Atlanta has made it to the land of .500. Now they’ll be looking to reach the sunny side of .500 with a series win tonight.
The Atlanta Braves are .500 for the first time since the season started. This is great news! Hopefully this’ll also be the last day where they’ll be at .500, as Bryce Elder is starting for Atlanta as they look to take a series win over the Washington Nationals during this four-game series.
Elder hasn’t been great lately but he also hasn’t been bad, either — he’s been perfectly (and frustratingly) average. He’s gone at least five innings in six of the seven starts that he’s made so far this season and he’s also been ramping up when it comes to the strikeouts as well — he’s gone from four strikeouts on April 28 against the Rockies to six against the Dodgers on May 4 and then all the way up to eight strikeouts against the Pirates in his most recent outing. He also hasn’t had a horrible blowout when it comes to giving up runs — he’s given up three at most over the course of his past four starts.
Again, it’s not dominant or spectacular at all but it’s pretty average — and to be honest with y’all, that’s totally fine and acceptable from Bryce Elder. The Braves don’t need him to be a dominant ace or anything like that but they appear to be perfectly fine with him going out there and eating up five-or-six innings a start while hopefully only giving up two or three runs at the most. As long as he can continue to keep the ball on the ground, things should be fine. Bryce Elder is in the 81st-percentile when it comes to ground ball rate and the Nationals lead baseball in ground ball percentage (48.9 percent) so if this holds up then this could end up being a pretty solid matchup for Elder against the Nats in this one.
Meanwhile, Mitchell Parker is getting the start for the Nationals in tonight’s game and it’s clear that the Braves should be going into this one looking to extend Parker’s misery as of late. Parker has thrown 13 innings over his past three starts and has produced an ERA of 10.38 and a FIP of 4.95. He’s managed to pull this off without having given up a home run during that span but he did give up a bunch of hits and a fair amount of walks during that span, so he just had a tough time dealing with the traffic that was on the basepaths.
With that being said, this doesn’t figure to be a walkover. Before he ended up on this rough patch, Mitchell Parker had just gotten done shutting out the Orioles over eight innings while while only giving up one hit. Additionally, Parker is coming into this game having only given up what Statcast qualifies as “Hard Contact” in just 24.1 percent of his appearances so far — the Braves as a team are still finding Hard Contact at a 31.4 percent clip, which is good enough to have them in a tie for tenth place.
If Parker can continue to avoid giving up hard contact then the Braves may not be able to get in on the part that his past three opponents got to enjoy. With that being said, it also wouldn’t be shocking if the Braves took the initiative and picked up where everybody else has left off against Parker so far.
This pitching matchup isn’t the most glamorous-looking matchup in the world but it’s still one that figures to be pretty interesting. Both of these hurlers can deal with the best of them on their day but they also have shown tendencies to blow up at any given moment. We could see this turn into a pitchers’ duel just as quickly as it could end up being a slugfest. With that being said, Bryce Elder hasn’t looked horrible as of late and Mitchell Parker is entering this game while in the midst of a rough patch so if those trends continue then this could very well be the night where we see Atlanta eclipse the .500 mark for the first time all season. I’m ready to see it happen.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Wednesday, May 14, 7:15 pm EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
TV: FanDuel Sports South / Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan