Another day, another instance of the Braves largely setting into the lineup du jour:
Luke Williams had a nice night yesterday against the Twins, with a couple of hard-hit doubles and two other balls to the outfield, as well as a couple of nifty defensive plays at the hot corner. With Gio Urshela apparently banged up (who isn’t?) and also posting a not-so-cool 66 wRC+ as a Brave in 32 PAs so far, the Braves probably aren’t too salty about Williams getting another start.
The Phillies are deploying what we’re all used to by now:
Austin Hays is back and starting in left field; I checked and the Phillies don’t actually have another lefty batter to plug in there against Charlie Morton, at least not short of putting Kyle Schwarber in the outfield and starting backup catcher Garrett Stubbs at DH, so that’s a small measure of salvation for the Braves’ veteran right-hander. While checking, I also looked and found the amazing factoids that: A) the Phillies currently have literally zero position players on the Injured List; and, B) the Phillies currently have literally only two players on the Injured List, period.
Anyway, the Braves are very much on Operation: Moonshot to get ahead of their rivals for the lead in the NL East, and today’s the game with the lowest winning percentage in this four-game set, so they better get to it.
