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As the Braves are currently in an absolutely dominant streak of baseball, currently sitting on five straight wins and having won 12 of their last 14 games, they have a chance for a four game series sweep hosting the lowly Rockies behind Charlie Morton. Charlie still hasn’t gotten back to his best self this season, despite his velocity and strikeout rates never really dipping much from his first season in Atlanta. His HR/FB rate has come back down this season, but his walks have continued to climb, now approaching four per nine innings. That and some inflated BABIP, as well as a much higher xERA are the major indicators of why the results aren’t the same as they were for peak Charlie.
The Braves offense will face Chase Anderson, who is 35 years old and has been perpetually injured for the last four seasons, but has an impressive 2.72 so far in 36.1 innings this season. This ERA is without the peripherals to back it up however, as his xERA is a 3.89 and his FIP is 4.95, with the xFIP landing between those two. With a 92% left on base rate, it isn’t hard to understand where that disparity is coming from. his velocity is up a tick this season, but he has always struggled to strike batters out and has never had a particularly impressive walk rate either. This is not a starter that I would expect the Braves’ bats to struggle with, even as a right hander, as the secondary and tertiary lefty bats have picked up their production lately.
We might expect to see word on Sean Murphy today, and he is unlikely to be available for the game after experiencing hamstring tightness and exiting Saturday’s game. Additionally, Ozzie Albies might be expected to continue to bat in the second spot in the batting order, with Matt Olson batting fifth, as this has been Snitker’s preference the last few days.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Sunday, June 18, 1:35 p.m. ET
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia
TV: Bally Sports Southeast, MLB Network
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
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