One less reason to watch…
Well, Ronald Acuña Jr. isn’t in the lineup for the matinee series finale against the Giants, which is really lame. I mean, sure, don’t tax the guy as he comes back from injury, but there aren’t too many reasons to watch these days as the Braves play out the string, and this takes one of those reasons off the table.
Series finale.#BravesCountry pic.twitter.com/kknYdXWpjc
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) July 23, 2025
The Giants are also making some substitutions given that it’s a day game:
Dominic Smith will play first base for the first time in the series, and Luis Matos will make an appearance in center.
Both Jurickson Profar and Matt Olson have 20+ career PAs against Justin Verlander, but neither has hit him well at all. Four other guys (Nick Allen, Sean Murphy, Michael Harris II, and Ozzie Albies) have a handful of PAs against Verlander; weirdly, both Harris and Albies are 0-for-1 with a walk against Verlander. Collectively, it’s 60 PAs with a .242 wOBA and xwOBA.
Everyone in the San Francisco lineup has faced Strider at least twice, though Smith is the only guy with double-digit PAs against him. In a combined 13 PAs, Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, Luis Matos, and Matt Chapman have absolutely tormented Strider — they’re collectively a triple short of the cycle in that span against him with some extra singles and walks sprinkled in. On the flip side, the other guys haven’t done much of anything, so the combined line is a .262 wOBA but a .321 xwOBA across 44 PAs.