<img alt="Atlanta Braves v Pittsburgh Pirates" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r4h4YWQK7ot4539LlTWBlNxOa-Q=/393x0:3000x1738/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73432673/2154141208.0.jpg">
Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images
The Braves will try to secure a winning June by taking a series from the middling Pirates After a seven-game road trip that started out quite promising (series win at Yankee Stadium against MLB’s best team at the time) but turned quite gross (series loss in St. Louis, loss of a makeup game to the White Sox), the Braves will return home and try to secure a winning month in a three-game set with the Pirates. At 12-12, the Braves need a series win for their second winning month of the year; if they lose the series by dropping two of the three games, they’ll simply end up with June replicating May (13-14).
For the Braves, it’s been a bit of whiplash in recent weeks. They won three straight series at one point, as part of a broader 8-2 stretch. In that span, from June 13 through June 23, the bats put together a .349 wOBA with a .327 xwOBA. The reason why I bring this up is because, for the whole season, the Braves have the same .327 xwOBA, but with a .313 wOBA. In that span, they had 29 barrels, of which 20 were hits, and 16 were homers. Those rates, 69 percent and 55 percent, respectively, greatly exceed their seasonal rates of 61 and 37 percent, which also helps to explain that streak of good play. The league as a whole is at 68 percent and 45 percent, respectively, and the Braves getting absolutely shafted on barrels in St. Louis and Chicago over the last four games again goes a long way towards explaining why it feels like the offense has returned to underperforming.
For the Pirates, well, it’s been a positive June after a less-positive start to the year. Now 39-41, the Pirates have hovered in that vaguely below .500 area for the last two months, unable to string together much of anything either way. They had a nice little stretch at the beginning of June where they took series from the Dodgers and Twins, but haven’t really been able to build on it. They are 5-2 in series played fully in June, but none of those has been a sweep, so they’re 13-10 in the month so far.
On the season, the Pirates have one of MLB’s worst position-player units (totaling just 2.2 fWAR so far) that has struggled both offensively and defensively. They’ve been a better, if still average, pitching staff. The offense has been a little better in June, and the pitching’s really taken off thanks to the dynamic duo of Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller, which explains how they’re over .500 for the month.
The Braves lost a series to the Pirates in late May, dropping the first two games before winning the finale. In completely unsurprising fashion given that it’s been happening for most of the season at this point, the Braves out-xwOBAed the Pirates in two of the games, but got blown out in one of those two games anyway. The Braves substantially out-wOBAed and out-xwOBAed the Pirates for the series, yet still lost it. They’ll hope for a less sadly predictable outcome this time around.
Friday, June 28, 7:20 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Martin Perez (11 GS, 57 1⁄3 IP, 114 ERA-, 118 FIP-, 111 xFIP-, one of the worst xERAs)
Perez has failed to clear 1 fWAR despite being reasonably healthy in three of the past four years (including 2020), and it’s looking like 2024 might result in another fifth starter-esque season for the veteran left-hander. That said, Perez will make this start under somewhat strange circumstances: he left his most recent start after three innings with a groin injury and will be making his return to the mound on Friday, meaning that his entire Injured List stint will be bookended by starts against the Braves.
In that injury-shortened outing, Perez managed a 2/2 K/BB ratio and was charged with a single non-homer run in three innings. Before that game, he had allowed eight homers in four starts, after beginning the season having allowed just one homer in his first six outings.
Charlie Morton (14 GS, 79 1⁄3 IP, 102 ERA-, 101 FIP-, 101 xFIP-, xERA somewhat above ERA)
Charlie Morton’s age-40 season is going pretty much how you’d expect for a solid hurler reaching the twilight of his career: he’s basically been average. While some guys achieve average by giving you a reasonable effort every time out, that hasn’t been quite how Morton has gotten there this year. Instead, he’s had six outings with an FIP- below 80 and four with an FIP- above 120. His 14 starts can also be diced into four with an xFIP- below 80, seven with an xFIP- between 80 and 120, and three with an xFIP- above 120. Basically, sometimes he’s really good, like his 8/2 K/BB ratio in six innings against the Rays two starts ago, and sometimes he’s really bad, like his 5/4 K/BB ratio with a homer allowed in 5 2⁄3 innings against the Yankees last time out. Sure, he’ll be average quite often, but the tails are fat. Let’s hope his pitches aren’t.
