It’s been a rough year.
Despite everything else for the Atlanta Braves, at least Grant Holmes has been good.
The older-but-not-exactly-veteran right-hander finished June with a 3.44 FIP and a slightly better 3.24 xFIP. His strikeout rate has risen with each month of the season, and that even counts his lone July start where he struck out 10 in 6 innings.
Since we turned the calendar to May, he has gone 6 or more innings in 6 of 12 starts, and he’s gone 5 or more innings in all but one. His FIP is 3.62, and his xFIP is actually better at 3.20. Holmes’ strikeout rate is almost 31%, and his walk rate is around 10%, which is a little high if it weren’t for all of the strikeouts. And he’s gotten groundballs on nearly 50% of the balls put in play. This is basically how you would design a pitcher if that were a thing you were trying to do.
April was a bit of a rough month, but from then on, he’s been the pitcher we hoped he would be and basically as good as he was a starter in 2024. Maybe he’s just good.
Trevor Rogers, meanwhile, is still trying to rediscover 2021. The Baltimore Orioles Sunday starter was a borderline elite starting pitcher in 2021, netting around 4.5 fWAR, but he hasn’t been the same since. The following season wasn’t bad, but everything he did took a step back. And then the injuries started. While he did throw over 120 innings last year, they were not good.
After a knee injury gave him a late start to the season, Rogers has generally improved his performance. His walk rate is the best of his career (around 2.5 per 9 innings), and while his K rate hasn’t eclipsed 7.5 and his groundball rate is a little down for him, the combination of all of these things being okay have him with one of his better stretches over the past 4 seasons.
His Statcast is pretty solid.
He isn’t going overwhelm, and there’s nothing overpowering about his arsenal.
In some ways, he’s not all that different from last Sunday’s pitcher, Ranger Suarez, but he doesn’t execute nearly as well as Suarez. Given his time in Miami, Atlanta hitters should have some experience against him to work from, so here’s hoping that advantage leads to a win.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Sunday, July 6th, 11:35 a.m. EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
TV: [none]
Streaming: Roku
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan