Travis Demeritte will finally make Braves debut as Atlanta hosts Miami

For the first time this season, the Atlanta Braves are welcoming in their divisional rivals from South Florida as the Miami Marlins are rolling into town. It’s also Kyle Wright Day for the Braves, as the former Vanderbilt hurler will be taking on Trevor Rogers in what should be a very intriguing pitching matchup tonight.

As of writing, the Braves have already posted their lineup and the most interesting name to make it into tonight’s starting nine is Travis Demeritte! The former Braves prospect who eventually made his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers will be making his Braves debut tonight and the obvious hope is that whatever he’s found in Triple-A can translate to the majors. If it does, then this would definitely be a change from what he’s done up to this point in the majors (he’s currently sitting on a career 62 wRC+ over 66 major league games and he most recently played in 2020) but there’s always hope for a short burst of magic, right?

They do need a bit of a spark when it comes to the lower half of the lineup — Demeritte getting the start tonight is the byproduct of Adam Duvall getting the night off. He had an utterly wretched series in Los Angeles and he’s getting an extra day off following the scheduled day off for the team yesterday. Additionally, Alex Dickerson has had an incredibly rough go of it to start things off and his run as the DH is currently on hold. Eddie Rosario has also been scuffling mightily so my best guess is that Brian Snitker figures some fresh faces should hopefully get things going pas the five spot in the lineup. While the bottom half of Atlanta’s lineup still doesn’t look super imposing right now, here’s hoping that there’s some sort of spark that will help them keep up with the core guys near the top of the lineup.

When it comes to the pitching, Kyle Wright is going tonight and he’s gotten off to a fantastic start to the season so far. It appears that Wright has indeed picked up where he left off following his stand-out performance in the 2021 World Series and he’s also coming off a career high in strikeouts (9) in his last time out. The stats tell the whole story — he’s on a roll right now.

baseballsavant.com

On the other side of things, Trevor Rogers has not picked up where he left off last season. The 2021 NL Rookie of the Year candidate has stumbled out of the gate a little bit, as he didn’t have a sparkling outing against the Giants on Opening Day and then he got absolutely walloped at home against the Phillies. His main issue so far appears to be that he’s finding a hard time missing bats here in the infancy of the season. If that continues then the Braves could have a pretty big night today. Rogers didn’t exactly befuddle the Braves last year either — Rogers had a September start in Atlanta last season where the Braves got him for four runs as they chased him from the game in the fifth inning. Rogers never got past the fifth inning against the Braves last year and it would clearly be a good sign for the Braves if that happened again tonight.

So, we’ve got an interesting lineup from Atlanta’s perspective and two young pitchers who can be really good on their best day. Braves games against the Marlins are rarely boring and hopefully this is an exciting one for all the right reasons as far as Atlanta is concerned.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Friday, April 22, 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