Once traded from the Braves to the Pirates, Morton hasn’t faced this former team of his since the 2022 season, when he dominated them with a 12-strikeout outing that also featured two bombs off him in a blowout win. That’s actually the only time Morton has ever faced the Pirates, so this will be his second-ever career start against them.
Saturday, June 29, 4:10 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Paul Skenes (8 GS, 46 1⁄3 IP, 52 ERA-, 64 FIP-, 58 xFIP-, xERA a bit above FIP)
If you don’t know about Paul Skenes, I don’t think this preview blurb is going to be enough for you. Basically, the first overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft eviscerated minor league hitters for 12 starts after being drafted, and then punched his ticket to Pittsburgh where he’s simply moved on to making major league hitters look silly. While Skenes has been a teeny bit homer-prone (five in eight starts, including a two-homer game against the Dodgers), his K/BB ratios are routinely disgusting. Aside from one game where he had just a 3/1 ratio in six innings, all of his other games have featured at least seven strikeouts and no more than two walks.
Skenes throws 99, and that really covers up pretty much everything for him. In a darkly comedic way, his command and pitch shape aren’t actually that good — in particular, he doesn’t even get the most out of his four-seamer because it lacks good “rise” and he tends to throw it in the lower portion of the zone. But given that he’s throwing 99 with three other pitches he can reliably put in the zone, it hasn’t mattered at all. It’s more just... what happens when he actually gets that fastball shaped like it could be, and locates it where it needs to go? Hide your already-worst-in-a-long-while league offense, I guess.
Max Fried (15 GS, 90 IP, 73 ERA-, 83 FIP-, 82 xFIP-, xERA a bit above FIP and xFIP)
Despite the rough start to his season, Fried has already done what he’s been expected to: brought his pitching right in line with his career rates (70/79/79). With 1.8 fWAR, he’s right on the cusp of exceeding his total from his injury-shortened 2023, and it looks like he’s going to slide right in and replicate his 2021, where he managed 3.7 fWAR in 165 2⁄3 innings. Most recently, Fried dominated the Yankees with a 4/0 K/BB ratio across six innings.
Sunday, June 30, 11:35 a.m. ET (Roku)
Bailey Falter (15 GS, 83 1⁄3 IP, 97 ERA-, 114 FIP-, 115 xFIP-, xERA way above FIP/xFIP)
Falter hasn’t really been particularly good in 2024, but that didn’t matter when he was the beneficiary of that massive Braves xwOBA underperformance (and his own team’s massive overperformance) in an 11-5 rout of the Braves in Pittsburgh on May 24.
Before that game, Falter had an ERA around 1.50 lower than his FIP and xFIP; since then, things have begun to normalize, as his ERA over his last five outings is a run higher than his FIP and the gap between it and his xFIP is even larger. The outings themselves in that span have been inconsistent, with a couple of good ones, some BABIP stuff, and so on. Overall, though, Falter is a fourth starter and probably the guy most likely to once again benefit from the Braves being moths to an xwOBA underperformance flame.
Spencer Schwellenbach (5 GS, 26 2⁄3 IP, 131 ERA-, 87 FIP-, 95 xFIP-, xERA in line with xFIP)
While Falter’s line still bears the boon of outpitching his peripherals, Schwellenbach has been saddled with the opposite fate in the early going. After a couple of starts where he seemed to grow into himself in terms of attacking major league hitters and being rewarded for it, the Cardinals upended everything by charging him with four runs despite Schwellenbach’s glistening 6/0 K/BB ratio.
Schwellenbach has largely been a kitchen sink guy so far, so while figuring out his fastball location and shape isn’t like, a giant blaring area of need given that he has so many things to offer a batter, it’s still probably the next key step in his evolution.
