With so many injuries to their rotation, the Braves are exploring new depths of their organizational pitching portfolio. It does not help that they had to burn through five relief arms to cover 6.0 innings Friday, after using five relievers in a late west coast game on Thursday as well.
The Cardinals start Erick Fedde on their side and he might not be better than who the Braves have starting, with a 5.31 xFIP and 4.76 FIP. After a dominant year in Korea, Fedde came back and was quite good last year, but has been replacement level or worse this year. His pitch usage has changed a bit, but all of his pitches are simply getting hit much harder than they were last year. His arm angle has dropped a couple of degrees since last year and all of his pitches have shifted to his arm side a tad in terms of shape. There isn’t a super obvious reason to me why this would lead to a collapse in pitch effectiveness, but that is been the result so far.
As always, the offense will have to show up, and they have shown some power lately, Sean Murphy in particular. Both starting pitchers will be quite hittable for a major league offense, so which one shows up will likely be the deciding factor in the game. It will be worth keeping an eye on Austin Riley and whether he shows up in the lineup after exiting Friday’s game early with “lower abdominal tightness”, which may have just been code for needing to go to the bathroom. Additionally, who plays designated hitter will be something to watch, as Snitker has given both catchers the chance to hit in the same game recently, with Ozuna struggling.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Saturday, July 12, 2:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO
TV: FanDuel Sports South / Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
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