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Tampa Bay Rays vs. Atlanta Braves Game Thread

The Atlanta Braves face off today against the Tampa Bay Rays at CoolToday Park in North Port, FL.

Spencer Strider, who has yet to give up an earned run, and leads all pitchers in strikeouts in spring training with twenty-nine, will take the mound for his sixth appearance and fourth start.

Strider faces off against Aaron Civale. Civale has only pitched six innings thus far this spring and holds a 9.00 ERA. Of the seven hits that Civale has given up, three of them were Home Runs. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues against the HR happy Braves.

Even though Civale is a RHP, Atlanta is using a lineup that could be what we see when facing a LH SP. Today’s lineup features Travis D’Arnaud catching batting seventh, and Adam Duvall in LF batting eighth. The rest of the lineup is made up of the projected starters. This lineup could also just be set up to give Duvall some extra at bats as well since he does not have any yet this spring. No need to dig too deep into lineup construction in a spring training game.

Braves’ Lineup

It is also safe too say we do not want to look too deep into hitter’s slash lines in spring training either. Harris II, Arcia (welcome back), and Ozuna are having great springs. But, the others are not, and that is okay! Remember, it is called spring “training” for a reason. Players are working on mechanics and trying new things in live action.

The Rays’ lineup on the other hand only has one to two projected Opening Day starters. Amed Rosario is leading off, followed by Jose Siri. Outside of those two, the only notable name to Braves fans would likely be interested in is former Atlanta Brave catcher Alex Jackson. Jackson is batting fifth for the Rays.

Jackson is currently projected to be the backup catcher for the Rays. It could be really fun to see the Rays’ staff help Jackson become a solid MLB player.