<img alt="MLB: OCT 09 NLDS - Phillies at Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZzylXmnX5j3L77TnKhWoEMaHDxI=/0x0:3600x2400/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73445215/1715816489.0.jpg">
Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It’s a less climactic series than it could’ve been, but the Braves need to soldier on anyway Last year, as the Braves romped all over the NL East and the league at large, I remember thinking ahead of some of the scheduled Braves-Mets series that things had changed so drastically: what were supposed to have been hotly-contested games were instead kind of pointless, as the Braves stomped pretty much everyone and the Mets imploded. Fast forward to July 2024, and the Braves now find themselves on the other end of that dynamic: stuck in an extensive rut, the Braves will play host to the Phillies this weekend and try not to see their division deficit expand into double digits.
As for the Phillies, well, they’re riding high as MLB’s best team. At 57-30, only the Guardians are even kinda-sorta close; their nine-game lead over the Braves is the biggest among baseball’s six divisions. Though their June was only good rather than great (15-11), and though they’re currently banged up, it hasn’t really slowed them down all too much. The Phillies haven’t lost a series since visiting Baltimore in mid-June, and they’ve only lost six series all season. One of those was the season-opening series in Philadelphia against the Braves.
The Phillies have coasted to the apex of MLB on the back of an absurdly effective pitching staff. Their arms have compiled 16 fWAR so far; no other team has even eclipsed 12. The hitting’s been plenty good too, with a seventh-best-in-MLB 112 team wRC+, which combined with decent defense, gives them the fifth-most position player fWAR in MLB. Bryce Harper (currently injured), Alec Bohm, and Trea Turner have been mashing, and as befits a team that’s had few hiccups or speed bumps so far, role players like Edmundo Sosa are having big seasons as well. Even the fact that Nick Castellanos and Whit Merrifield have combined for -1.0 fWAR in over 500 PAs isn’t slowing these guys down.
But really, it’s all about the pitching for Philadelphia right now. They have three of the top ten starters in MLB, which is absurd in and of itself; they could leave this series with four of the top 30, depending on how Aaron Nola fares. They also have the league’s top bullpen, in a manner that’s maybe about as absurd as the quality of their starters. In short: their relief corps leads MLB in fWAR, even though it has the second-fewest innings pitched. Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman would’ve had great relief seasons even if they were to suddenly disappear, Orion Kerkering and Jose Alvarado aren’t far behind, and no one else in the bullpen has really been particularly underwhelming for more than a dozen innings or so.
If you want to try to find chinks in their armor, good luck. You could point to the fact that they’ve been one of baseball’s luckier teams offensively, or the fact that accounting for their average defense, they’ve also been pretty lucky in terms of defensive efficiency, but there’s nowhere else to really go. This is an on-paper good-not-elite roster that’s been playing insanely well, and at this point is fairly likely to finish the season right where they are right now: MLB’s top team.
So, the Braves have their work cut out for them.
Friday, July 5, 7:20 p.m. ET (Apple TV+)
Aaron Nola (17 GS, 107 2⁄3 IP, 84 ERA-, 92 FIP-, 86 xFIP-, xERA in line with ERA/xFIP)
Nola had a bit of an offseason by his own incredibly lofty standards in 2023, but nonetheless signed a $172 million, seven-year deal to stick with the Phillies. His 2024 makes his 2023 retroactively look like the new normal: he was an 86/76/78 guy before 2023, and has been a 95/91/84 guy since. Still, that’s plenty good — just maybe not up to the nigh-impossible standards his rotation-mates have set thus far.
That said, aside from a shellacking in Boston, Nola has been on an insane roll over his last few starts. Leaving that one implosion aside, he has a 26/1 K/BB ratio (not a typo) across his other four June outings.
The Braves did thrash him in that season-opening series, in what was the beginning of a three-start stretch that served as a rough landing into the 2024 season, but since then, he’s been largely dominant, with just an implosion here or there to mar his numbers a bit.
