The Mustache King is back at it and the Braves are going to need him to deal once again tonight.
Following a loss to kick things off in their series with the Mets, the Braves are looking to bounce right back as the two teams play the middle game of this three-game series.
The good news for the Braves is that after Max Fried had a rough outing yesterday, Spencer Strider seems like a prime candidate to get the team back on the winning track. Strider has seamlessly integrated himself into the rotation and his most recent three starts before today have been fantastic. In those three starts, Strider’s gone 18 innings, racked up 30 strikeouts, only walked three batters and has only given up one run. It is absolutely absurd that the Braves only won one of those three games and even in the game that the team won, Strider left with it still being a tight 2-1 game. Let’s not turn Spencer Strider into the flamethrower who gets little-to-no help from his offense for whatever reason.
Anyways, this will be Strider’s first time facing off against the New York Mets. This should pose as a pretty interesting challenge for Strider if only because of the fact that the Mets are a somewhat strikeout-averse team. New York has the third-lowest strikeout percentage in all of baseball (19.7 percent), while Strider is going into this game with a scarcely-believable 39.1 percent strikeout rate — a number that is tops in baseball among all pitchers with at least 60 innings under their belt so far. The good news for the Braves is that Strider’s already had a similar challenge when it comes to teams with low strikeout rates — the Nationals actually have an even lower strikeout rate (19.3 percent) than the Mets do and Strider ended up fanning 11 Nationals back in June. While New York’s lineup has the potential to do damage, Strider should be up for the challenge.
On the other side of things, the Mets are sending David Peterson to the mound to start things off. Atlanta’s actually seen him before during this season — the Braves got him for four runs (three earned) over five innings. Three of those runs came on one swing from the bat of Matt Olson, who hit a skyscraping shot into the bullpen in right field at Citi Field. Considering that Olson donned the Golden Sombrero last night, seeing a dinger like that again would be a sight for sore eyes as far as Braves fans are concerned.
Over the course of this season, Peterson hasn’t exactly been spectacular but he’s getting the job done as a back-end rotation guy if all the Mets wanted was to pitch well enough to keep the lineup competitive in whatever game he’s pitching in. If “sneaky good” had a representative, it would be David Peterson. While it’s still going to be a pretty big drop off in quality from Max Scherzer last night to David Peterson tonight, the Braves nonetheless absolutely have to lock in at the plate and get going early and often against Peterson.
Atlanta’s sure to have a sour taste in their mouths after the way last night’s game went. They had chances but couldn’t capitalize on them and also any game where Luis Guillorme hits a home run is going to be a frustrating game no matter what. Hopefully, the offense is consistently doing damage and Spencer Strider has another night where he’s lighting up the radar gun and racking up the K’s as well. It’s a winnable game for the Braves and it’s one that they absolutely need if they want to have a shot at sending the Mets out of town with absolutely no room to spare in the standings.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Tuesday, July 12, 7:20 p.m. ET
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia
TV: Bally Sports South
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
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