After a 3-2 start to the 2024 season, the Braves will return home and help usher in a new campaign in Atlanta as they play host to the Arizona Diamondbacks for three games. The Diamondbacks are coming off an 84-win campaign in which they managed to snag a spot in the expanded playoff field, and then knocked off the 92-win Brewers (without losing a game), 100-win Dodgers (without losing a game), and Phillies (falling behind 2-0 and then 3-2 in the series) before finally falling to the Rangers in the World Series.
Projected for the same 84ish wins heading into the season, the Diamondbacks have pretty much performed as expected so far, with a 4-3 record that included winning three of four against the hapless Rockies in Denver, and then dropping their home-opening series to the Yankees. Thanks to the joy of being able to face the Rockies for four of seven games so far, the Diamondbacks come into this game as one of the majors’ most-productive teams on both sides of the ball — their BaseRuns record right now is 6-1 (second-best in the majors), they’re fourth in MLB in runs scored per game, and also in the top ten in fewest runs allowed per game. That said, though, the Braves are first in MLB in BaseRuns record, so this should be another good series between these two teams. For more on Arizona, see our season preview here.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has an insane .475 xwOBA (and 149 wRC+) in the early going, and has combined with Ketel Marte for a strong one-two punch atop the lineup thus far. Corbin Carroll has a really goofy line — a walk rate north of 20 percent, a strikeout rate south of four percent, but just one extra-base hit — the sort of thing you see a lot of early on in the season.
Friday, April 5, 7:20 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)
Spencer Strider (1 GS, 5 IP, 74 ERA-, 92 FIP-, 55 xFIP-)
Due to Wednesday’s postponement, Spencer Strider will start the Braves’ home opener, a week and a day after he started on Opening Day in Philadelphia. In that outing, Strider picked up pretty much where he left off in 2023 in every respect — he had an 87/66/67 line last year, and a 64/149/86 line across two playoff starts — and once again facing the Phillies, he mowed them down with an 8/2 K/BB ratio, but got stung by a Brandon Marsh homer that led to the only two Philadelphia runs tallied against him.
(In his two playoff starts, Strider had an 8/2 K/BB ratio in the first and allowed an unearned run on a single and a solo homer, and then had a 7/3 K/BB ratio in the second and allowed runs on three solo homers.)
Strider has three career starts against the Diamondbacks, including his first career start, with a combined 4.56 FIP and 2.65 xFIP against them (compared to a career 2.51 FIP and 2.70 xFIP). In other words, homers have been the story of his outings facing the Snakes — in his starting debut he gave up a three-run homer to Pavin Smith, in his next outing it was a solo homer to Evan Longoria, and most recently, it was back-to-back homers to Dominic Canzone (three-run variety) and Emmanuel Rivera in a game the Braves came back to win with big time homers of their own. (The Braves won both 2023 Strider starts against the Diamondbacks after losing his 2022 start.)
Tommy Henry (1 GS, 4 IP, 233 ERA-, 140 FIP-, 83 xFIP-)
The Diamondbacks have a bevy of starting pitchers in theory, but with Eduardo Rodriguez currently on the shelf and late signee Jordan Montgomery still working himself up towards game action, 26-year-old left-hander Tommy Henry started the 2024 season as part of their starting rotation. Henry drew the start in their third game of the season, which happened to be the one they lost to the Rockies by a score of 9-4. He didn’t pitch horribly with a 4/2 K/BB ratio (though you do have to consider the level of competition), but he did allow a homer. His runs allowed and even his xwOBA-against look nasty because nearly half of the contact he allowed to the Rockies in that game resulted in a flare or burner, i.e., a high-probability hit that isn’t struck particularly well.
2024 is already Henry’s third season in which he’s made a big league appearance. He made nine pretty horrid starts in 2022 (-0.4 fWAR), and was a much more serviceable fourth starter type last year, with 0.7 fWAR accrued in 89 innings… though he did substantially benefit from a low HR/FB and had a bad xFIP, so there’s some reason for caution there.
Henry is a command-over-stuff “crafty lefty” type that probably throws his 91 mph-ish four-seamer way too frequently, even if he understands that yes, even fastballs that slow can play up in the zone. He gets a lot of out of his secondaries and his changeup is a legitimate weapon. This will be his first time facing the Braves.
Saturday, April 6, 7:20 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)
Max Fried (1 GS, 2⁄3 IP, 829 ERA-, 300 FIP-, 342 xFIP-)
Fried’s 2024 did not get off to anything that could even remotely be described as “a good start,” as he had the worst outing of his big league life, even when you consider he’s had injury-shortened outings where he was blasted prior to departing earlier in his career. Fried allowed a leadoff single and later issued two walks, before a pretty egregious blown call on what should’ve been strike three to Nick Castellanos led to a third walk. Fried then stuck around for a two-run single to Bryson Stott before he was lifted, giving him his eye-poppingly bad final line. (The Braves still won the game, 12-4.)
Overall, Fried is still expected to be a premiere pitcher for the 2024 campaign, but he is going to have to work just a wee bit harder to overcome the damage to his seasonal line now that it’s already in the books, especially if he wants his huge payday once he hits free agency at the end of this season (barring a surprising extension, of course).