Nola has faced the Braves a bazillion (36) times in his career, including playoff blowouts in each of the last two NLDSes. He’s 1-3 in matchups head-to-head with Max Fried, though, including a loss this season in a game where Fried was blasted and didn’t make it out of the first.
Max Fried (16 GS, 96 IP, 70 ERA-, 83 FIP-, 84 xFIP-, xERA a bit above xFIP)
After a crazy-bad start to the year, Fried has reined in his numbers to look like his career line. His start-to-start results are not super-consistent, as he’ll get walk-heavy at times, but he tends to compensate with scintillating outings that give the other team pretty much no chance, too.
The Braves would probably prefer not to have a reprise of what happened to Fried against the Phillies in March, but that still resulted in a win, so they’d probably take it anyway.
Fried has 16 career starts against the Phillies; neither of his recent two NLDS starts against them went well, but he’s dominated them a fair bit in the regular season, his 2024 debut aside.
Saturday, July 6, 7:15 p.m. ET (FOX)
Ranger Suarez (17 GS, 103 IP, 56 ERA-, 71 FIP-, 74 xFIP-, xERA in line with xFIP)
Remember when Braves fans lamented that the Braves couldn’t hit Ranger Suarez? Well, now no one can hit Ranger Suarez, who is currently tied with teammate Zack Wheeler for eighth in fWAR among starters. If there’s any saving grace, it’s that Suarez has been less dominant lately than he was earlier in the year, and had his worst start of the season last time out against the Marlins (two walks, a homer, zero strikeouts). That said, he carved up the Braves back in March, was good against them last year, and had good outings (and bad outings) against them in 2022.
Spencer Schwellenbach (6 GS, 31 2⁄3 IP, 138 ERA-, 102 FIP-, 95 xFIP-, xERA between FIP and xFIP)
Schwellenbach’s numbers are marred by the fact that he’s given up three homers in just 30 batters faced the third time through; he’s given up one homer to the other 108 batters he’s faced in his young major league career. With just six starts so far, it’s hard to get a handle on exactly how Schwellenbach will play in the majors long-term — his starts have pretty much run the gamut from “killed by 3TTO” to “killed earlier than 3TTO” to “hey this guy could be really good” back to “killed by 3TTO again.”
I do wonder how the Braves feel about not being able to align their rotation to have Chris Sale pitching here. I also wonder how much of a sense of urgency we’ll see in this game in particular — maybe it won’t matter, especially if the Phillies knock Schwellenbach around early, but this is in some ways a higher-stakes game than others the Braves have played, and while they’ve essentially never shown a sense of urgency before, this would be the time to do so in terms of pitching management if they’re going to do so, ever.
Sunday, July 7, 1:35 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Michael Mercado (2 G, 1 GS, 6 IP, 37 ERA-, 62 FIP-, 105 xFIP-, xERA between ERA and FIP)
In true 2024 Phillies fashion, even a guy that made his first major league start earlier this week has great numbers. (Also, a shame that Mercado couldn’t face off against Schwellenbach to make things more sporting.) Mercado had a 4/2 K/BB ratio and got charged with a singleton run in a victory over the Cubs in his starting debut.
Acquired in a minor deal with the Rays at the beginning of the most recent offseason, Mercado never really performed that well in the minors, and had an xFIP above 5.00 in Triple-A for the Phillies, but, well, you know how their season is going.
Reynaldo Lopez (15 GS, 83 2⁄3 IP, 44 ERA-, 80 FIP-, 96 xFIP-, xERA way above xFIP)
The Braves apparently do care enough about this series to start Reynaldo Lopez on regular rest — that probably is supposed to tell us something, but I’m not sure exactly what. This game could be a fulcrum point for a lot of things, because Lopez is now coming off two straight kinda-nasty (not in a good way) outings after being pretty dominant for much of the season to this point. He’s had four-walk outings in each of his last two starts after walking more than two batters just twice in the 13 starts prior.
This will be another game to watch for considerations of pitching management, assuming they’re even relevant. Lopez has horrible third-time-through-the-order splits at this point, so if it is relevant, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Braves are proactive or (inadequately) reactive when it comes down to it.