<img alt="Atlanta Braves v Pittsburgh Pirates" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/r4h4YWQK7ot4539LlTWBlNxOa-Q=/393x0:3000x1738/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73432673/2154141208.0.jpg">
Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images
The Braves will try to secure a winning June by taking a series from the middling Pirates After a seven-game road trip that started out quite promising (series win at Yankee Stadium against MLB’s best team at the time) but turned quite gross (series loss in St. Louis, loss of a makeup game to the White Sox), the Braves will return home and try to secure a winning month in a three-game set with the Pirates. At 12-12, the Braves need a series win for their second winning month of the year; if they lose the series by dropping two of the three games, they’ll simply end up with June replicating May (13-14).
For the Braves, it’s been a bit of whiplash in recent weeks. They won three straight series at one point, as part of a broader 8-2 stretch. In that span, from June 13 through June 23, the bats put together a .349 wOBA with a .327 xwOBA. The reason why I bring this up is because, for the whole season, the Braves have the same .327 xwOBA, but with a .313 wOBA. In that span, they had 29 barrels, of which 20 were hits, and 16 were homers. Those rates, 69 percent and 55 percent, respectively, greatly exceed their seasonal rates of 61 and 37 percent, which also helps to explain that streak of good play. The league as a whole is at 68 percent and 45 percent, respectively, and the Braves getting absolutely shafted on barrels in St. Louis and Chicago over the last four games again goes a long way towards explaining why it feels like the offense has returned to underperforming.
For the Pirates, well, it’s been a positive June after a less-positive start to the year. Now 39-41, the Pirates have hovered in that vaguely below .500 area for the last two months, unable to string together much of anything either way. They had a nice little stretch at the beginning of June where they took series from the Dodgers and Twins, but haven’t really been able to build on it. They are 5-2 in series played fully in June, but none of those has been a sweep, so they’re 13-10 in the month so far.
On the season, the Pirates have one of MLB’s worst position-player units (totaling just 2.2 fWAR so far) that has struggled both offensively and defensively. They’ve been a better, if still average, pitching staff. The offense has been a little better in June, and the pitching’s really taken off thanks to the dynamic duo of Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller, which explains how they’re over .500 for the month.
The Braves lost a series to the Pirates in late May, dropping the first two games before winning the finale. In completely unsurprising fashion given that it’s been happening for most of the season at this point, the Braves out-xwOBAed the Pirates in two of the games, but got blown out in one of those two games anyway. The Braves substantially out-wOBAed and out-xwOBAed the Pirates for the series, yet still lost it. They’ll hope for a less sadly predictable outcome this time around.
Friday, June 28, 7:20 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Martin Perez (11 GS, 57 1⁄3 IP, 114 ERA-, 118 FIP-, 111 xFIP-, one of the worst xERAs)
Perez has failed to clear 1 fWAR despite being reasonably healthy in three of the past four years (including 2020), and it’s looking like 2024 might result in another fifth starter-esque season for the veteran left-hander. That said, Perez will make this start under somewhat strange circumstances: he left his most recent start after three innings with a groin injury and will be making his return to the mound on Friday, meaning that his entire Injured List stint will be bookended by starts against the Braves.
In that injury-shortened outing, Perez managed a 2/2 K/BB ratio and was charged with a single non-homer run in three innings. Before that game, he had allowed eight homers in four starts, after beginning the season having allowed just one homer in his first six outings.
Charlie Morton (14 GS, 79 1⁄3 IP, 102 ERA-, 101 FIP-, 101 xFIP-, xERA somewhat above ERA)
Charlie Morton’s age-40 season is going pretty much how you’d expect for a solid hurler reaching the twilight of his career: he’s basically been average. While some guys achieve average by giving you a reasonable effort every time out, that hasn’t been quite how Morton has gotten there this year. Instead, he’s had six outings with an FIP- below 80 and four with an FIP- above 120. His 14 starts can also be diced into four with an xFIP- below 80, seven with an xFIP- between 80 and 120, and three with an xFIP- above 120. Basically, sometimes he’s really good, like his 8/2 K/BB ratio in six innings against the Rays two starts ago, and sometimes he’s really bad, like his 5/4 K/BB ratio with a homer allowed in 5 2⁄3 innings against the Yankees last time out. Sure, he’ll be average quite often, but the tails are fat. Let’s hope his pitches aren’t.
Once traded from the Braves to the Pirates, Morton hasn’t faced this former team of his since the 2022 season, when he dominated them with a 12-strikeout outing that also featured two bombs off him in a blowout win. That’s actually the only time Morton has ever faced the Pirates, so this will be his second-ever career start against them.
Saturday, June 29, 4:10 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Paul Skenes (8 GS, 46 1⁄3 IP, 52 ERA-, 64 FIP-, 58 xFIP-, xERA a bit above FIP)
If you don’t know about Paul Skenes, I don’t think this preview blurb is going to be enough for you. Basically, the first overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft eviscerated minor league hitters for 12 starts after being drafted, and then punched his ticket to Pittsburgh where he’s simply moved on to making major league hitters look silly. While Skenes has been a teeny bit homer-prone (five in eight starts, including a two-homer game against the Dodgers), his K/BB ratios are routinely disgusting. Aside from one game where he had just a 3/1 ratio in six innings, all of his other games have featured at least seven strikeouts and no more than two walks.
Skenes throws 99, and that really covers up pretty much everything for him. In a darkly comedic way, his command and pitch shape aren’t actually that good — in particular, he doesn’t even get the most out of his four-seamer because it lacks good “rise” and he tends to throw it in the lower portion of the zone. But given that he’s throwing 99 with three other pitches he can reliably put in the zone, it hasn’t mattered at all. It’s more just... what happens when he actually gets that fastball shaped like it could be, and locates it where it needs to go? Hide your already-worst-in-a-long-while league offense, I guess.
Max Fried (15 GS, 90 IP, 73 ERA-, 83 FIP-, 82 xFIP-, xERA a bit above FIP and xFIP)
Despite the rough start to his season, Fried has already done what he’s been expected to: brought his pitching right in line with his career rates (70/79/79). With 1.8 fWAR, he’s right on the cusp of exceeding his total from his injury-shortened 2023, and it looks like he’s going to slide right in and replicate his 2021, where he managed 3.7 fWAR in 165 2⁄3 innings. Most recently, Fried dominated the Yankees with a 4/0 K/BB ratio across six innings.
Sunday, June 30, 11:35 a.m. ET (Roku)
Bailey Falter (15 GS, 83 1⁄3 IP, 97 ERA-, 114 FIP-, 115 xFIP-, xERA way above FIP/xFIP)
Falter hasn’t really been particularly good in 2024, but that didn’t matter when he was the beneficiary of that massive Braves xwOBA underperformance (and his own team’s massive overperformance) in an 11-5 rout of the Braves in Pittsburgh on May 24.
Before that game, Falter had an ERA around 1.50 lower than his FIP and xFIP; since then, things have begun to normalize, as his ERA over his last five outings is a run higher than his FIP and the gap between it and his xFIP is even larger. The outings themselves in that span have been inconsistent, with a couple of good ones, some BABIP stuff, and so on. Overall, though, Falter is a fourth starter and probably the guy most likely to once again benefit from the Braves being moths to an xwOBA underperformance flame.
Spencer Schwellenbach (5 GS, 26 2⁄3 IP, 131 ERA-, 87 FIP-, 95 xFIP-, xERA in line with xFIP)
While Falter’s line still bears the boon of outpitching his peripherals, Schwellenbach has been saddled with the opposite fate in the early going. After a couple of starts where he seemed to grow into himself in terms of attacking major league hitters and being rewarded for it, the Cardinals upended everything by charging him with four runs despite Schwellenbach’s glistening 6/0 K/BB ratio.
Schwellenbach has largely been a kitchen sink guy so far, so while figuring out his fastball location and shape isn’t like, a giant blaring area of need given that he has so many things to offer a batter, it’s still probably the next key step in his evolution.
Link to original article
