<img alt="Washington Nationals v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3zdTMKnoT-PwD0HyLaOawfEV-eY=/0x0:6000x4000/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73576968/2168243380.0.jpg">
Photo by Edward M. Pio Roda/Getty Images
Out of playoff position for the second time in three days, the Braves will somehow try to do well against MacKenzie Gore, which they’ve failed at three times already this season You know the meme from The Simpsons? No, not that one. The one where Homer adds to a despondent Bart’s interjection of “This is the worst day of my life!” a touching “so far?” Well, that’s the Braves for you these days. After falling out of playoff position for the second time in three days, fielding a lineup where ur-roster barnacle Luke Williams has become a regular, and contending with what is once again rapidly descending to the worst run environment we’ve seen in some time... the main miasma in the air right now seems to be a flavor of, “How much worse can it get, and how soon?”
It was bad when the Braves got injury after injury. It was bad when that was compounded by them having multiple forms of the some of the worst ball-in-play fortune you’ll ever see, whether driven by a newly-deadened ball or just plain kismet shenanigans. It was bad when the team blithely sallied forth by giving everyone who threw a baseball for a living extra rest for some reason. And now, with the league wOBA in September sitting at a pathetic .298 (.305 xwOBA; the lowest wOBA and xwOBA the league has recorded for a calendar month this year were .303 and .313, respectively), the Braves are battling more than just their own personal travails. That battle is going quite poorly, as you can tell — the Braves have the league’s lowest wOBA in September (duh), and the eighth-lowest xwOBA. After August was the first month this year where the team outhit its xwOBA, the Baseball Gods have seen fit to punish the Braves by giving them their biggest gap yet, and the third-biggest among all teams over the past ten days.
Oh, but it’ll probably get worse yet, because as the Braves head up to Washington to face the Nationals for a two-game set, they’ll have to deal with MacKenzie Gore again.
Gore has faced the Braves thrice thus far. On May 29, he killed ‘em: a 10/0 K/BB ratio in 5 1⁄3 innings; the Braves were routed, 7-2. In June, he did it again: a 7/1 K/BB ratio in five innings; the Braves were routed, 7-3. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he did enough: a 4/0 K/BB ratio in six innings, getting touched for a solo homer. The Braves actually won that game, 3-2, but it took the Nationals botching a routine play to deliver unto Atlanta a walkoff win.
Overall, Gore has been close to stellar, with a strange line: 105 ERA-, 87 FIP-, 95 xFIP-. He’s benefited from a low HR/FB, but has given up harder contact than is typical for someone with his peripherals. That probably poses a specific problem for the current iteration of the wet sock Braves playing in what is now a wet sock league: they’re almost certainly not going to string together hard contact (or walks, let’s not even go there) off Gore given their depleted lineup, so their only hope is a timely homer or something, but the latter is even more unlikely at this point. Maybe they’ll find a way (or a dryer) to shed their wet socks, but it’s not looking all too sanguine.
On the flip side, the Braves will give the ball to Reynaldo Lopez, who has now crossed the 3 fWAR mark with a 49/77/88 line. Lopez has not managed contact well at all this year, but he’s benefited from an amazing conflux of hard contact that generally ends up leading to stranded runners rather than anything else, hence his line. He’s faced the Nats twice this season, getting knocked around the third time through but still ending up on the positive side of a 5-2 game with a 7/1 K/BB ratio back in June, and then ending up on the wrong side of a 5-1 game despite a 7/3 K/BB ratio in August (that was the game where Luke Jackson’s ghosts made their frightful reappearance). Lopez continues to have some truly awful third-time-through-the-order splits (5.30 FIP, 4.40 xFIP; his FIPs are below 3.00 and his xFIPs below 3.60 otherwise), so the Braves may want to be cautious about exposing him to batters nineteen and onward given the whole run environment thing, but I’m mostly just kidding myself and y’all at this point by continuing to note this.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Tuesday, September 10, 6:45 p.m. ET
Location: Nationals Park, Washington DC
TV: Bally Sports South
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
XM Radio: Online / Ch. 178
<img alt="Washington Nationals v Atlanta Braves" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3zdTMKnoT-PwD0HyLaOawfEV-eY=/0x0:6000x4000/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73576968/2168243380.0.jpg">
Photo by Edward M. Pio Roda/Getty Images
Out of playoff position for the second time in three days, the Braves will somehow try to do well against MacKenzie Gore, which they’ve failed at three times already this season You know the meme from The Simpsons? No, not that one. The one where Homer adds to a despondent Bart’s interjection of “This is the worst day of my life!” a touching “so far?” Well, that’s the Braves for you these days. After falling out of playoff position for the second time in three days, fielding a lineup where ur-roster barnacle Luke Williams has become a regular, and contending with what is once again rapidly descending to the worst run environment we’ve seen in some time... the main miasma in the air right now seems to be a flavor of, “How much worse can it get, and how soon?”
It was bad when the Braves got injury after injury. It was bad when that was compounded by them having multiple forms of the some of the worst ball-in-play fortune you’ll ever see, whether driven by a newly-deadened ball or just plain kismet shenanigans. It was bad when the team blithely sallied forth by giving everyone who threw a baseball for a living extra rest for some reason. And now, with the league wOBA in September sitting at a pathetic .298 (.305 xwOBA; the lowest wOBA and xwOBA the league has recorded for a calendar month this year were .303 and .313, respectively), the Braves are battling more than just their own personal travails. That battle is going quite poorly, as you can tell — the Braves have the league’s lowest wOBA in September (duh), and the eighth-lowest xwOBA. After August was the first month this year where the team outhit its xwOBA, the Baseball Gods have seen fit to punish the Braves by giving them their biggest gap yet, and the third-biggest among all teams over the past ten days.
Oh, but it’ll probably get worse yet, because as the Braves head up to Washington to face the Nationals for a two-game set, they’ll have to deal with MacKenzie Gore again.
Gore has faced the Braves thrice thus far. On May 29, he killed ‘em: a 10/0 K/BB ratio in 5 1⁄3 innings; the Braves were routed, 7-2. In June, he did it again: a 7/1 K/BB ratio in five innings; the Braves were routed, 7-3. Then, a couple of weeks ago, he did enough: a 4/0 K/BB ratio in six innings, getting touched for a solo homer. The Braves actually won that game, 3-2, but it took the Nationals botching a routine play to deliver unto Atlanta a walkoff win.
Overall, Gore has been close to stellar, with a strange line: 105 ERA-, 87 FIP-, 95 xFIP-. He’s benefited from a low HR/FB, but has given up harder contact than is typical for someone with his peripherals. That probably poses a specific problem for the current iteration of the wet sock Braves playing in what is now a wet sock league: they’re almost certainly not going to string together hard contact (or walks, let’s not even go there) off Gore given their depleted lineup, so their only hope is a timely homer or something, but the latter is even more unlikely at this point. Maybe they’ll find a way (or a dryer) to shed their wet socks, but it’s not looking all too sanguine.
On the flip side, the Braves will give the ball to Reynaldo Lopez, who has now crossed the 3 fWAR mark with a 49/77/88 line. Lopez has not managed contact well at all this year, but he’s benefited from an amazing conflux of hard contact that generally ends up leading to stranded runners rather than anything else, hence his line. He’s faced the Nats twice this season, getting knocked around the third time through but still ending up on the positive side of a 5-2 game with a 7/1 K/BB ratio back in June, and then ending up on the wrong side of a 5-1 game despite a 7/3 K/BB ratio in August (that was the game where Luke Jackson’s ghosts made their frightful reappearance). Lopez continues to have some truly awful third-time-through-the-order splits (5.30 FIP, 4.40 xFIP; his FIPs are below 3.00 and his xFIPs below 3.60 otherwise), so the Braves may want to be cautious about exposing him to batters nineteen and onward given the whole run environment thing, but I’m mostly just kidding myself and y’all at this point by continuing to note this.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Tuesday, September 10, 6:45 p.m. ET
Location: Nationals Park, Washington DC
TV: Bally Sports South
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
XM Radio: Online / Ch. 178
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