<img alt="MLB: OCT 09 NLDS - Phillies at Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZzylXmnX5j3L77TnKhWoEMaHDxI=/0x0:3600x2400/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73445215/1715816489.0.jpg">
Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It’s a less climactic series than it could’ve been, but the Braves need to soldier on anyway Last year, as the Braves romped all over the NL East and the league at large, I remember thinking ahead of some of the scheduled Braves-Mets series that things had changed so drastically: what were supposed to have been hotly-contested games were instead kind of pointless, as the Braves stomped pretty much everyone and the Mets imploded. Fast forward to July 2024, and the Braves now find themselves on the other end of that dynamic: stuck in an extensive rut, the Braves will play host to the Phillies this weekend and try not to see their division deficit expand into double digits.
As for the Phillies, well, they’re riding high as MLB’s best team. At 57-30, only the Guardians are even kinda-sorta close; their nine-game lead over the Braves is the biggest among baseball’s six divisions. Though their June was only good rather than great (15-11), and though they’re currently banged up, it hasn’t really slowed them down all too much. The Phillies haven’t lost a series since visiting Baltimore in mid-June, and they’ve only lost six series all season. One of those was the season-opening series in Philadelphia against the Braves.
The Phillies have coasted to the apex of MLB on the back of an absurdly effective pitching staff. Their arms have compiled 16 fWAR so far; no other team has even eclipsed 12. The hitting’s been plenty good too, with a seventh-best-in-MLB 112 team wRC+, which combined with decent defense, gives them the fifth-most position player fWAR in MLB. Bryce Harper (currently injured), Alec Bohm, and Trea Turner have been mashing, and as befits a team that’s had few hiccups or speed bumps so far, role players like Edmundo Sosa are having big seasons as well. Even the fact that Nick Castellanos and Whit Merrifield have combined for -1.0 fWAR in over 500 PAs isn’t slowing these guys down.
But really, it’s all about the pitching for Philadelphia right now. They have three of the top ten starters in MLB, which is absurd in and of itself; they could leave this series with four of the top 30, depending on how Aaron Nola fares. They also have the league’s top bullpen, in a manner that’s maybe about as absurd as the quality of their starters. In short: their relief corps leads MLB in fWAR, even though it has the second-fewest innings pitched. Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman would’ve had great relief seasons even if they were to suddenly disappear, Orion Kerkering and Jose Alvarado aren’t far behind, and no one else in the bullpen has really been particularly underwhelming for more than a dozen innings or so.
If you want to try to find chinks in their armor, good luck. You could point to the fact that they’ve been one of baseball’s luckier teams offensively, or the fact that accounting for their average defense, they’ve also been pretty lucky in terms of defensive efficiency, but there’s nowhere else to really go. This is an on-paper good-not-elite roster that’s been playing insanely well, and at this point is fairly likely to finish the season right where they are right now: MLB’s top team.
So, the Braves have their work cut out for them.
Friday, July 5, 7:20 p.m. ET (Apple TV+)
Aaron Nola (17 GS, 107 2⁄3 IP, 84 ERA-, 92 FIP-, 86 xFIP-, xERA in line with ERA/xFIP)
Nola had a bit of an offseason by his own incredibly lofty standards in 2023, but nonetheless signed a $172 million, seven-year deal to stick with the Phillies. His 2024 makes his 2023 retroactively look like the new normal: he was an 86/76/78 guy before 2023, and has been a 95/91/84 guy since. Still, that’s plenty good — just maybe not up to the nigh-impossible standards his rotation-mates have set thus far.
That said, aside from a shellacking in Boston, Nola has been on an insane roll over his last few starts. Leaving that one implosion aside, he has a 26/1 K/BB ratio (not a typo) across his other four June outings.
The Braves did thrash him in that season-opening series, in what was the beginning of a three-start stretch that served as a rough landing into the 2024 season, but since then, he’s been largely dominant, with just an implosion here or there to mar his numbers a bit.
