We get treated to a Saturday duel between Spencer Schwellenbach and Roki Sasaki on national TV
We get treated to a Saturday duel between Spencer Schwellenbach and Roki Sasaki on national TV today, as Atlanta looks to even up the series after losing a coin-flip of a game Friday night.
Spencer Schwellenbach has looked a bit more mortal in his past three starts than he did to start the season, but truthfully his start in Toronto was the only one where he really got tagged up. His strikeouts are down a touch in this young season, but he maintains an impressively low walk rate and boasts a 3.03 xFIP on the season. His fastball is up a tick from last year, but has gotten hit a bit so far this year as the top offering of his true six pitch mix. He has had the most success off of his slider and splitter, as his splitter currently has an impressive 38.3% whiff rate. Let’s hope to see Spencer have his signature command and pick up a healthy number of strikeouts against the formidable LA lineup.
Roki Sasaki, on the other side, has not gotten off to quite the start to his major league career that he would have wanted, coming over as a potential superstar from Japan. His ERA is a solid 3.55, but his xFIP, FIP, and xERA all are solidly in the 5s. He hasn’t managed to strike out particularly many batters, at only 7.11 K/9, but the walks have been killing him, as he has walked nearly as many has he has struck out. His biggest struggles came in his first two games, where the walks were really out of control, but his strikeouts have also taken a nosedive more recently along with the walks, and he started giving up harder contact as well. His arsenal looks fine, with elite extension, a hard fastball with some impressive arm-side run, a sweeping slider, and a very vertical splitter. The fastball has lived near the heart of the plate though, and the secondaries have been very erratically located. It’s the fastball that has primarily been hit hard, but he really needs to figure out his command on all of the pitches to bring the walks down, hard hits down, and strikeouts up. He’s still quite young and talented, but he hasn’t hit the ground running the way some thought he might in LA.
An added tidbit is that the Dodgers are calling up Korean infielder Hyeseong Kim from their AAA affiliate ahead of Saturday’s game, after the 26 year old signed a 3 year, 12.5 million contract with LA coming from the KBO in the offseason. Kim has posted a 105 wRC+ in AAA.
For all of Sasaki’s talent, this sure seems like a clear pitching advantage for Atlanta, as Schwellenbach has been so good in his young major league career. Here’s hoping we can get a vintage outing from the Braves’ young star and Atlanta can finally get their first win over LA in the year 2025.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Saturday, May 3, 7:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
TV: FOX
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan