The pitching produced a shutout with varying degrees of repeatability, while the backup bats didn’t have much to give on the day.
In his final spring tune-up, Reynaldo Lopez continued to be missing a little bit of his velocity (averaging 93.3 MPH and topping out at 95.3 MPH on the day) and swing and miss, with only 2 strikeouts and 3 whiffs. He did do well to keep the ball on the ground, at least and worked 6.0 scoreless innings with no walks. He had some help from a pickoff play and a Drake Baldwin pop to catch former Atlanta Braves prospect Justyn-Henry Malloy attempting to steal second. It is a little bit concerning to see Reynaldo struggle to miss bats like this in spring, even in a miniscule sample. His final tally for spring is 5 strikeouts over 13.0 innings, which is really rough. Hopefully he can find a way to start missing bats again.
To Bryce Elder’s credit, he came in and pitched pretty well for the final 3.0 innings of the game. He struck out 3 batters with 8 whiffs and only allowed one baserunner on a ground ball single, which was immediately erased by a double-play. That kind of performance is what the good version of Bryce Elder looks like: a reasonable amount of strikeouts, keeping the ball on the ground, and minimizing walks.
On the offensive side, there wasn’t much happening for Atlanta’s depth pieces, but Drake Baldwin did record a groundout that he hit at over 110 MPH and a flyout at over 100 MPH. Eli White had a near homer fall in for a double. Jarred Kelenic didn’t have a great day, as he struck out twice in 4 plate appearances, grounding into a double play and popping out to foul territory the other two plate appearances. Bryan De La Cruz struck out once in 3 hitless plate appearances.
It was a pretty uneventful game overall, with Drake Baldwin and Bryce Elder putting the best performances together . Join us again tomorrow, as the Braves face the Orioles with Spencer Strider on the mound at 1:05 PM ET.