Drake Baldwin back in lineup batting fifth

Baldwin replaces Murphy in the fifth spot, and the rest of the lineup is the same as the Braves look to go above .500

The Atlanta Braves are facing the Washington Nationals tonight in round two of the AJ Smith-Shawver versus Trevor Williams matchup.

The Braves won last time as they were able to put up four runs (three earned) against Williams, while the Nationals scored one run (zero earned) against the AJ Smith-Shawver.

Of the likely starters, Marcell Ozuna has faced Williams the most with thirty-five ABs and has had decent success in the batting average department with a .314, but his OPS has been .694.

The interesting part is that if you take out Baldwin and Allen who obvisouly not seen him much, and if you also take out Arcia who is no longer a starter, Ozuna’s OPS is only lower than Albies, Olson who have a .780 and .885 OPS respectively.

Williams is having a down year in terms of ERA with a 5.91, but the current Braves do not exactly have a history of getting the upper hand on him. Austin Riley has a .300 OPS in twenty ABs, Harris II has a .472 in eight ABs, Verdugo has a .555 in nine ABs, and Murphy has a .600 in five ABs.

Drake Baldwin will get the start for the Braves and will be batting fifth, which is where Murphy hit in the last game. All the other lineup places are the same.

No Nationals player has seen Smith-Shawver in more than five at-bats. Luis García Jr. has had the most success against Smith-Shawver with a 1.334 OPS in his three at-bats. With such small samples, it is hard to draw conclusions. However, it should be noted that in his last start he only gave up two hits in 6.0 innings.

Robert Hassell III will be making his debut tonight for the Nationals. He is their eleventh ranked prospect in their system.

On paper, it looks like the Braves have a good shot winning this game based on the pitching match-up, but sometimes facing a pitcher twice in a short period of time can cause some weird anomalies to happen.

First pitch is at 6:45 EDT.