<img alt="Miami Marlins v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VQvHUbF5vYslOP4RCy1Qnx21Nvs=/0x1:5249x3500/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73501308/2164845619.0.jpg">
Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images
The word "disappointing” immediately comes to mind. Max Fried’s return to the mound was an inauspicious one, as he was never really able to look comfortable against the Miami Marlins in this one. One big inning in particular was enough to doom the Atlanta Braves to an extremely disappointing series split with the Marlins.
The start of this game wasn’t particularly alarming as Max Fried didn’t run into a ton of trouble on his way to getting out of that inning. However, he did walk Jonah Bride with two outs in the first and that would be the start of a nasty trend for Fried in this one. At this point in the game, it was still scoreless and things were still hopefully.
The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the third/top of the fourth junction, which is when this game turned in a bad way for the home team. In the bottom half of the third, the Braves got something going with the combo of Jorge Soler and Austin Riley. Soler hit a one-out single to put a duck on the pond and then Austin Riley followed it up by hitting a gapper to right center. Riley made it to the second on the double and Soler was initially ruled to have scored on the play in order to give the Braves the lead.
However, Ali Sánchez was adamant that he tagged Soler before he touched home plate, the Marlins challenged the call and MLB Replay agreed with Sánchez and Soler was called out. While Riley did end up making it to third on a wild pitch, Marcell Ozuna struck out to end the inning on an extremely dour note for the Braves.
The top of the fourth is when the game changed in nightmarish fashion for the Braves. Remember when I mentioned that Fried had a nasty trend going with the walks? Well, Fried made it into the fourth inning and he walked at least one batter in each of those innings on his way to walking five Marlins batters today — tying a career single-game high for Fried. Fried's fifth walk got him into trouble with nobody out in the fourth, as this followed up a leadoff single from Emmanuel Rivera. That's when the pain began, as the Marlins proceeded to go on a rampage from this point forward.
It all started with a double steal (including Rivera's second stolen base of the entire season) that put both runners in scoring position and then old friend Cristian Pache smacked one into center field to put the Marlins in the lead by one run. Fried got a strikeout to finally put an out on the board but it came at the expense of Pache getting into scoring position with a stolen base. The next at-bat saw Ali Sánchez hit one right up the middle to Whit Merrifield, whose throw to home on the fielder's choice was short and late and the Marlins went up 2-0 on Sánchez's second RBI of the season. Xavier Edwards continued his weekend of torment for the Braves as he singled as well to make it 3-0 and end Max Fried's day in the process.
Luke Jackson then entered the game and promptly struck out who we all figured was Miami's biggest power threat in the form of Jake Burger. However, all that work to get past Burger was all for naught as the ol’ Slider-Man left a slider right in the middle of the zone for Jonah Bride to poke into the bullpen in left field for his third home run on the season. So just like that, the Braves went from potentially being up 1-0 with one out in the third inning to being down 6-0 once the smoke cleared in the fourth inning.
In the preview for today's game, I mentioned that the pitching matchup for the Braves against Edward Cabrera could've gone either way.
He’s heading into this game with a Whiff percentage in the 91st percentile and a Strikeout percentage in the 87th percentile. For comparison’s sake, the Braves currently have the seventh-highest strikeout rate in all of baseball as an offense (24.4 percent) and they have the fourth-highest whiff rate in MLB (27.8 percent) as well...this feels like it could be a boom-or-bust game where the Braves either hit Edward Cabrera all over the yard or his fastball mystifies them.
Well, it was "bust" for Atlanta as Edward Cabrera kept this lineup quiet all day. Cabrera finished the day with five shutout innings and eight strikeouts with just two walks and three hits allowed. This was quite easily Cabrera's best start of the season since April and yet another example of how this Braves offense can still look just completely and utterly impotent on any given day. With that being said, you have to give credit to Cabrera for stepping up and completely mystifying the Braves. You can tell from his reaction upon ending his day with a strikeout that this was a game that meant a lot to him and the rest of the Marlins.
Between the disastrous fourth inning for Atlanta and Edward Cabrera's dominance, there was very little drama in this one. The Marlins added a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning to make it 7-0 and the Braves were unable to get any type of serious offense going in this one as they ended up getting shut out for the sixth time this season. For comparison's sake, the 2022 and 2023 Braves got shut out a grand total of seven times over two seasons, so this has clearly been a forgettable season at the plate for the Braves so far.
It was a forgettable day overall for Atlanta, as they looked a bit listless as they dropped their second game in a row to Miami in order to end up with an extremely disappointing split of this four-game series. They'll have a day off to recuperate but they'll have the Brewers coming into town on Tuesday. Maybe by then they'll be up for the challenge of taking on the NL Central leaders and hopefully this will be a wake-up call after they got absolutely shellacked by the NL East basement-dwellers.
<img alt="Miami Marlins v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VQvHUbF5vYslOP4RCy1Qnx21Nvs=/0x1:5249x3500/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73501308/2164845619.0.jpg">
Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images
The word "disappointing” immediately comes to mind. Max Fried’s return to the mound was an inauspicious one, as he was never really able to look comfortable against the Miami Marlins in this one. One big inning in particular was enough to doom the Atlanta Braves to an extremely disappointing series split with the Marlins.
The start of this game wasn’t particularly alarming as Max Fried didn’t run into a ton of trouble on his way to getting out of that inning. However, he did walk Jonah Bride with two outs in the first and that would be the start of a nasty trend for Fried in this one. At this point in the game, it was still scoreless and things were still hopefully.
The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the third/top of the fourth junction, which is when this game turned in a bad way for the home team. In the bottom half of the third, the Braves got something going with the combo of Jorge Soler and Austin Riley. Soler hit a one-out single to put a duck on the pond and then Austin Riley followed it up by hitting a gapper to right center. Riley made it to the second on the double and Soler was initially ruled to have scored on the play in order to give the Braves the lead.
However, Ali Sánchez was adamant that he tagged Soler before he touched home plate, the Marlins challenged the call and MLB Replay agreed with Sánchez and Soler was called out. While Riley did end up making it to third on a wild pitch, Marcell Ozuna struck out to end the inning on an extremely dour note for the Braves.
The top of the fourth is when the game changed in nightmarish fashion for the Braves. Remember when I mentioned that Fried had a nasty trend going with the walks? Well, Fried made it into the fourth inning and he walked at least one batter in each of those innings on his way to walking five Marlins batters today — tying a career single-game high for Fried. Fried's fifth walk got him into trouble with nobody out in the fourth, as this followed up a leadoff single from Emmanuel Rivera. That's when the pain began, as the Marlins proceeded to go on a rampage from this point forward.
It all started with a double steal (including Rivera's second stolen base of the entire season) that put both runners in scoring position and then old friend Cristian Pache smacked one into center field to put the Marlins in the lead by one run. Fried got a strikeout to finally put an out on the board but it came at the expense of Pache getting into scoring position with a stolen base. The next at-bat saw Ali Sánchez hit one right up the middle to Whit Merrifield, whose throw to home on the fielder's choice was short and late and the Marlins went up 2-0 on Sánchez's second RBI of the season. Xavier Edwards continued his weekend of torment for the Braves as he singled as well to make it 3-0 and end Max Fried's day in the process.
Luke Jackson then entered the game and promptly struck out who we all figured was Miami's biggest power threat in the form of Jake Burger. However, all that work to get past Burger was all for naught as the ol’ Slider-Man left a slider right in the middle of the zone for Jonah Bride to poke into the bullpen in left field for his third home run on the season. So just like that, the Braves went from potentially being up 1-0 with one out in the third inning to being down 6-0 once the smoke cleared in the fourth inning.
In the preview for today's game, I mentioned that the pitching matchup for the Braves against Edward Cabrera could've gone either way.
He’s heading into this game with a Whiff percentage in the 91st percentile and a Strikeout percentage in the 87th percentile. For comparison’s sake, the Braves currently have the seventh-highest strikeout rate in all of baseball as an offense (24.4 percent) and they have the fourth-highest whiff rate in MLB (27.8 percent) as well...this feels like it could be a boom-or-bust game where the Braves either hit Edward Cabrera all over the yard or his fastball mystifies them.
Well, it was "bust" for Atlanta as Edward Cabrera kept this lineup quiet all day. Cabrera finished the day with five shutout innings and eight strikeouts with just two walks and three hits allowed. This was quite easily Cabrera's best start of the season since April and yet another example of how this Braves offense can still look just completely and utterly impotent on any given day. With that being said, you have to give credit to Cabrera for stepping up and completely mystifying the Braves. You can tell from his reaction upon ending his day with a strikeout that this was a game that meant a lot to him and the rest of the Marlins.
Between the disastrous fourth inning for Atlanta and Edward Cabrera's dominance, there was very little drama in this one. The Marlins added a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning to make it 7-0 and the Braves were unable to get any type of serious offense going in this one as they ended up getting shut out for the sixth time this season. For comparison's sake, the 2022 and 2023 Braves got shut out a grand total of seven times over two seasons, so this has clearly been a forgettable season at the plate for the Braves so far.
It was a forgettable day overall for Atlanta, as they looked a bit listless as they dropped their second game in a row to Miami in order to end up with an extremely disappointing split of this four-game series. They'll have a day off to recuperate but they'll have the Brewers coming into town on Tuesday. Maybe by then they'll be up for the challenge of taking on the NL Central leaders and hopefully this will be a wake-up call after they got absolutely shellacked by the NL East basement-dwellers.
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