Braves return home against Red Sox with hopes of returning to good form

After going on a nasty road trip that saw them go 1-5 against Seattle and Los Angeles, the Atlanta Braves are looking to snap out of their first real funk of the season with some home cooking as they open up a quick series against the Boston Red Sox.

Over the past six games, Atlanta’s offense has been as bad as any that you’ll see in MLB at the moment. The team hit .168/.218/.244 on that road trip, with a wOBA of .209 and a shockingly-bad team wRC+ of 30 — yes, thirty. The Braves are just going through one of those blips at the plate and if they thought they were going to find respite in a favorable pitching matchup on their return back to Cobb County, they’re sadly mistaken.

Kutter Crawford is starting for the Red Sox tonight and he’s one of two Boston starters (Tanner Houck being the other one) that nobody wants to see at the moment — especially a lineup that’s struggling. Crawford has been one of the best starters in baseball through his first seven starts this season as he’s currently sitting on a 1.56 ERA (39 ERA-) and a 2.52 FIP (63 FIP-). All of those numbers have him solidly placed among the top 10 starting pitchers right now (and in the case of his ERA numbers, he’s nearly at the top of the entire pile) and naturally a lot of his success has come with his cutter pitch in addition to a solid sweeper and a nasty split-finger that he’ll break out every now and then.

One stat in particular that sticks out for Crawford is the fact that he has been giving up nothing but soft contact so far. He’s currently in second place in baseball among qualified starters when it comes to Hard Contact percentage at just a measly 18.9 percent — just 0.3 percent Tarik Skubal for the overall lead. He’s also just outside the top five when it comes to Soft Contact, as 24.3 percent of the contact that he’s given up could be qualified as soft. So of course, that means that he’s been keeping teams inside of the park and has given up a grand total of one (1) home run so far through 40.1 innings this season — giving him a HR/FB rate of 2.0 percent.

One of the things that kept the Braves confident that this collective slump could end at any moment is the fact that they’re still hitting the ball very hard but it’s looking like hard contact could be tough to come by for Atlanta tonight. We’re all aware that this team can break out at any given moment and any given time but let’s just say I would be pleasantly shocked if the breakout happened tonight against this particular pitcher.

On Atlanta’s side of things, Reynaldo López is getting the start for the Braves and he'll be looking to get back to the level that he was at during his first four starts of the season. This isn't to say that his last start was terrible or anything like that — considering the expectations we had coming into the season, we'll take five innings pitched with three runs allowed, which is what he had in his most recent start against Seattle. Still, with the expectation that Kutter Crawford is likely going to be a very tough nut to crack, it would be nice if López was able to get back to pitching six or seven innings with minimal damage done to the scoreboard.

Boston's lineup isn't exactly the most imposing crew in the world, either. They're still fully capable of putting up numbers — they've got a 104 wRC+ so far this season as a unit and are prone to go through stretches where they're scoring 1-2 runs a game. With that being said, they sandwiched three of those games with the bread of a win where they scored six and another win where they scored nine, so again, they're fully capable of putting up numbers on any given day.

I know that we're all (im)patiently waiting on the Braves to finally snap out of their funk and finally get going again. If we're completely honest, they should have a tough time tonight if Kutter Crawford continues the run that he's been on to start the season. Still, Reynaldo López has been turning heads with his performances so far this season so it's not as if the Braves are completely hopeless heading into this thing. Atlanta still has a very dangerous lineup that can get going at the snap of a finger and hopefully we'll see it happen tonight as the Braves return home.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Tuesday, May 7, 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