 instead of 10.67.  Looks like somebody learned how to throw a sinker/splitter.

Tomorrow night will feature Julio Teheran (4-2, 4.87 ERA) against Jeff Locke (3-3, 5.34 ERA).  Both former NL All-Stars have not pitched well in 2015.  In his last two starts, Julio Teheran has 8.45 ERA (11 ER in 10.1 IP).  He was the only Braves starter to not have a good west coast road trip.  Locke has an ERA of 6.38 and a WHIP of 1.75 in his last seven starts.  He’s having some control issues, as he’s walked a lot of batter so far in 2015 (24 BB in 55.2 IP).

Jun 1, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Alex Wood (40) throws in the first inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

And on Sunday’s series finale, Alex Wood (4-2, 3.19 ERA) gets to pitch against bona fide Pirates ace Gerrit Cole (8-2, 1.90).  Gerrit Cole is in that same discussion with Shelby Miller and Zack Greinke as the NL’s early season Cy Young contenders.  Cole has gone at least seven innings in each of his last three starts.  His K/BB ratio during that stretch is incredible (28 K: 3 BB).  He’s becoming that ace that’s going to get Pittsburgh over the top someday very soon.

Wood has also pitched very well in his last three starts, going at least seven innings in each of them as well.  While he’s not striking out batters at the rate Gerrit Cole is, Wood has allowed just one earned run in each of his last three starts.  He mentioned in a locker room interview the other day that an adjustment during a bullpen session and it is really allowing to pitch his best baseball.  And he’s going to need to pitch his best baseball if he wants to beat Gerrit Cole.

I think if the pitching staff can avoid walking batters in front of Andrew McCutchen and the Braves’ bats stay alive like they have been last the five games, Atlanta could take 2 of 3 from the Pirates at home this weekend.  It will be very tough to beat Cole but the Braves did find a way to beat both Greinke and Madison Bumgarner on the west coast road trip. So there is evidence that Fredi Gonzalez’s team can beat an elite NL pitcher.  We just can let our bullpen beats us anymore.  John Hart, make some moves, man.  Taking two of three from the Pirates will get us back over .500 and I like being over .500.  So glad the team is finally home!  Go Braves!