Perhaps oddly, Fried has only faced the Diamondbacks as a starter twice before — once in 2019 (7/1 K/BB ratio in a 5-3 win) and once in 2022 (5/2 K/BB ratio in seven scoreless innings where the Braves won 1-0 on a walkoff double by Austin Riley).
Brandon Pfaadt (1 GS, 5 IP, 37 ERA-, 55 FIP-, 72 xFIP-)
Brandon Pfaadt dominated the Rockies last Sunday, with a 6/0 K/BB ratio over five frames in a 5-1 win. Staked to a 3-0 lead after the first, the only run charged to him was set up by way of a leadoff hit by pitch and an infield single — he later hit another batter in the same inning, but escaped the resulting bases loaded, one out jam with an infield pop and a groundout.
The 25-year-old former top prospect had an interesting debut season in 2023, with a 130 ERA- and 122 FIP- that clashed with his perfectly cromulent 102 xFIP-. (The latter was also consistent with his quality of contact allowed.) Pfaadt then proceeded to scintillate across five postseason outings as Arizona made their playoff run, putting up a beautiful 75/79/74 line across 22 postseason innings. After a rocky outing against the Brewers in which he lasted just 2 2⁄3 and allowed a homer with a 4/1 K/BB ratio, he then uncorked an insane 18/2 K/BB ratio across his next three starts, generally being yanked out of the game before he could get overexposed. He did fare somewhat worse against the Rangers in Game 3 of the World Series, the only one of his five playoff outings the Diamondbacks lost, but suffice to say, the expectations (and projections) are now for Pfaadt to step into the role of an above-average big league starter in his first full season. He took a great first step in that direction against the Rockies, but will have a tougher test on Saturday against the Braves.
Pfaadt’s effectiveness is largely about his unorthodox, hard sweeper, which is a bit of an oxymoron since the harder a sweeper it, the less time it has to sweep. But, it’s been a great weapon for him so far. He could also stand to throw his mediocre four-seamer way less, and integrate more of his changeup and curve, which look pretty good on paper.
Like Henry, Pfaadt has yet to face the Braves.
Sunday, April 7, 1:35 p.m. ET (Bally Sports Southeast)
Chris Sale (1 GS, 5 1⁄3 IP, 69 ERA-, 111 FIP-, 82 xFIP-)
Chris Sale’s debut as a Brave was probably disappointing in that the game ended in a loss to the Phillies, but his own pitching performance was pretty good: a 7/2 K/BB ratio with a homer allowed in 5 1⁄3 innings. It seemed like things might unravel at one point when he loaded the bases with none out in the fifth thanks to a leadoff single, a walk, and a hit-by-pitch, but a double play off the bat of Kyle Schwarber and a strikeout of Trea Turner set things to rights.
If you did want to be concerned about something, it’s that Sale somehow allowed an absurd .628 xwOBACON in the start — while over 40 percent of the contact he allowed was flares/burners, he also allowed two barrels in 22 batters faced, which adds up to a skewed-looking line in terms of contact management.
Amusingly, Sale has faced the Diamondbacks twice in his career — once all the way back in 2011, as a reliever, where he got a single out, and once last year, where he had a 3/1 K/BB ratio in five innings in a 7-2 Red Sox win.
Ryne Nelson (1 GS, 2 2⁄3 IP, 280 ERA-, 145 FIP-, 234 xFIP-)
Rounding out the trio of young arms the Diamondbacks will throw at the Braves this weekend is Ryne Nelson, who was awful in a 5-2 loss to the Yankees on Monday. Nelson lasted for just 17 batters, and retired just eight of them, while managing a poor 2/4 K/BB ratio in the process. He managed to escape a bases-loaded jam in the first with a foulout, but wasn’t anywhere near as fortunate in the next two frames.
Like Henry, Nelson has now appeared in parts of three MLB seasons. He had a lucky three-start stint in 2022 (good ERA/FIP, bad xFIP) and pitched like a fifth starter across 144 innings in 2023 (121 ERA-, 120 FIP-, 121 xFIP-). He worked infrequently out of the bullpen in the playoffs, with his big effort coming when he pitched the last five innings in a losing effort of Game 4 of the World Series with a great 6/0 K/BB ratio and just a solo homer allowed; he also had an inconsequential blow-up in a blowout loss to the Phillies in NLCS Game 2.
A lot of Nelson’s pitches look great on paper, and you can see why he was highly praised as a prospect. Nothing really jumps out as a blatant reason for his struggles so far — sure, he needs to get the four-seamer up more, and the other stuff down more, but his pitch maps suggest a decent semblance of command, even if the intent might be wrongheaded — so there’s a chance things just click and he starts destroying teams with his deep pitch mix. But, it hasn’t happened so far.
Nelson made two starts against the Braves last year, which kind of evinced the duality of his potential and his tendency to fall short of it. His first outing against them was an 0/4 K/BB ratio nightmare, though the Braves only tallied three runs by the time he departed (and won 5-2 in the end). His next outing, though, he mostly cruised with a 5/1 K/BB ratio. He did allow two solo homers, but at one point retired 11 in a row, and went seven innings in a 5-3 Arizona win.