Nola has faced the Braves a bazillion (36) times in his career, including playoff blowouts in each of the last two NLDSes. He’s 1-3 in matchups head-to-head with Max Fried, though, including a loss this season in a game where Fried was blasted and didn’t make it out of the first.
Max Fried (16 GS, 96 IP, 70 ERA-, 83 FIP-, 84 xFIP-, xERA a bit above xFIP)
After a crazy-bad start to the year, Fried has reined in his numbers to look like his career line. His start-to-start results are not super-consistent, as he’ll get walk-heavy at times, but he tends to compensate with scintillating outings that give the other team pretty much no chance, too.
The Braves would probably prefer not to have a reprise of what happened to Fried against the Phillies in March, but that still resulted in a win, so they’d probably take it anyway.
Fried has 16 career starts against the Phillies; neither of his recent two NLDS starts against them went well, but he’s dominated them a fair bit in the regular season, his 2024 debut aside.
Saturday, July 6, 7:15 p.m. ET (FOX)
Ranger Suarez (17 GS, 103 IP, 56 ERA-, 71 FIP-, 74 xFIP-, xERA in line with xFIP)
Remember when Braves fans lamented that the Braves couldn’t hit Ranger Suarez? Well, now no one can hit Ranger Suarez, who is currently tied with teammate Zack Wheeler for eighth in fWAR among starters. If there’s any saving grace, it’s that Suarez has been less dominant lately than he was earlier in the year, and had his worst start of the season last time out against the Marlins (two walks, a homer, zero strikeouts). That said, he carved up the Braves back in March, was good against them last year, and had good outings (and bad outings) against them in 2022.
Spencer Schwellenbach (6 GS, 31 2⁄3 IP, 138 ERA-, 102 FIP-, 95 xFIP-, xERA between FIP and xFIP)
Schwellenbach’s numbers are marred by the fact that he’s given up three homers in just 30 batters faced the third time through; he’s given up one homer to the other 108 batters he’s faced in his young major league career. With just six starts so far, it’s hard to get a handle on exactly how Schwellenbach will play in the majors long-term — his starts have pretty much run the gamut from “killed by 3TTO” to “killed earlier than 3TTO” to “hey this guy could be really good” back to “killed by 3TTO again.”
I do wonder how the Braves feel about not being able to align their rotation to have Chris Sale pitching here. I also wonder how much of a sense of urgency we’ll see in this game in particular — maybe it won’t matter, especially if the Phillies knock Schwellenbach around early, but this is in some ways a higher-stakes game than others the Braves have played, and while they’ve essentially never shown a sense of urgency before, this would be the time to do so in terms of pitching management if they’re going to do so, ever.
Sunday, July 7, 1:35 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Michael Mercado (2 G, 1 GS, 6 IP, 37 ERA-, 62 FIP-, 105 xFIP-, xERA between ERA and FIP)
In true 2024 Phillies fashion, even a guy that made his first major league start earlier this week has great numbers. (Also, a shame that Mercado couldn’t face off against Schwellenbach to make things more sporting.) Mercado had a 4/2 K/BB ratio and got charged with a singleton run in a victory over the Cubs in his starting debut.
Acquired in a minor deal with the Rays at the beginning of the most recent offseason, Mercado never really performed that well in the minors, and had an xFIP above 5.00 in Triple-A for the Phillies, but, well, you know how their season is going.
Reynaldo Lopez (15 GS, 83 2⁄3 IP, 44 ERA-, 80 FIP-, 96 xFIP-, xERA way above xFIP)
The Braves apparently do care enough about this series to start Reynaldo Lopez on regular rest — that probably is supposed to tell us something, but I’m not sure exactly what. This game could be a fulcrum point for a lot of things, because Lopez is now coming off two straight kinda-nasty (not in a good way) outings after being pretty dominant for much of the season to this point. He’s had four-walk outings in each of his last two starts after walking more than two batters just twice in the 13 starts prior.
This will be another game to watch for considerations of pitching management, assuming they’re even relevant. Lopez has horrible third-time-through-the-order splits at this point, so if it is relevant, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Braves are proactive or (inadequately) reactive when it comes down to it.
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