<img alt="94th MLB All-Star Game presented by Mastercard" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tAJzWPLz0x5E-RmOLJPxYQqGw9g=/0x0:6609x4406/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73475128/2162325612.0.jpg">
Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images
Reynaldo Lopez should be well-rested, but the Braves’ injury situation is dire A very well-rested Reynaldo Lopez will take the mound on Monday night as the Braves welcome the Reds into town for a three-game series... and if we’re lucky, there might be half a major league roster still left behind him to take the field at that point.
Yes, the Braves’ injury situation continues to deteriorate, and now that Ozzie Albies is on the shelf, we might see one of the ten best teams in MLB be forced to trot out not one, but two “guys wot were released from other teams midseason” in its starting lineup, i.e., Eddie Rosario and Whit Merrifield. That’s where we are, and while the Braves will start this series with great playoff odds and a reasonable cushion in the Wild Card standings, they’ve also treaded water for seemingly forever and have a serious headwind in the form of an injury-depleted roster towards getting on any kind of roll.
On the plus side, Reynaldo Lopez has been really good, and while there’s always the possibility he too runs into an injury and/or ineffectiveness wall because of his innings total, he at least hasn’t done so yet, and just got a nice breather in the form of the All-Star Break. Lopez is 24th in MLB in fWAR among starting pitchers at this point, but it’s worth noting that literally everyone above him has more starts than him. If you set the threshold to the 150 starters with the most innings, he is 17th in FIP- and just barely ahead of Paul Skenes for the MLB lead with a 45 ERA-. It’s not all roses and lilacs and other things people might like smelling, though — as has been the case for much of the year, Lopez is playing a somewhat-dangerous game with an 94 xFIP-, and honestly, a worse-than-pedestrian xERA. But, by dint of a 6.0 percent HR/FB rate and the fact that he clearly changes his pitching approach as game situations grow more intense, he’s managed to, at least to this point, stymie opponents’ attempts at sequencing effectively against him.
On the minus side, the Braves have to face Hunter Greene, who’s very much been the ace of what’s been a pretty generic Reds rotation to date. Greene’s line is reminiscent of, albeit all-around worse than, Lopez’: 78/86/104 (compared to Lopez’ 45/77/94). It’s kind of strange: Greene plays in a park that loves turning routine fly balls into homers, but is running a 7.8 percent HR/FB rate this year (and it’s only 8.8 percent at home), after running a HR/FB rate north of 15 percent his first two years in the league. Had Greene just come up this season, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to point to the pre-existing knowledge that throwing harder suppresses homers, but Greene actually hadn’t managed to do so until this year. So, like Lopez, there’s a bit of a “when will the other shoe drop?” aspect to his starts.
The Braves should have some familiarity with Greene, as they faced him in his MLB debut, as well as early last season. He won the former and lost the latter, which is amusing because he gave up two homers in the former but had a 10/0 K/BB ratio over seven innings in the latter. Ah, baseball. Lopez faced the Reds three times last year as a reliever with a combined 4/3 K/BB ratio; that and a decent start against them in 2021 (4/0 K/BB ratio, a homer allowed in six innings) are his only experience against the Redlegs.
Anyway, the real stories here are really about how the Braves are going to manage with a junkyard parts roster and the cruelest xwOBA underperformance you can force a team to contend with, so while they may or may not get shut down by Greene, and while Lopez may or may not start to feel the burn associated with his workload increasing so much year-over-year, they’ll have to figure out some path forward nonetheless.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Monday, July 22, 7:20 p.m. ET
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia
TV: Bally Sports Southeast, MLB Network (out of market only)
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM
XM Radio: Ch. 179
<img alt="94th MLB All-Star Game presented by Mastercard" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tAJzWPLz0x5E-RmOLJPxYQqGw9g=/0x0:6609x4406/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73475128/2162325612.0.jpg">
Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images
Reynaldo Lopez should be well-rested, but the Braves’ injury situation is dire A very well-rested Reynaldo Lopez will take the mound on Monday night as the Braves welcome the Reds into town for a three-game series... and if we’re lucky, there might be half a major league roster still left behind him to take the field at that point.
Yes, the Braves’ injury situation continues to deteriorate, and now that Ozzie Albies is on the shelf, we might see one of the ten best teams in MLB be forced to trot out not one, but two “guys wot were released from other teams midseason” in its starting lineup, i.e., Eddie Rosario and Whit Merrifield. That’s where we are, and while the Braves will start this series with great playoff odds and a reasonable cushion in the Wild Card standings, they’ve also treaded water for seemingly forever and have a serious headwind in the form of an injury-depleted roster towards getting on any kind of roll.
On the plus side, Reynaldo Lopez has been really good, and while there’s always the possibility he too runs into an injury and/or ineffectiveness wall because of his innings total, he at least hasn’t done so yet, and just got a nice breather in the form of the All-Star Break. Lopez is 24th in MLB in fWAR among starting pitchers at this point, but it’s worth noting that literally everyone above him has more starts than him. If you set the threshold to the 150 starters with the most innings, he is 17th in FIP- and just barely ahead of Paul Skenes for the MLB lead with a 45 ERA-. It’s not all roses and lilacs and other things people might like smelling, though — as has been the case for much of the year, Lopez is playing a somewhat-dangerous game with an 94 xFIP-, and honestly, a worse-than-pedestrian xERA. But, by dint of a 6.0 percent HR/FB rate and the fact that he clearly changes his pitching approach as game situations grow more intense, he’s managed to, at least to this point, stymie opponents’ attempts at sequencing effectively against him.
On the minus side, the Braves have to face Hunter Greene, who’s very much been the ace of what’s been a pretty generic Reds rotation to date. Greene’s line is reminiscent of, albeit all-around worse than, Lopez’: 78/86/104 (compared to Lopez’ 45/77/94). It’s kind of strange: Greene plays in a park that loves turning routine fly balls into homers, but is running a 7.8 percent HR/FB rate this year (and it’s only 8.8 percent at home), after running a HR/FB rate north of 15 percent his first two years in the league. Had Greene just come up this season, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to point to the pre-existing knowledge that throwing harder suppresses homers, but Greene actually hadn’t managed to do so until this year. So, like Lopez, there’s a bit of a “when will the other shoe drop?” aspect to his starts.
The Braves should have some familiarity with Greene, as they faced him in his MLB debut, as well as early last season. He won the former and lost the latter, which is amusing because he gave up two homers in the former but had a 10/0 K/BB ratio over seven innings in the latter. Ah, baseball. Lopez faced the Reds three times last year as a reliever with a combined 4/3 K/BB ratio; that and a decent start against them in 2021 (4/0 K/BB ratio, a homer allowed in six innings) are his only experience against the Redlegs.
Anyway, the real stories here are really about how the Braves are going to manage with a junkyard parts roster and the cruelest xwOBA underperformance you can force a team to contend with, so while they may or may not get shut down by Greene, and while Lopez may or may not start to feel the burn associated with his workload increasing so much year-over-year, they’ll have to figure out some path forward nonetheless.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Monday, July 22, 7:20 p.m. ET
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia
TV: Bally Sports Southeast, MLB Network (out of market only)
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM
XM Radio: Ch. 179
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