Braves head to the desert for a four-game set with Diamondbacks

Part of recent Braves lore has been the mythical Team Meeting, an esoteric, ethereal concept that holds that when a talented group of baseball players gets a talking-to from their manager, or perhaps from each other, their season’s success turns on a dime. As it happens, after not-so-great starts in each of 2022 and 2023, the Braves found themselves in Phoenix, Arizona, 50ish games into the season, held the Team Meeting, and the rest is, well, recent history.

The 2024 iteration of the Braves will be heading to Phoenix for Games 88 through 92, and has been in a pre-Team Meeting malaise for over two months now. With that said, they are coming off a series win over the division rival Phillies in which they scored a bunch of runs and hit a plethora of bombs against the league’s best pitching staff... so maybe no Team Meeting is needed. But, it creates an amusing backdrop for the first stop in the Braves’ two-city, seven-game road trip, which will end in the All-Star Break.

The host Diamondbacks will come into the series at 44-44, and have been playing much better lately vis-a-vis their weak start to the season. The Snakes were 14-17 by the end of April, and 25-32 by the end of May. Since then, though, they’ve gone 20-13, losing just two series in that span. Moreover, they just took series on the road from both the Dodgers and Padres, winning each in convincing fashion after a walkoff loss in both series openers. (The Diamondbacks have had four series-opening walkoff losses at this point, including one at Truist Park as they suffered a series sweep, which seems like a lot; only one of their walkoff losses has come in anything other than the first game of a series.)

Overall, the Diamondbacks have been an interesting club, even though they’re pretty far down in the standings and have only about a 1-in-3 chance of making the playoffs thus far. They’ve hit pretty well (108 wRC+, 11th in MLB) and have played great defense, putting them seventh in position player fWAR thus far. However, their pitching has been disastrous (29th in MLB in fWAR), especially in the bullpen, where they are currently one of four teams with sub-replacement level relief performance. Things have only gotten worse recently in the pitching department; the team’s substantial improvement has been entirely because they are mashing the ball. But, even that mashing has been the result of the league’s biggest xwOBA overperformance since the start of June, taking the league’s tenth-best offensive inputs and translating them into fourth-best offensive outputs, so it’s fair to wonder if and when the bottom just falls through. The Braves will probably hope it happens in this series, and allows their offensive success against the Phillies to carry over into Chase Field.

On the player end, the Diamondbacks are led by the trio of Ketel Marte, Christian Walker, and Joc Pederson offensively, Zac Gallen and Brandon Pfaadt on the pitching end, and a trio of standout relief performers in Joe Mantiply, Kevin Ginkel, and Ryan Thompson. Their pitching has struggled not because of a limited top-end, but because their rotation and bullpen backend have been brutal. That makes them a bit of a weird team — they can slam the door on you if they jump out ahead, but probably won’t deploy their good relievers and will therefore have a problem playing catchup if they fall behind.

Monday, July 8, 9:40 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)

Chris Sale (16 GS, 99 2⁄3 IP, 66 ERA-, 58 FIP-, 62 xFIP-, xERA betweeen ERA and xFIP)

Currently the best pitcher in the NL (and trailing by just a tiny bit for the fWAR lead among all hurlers in 2024), Chris Sale didn’t get a chance to take on the Phillies last weekend, but will open this series for Atlanta. At this point, there’s not much else you can say about Sale that hasn’t already been said; he’s stayed healthy and provided dominant pitching almost all season. He’s had an ERA- above 100, twice, an FIP- above 100 three times, and an xFIP- above 93 zero times. Meanwhile, he’s had nine starts with an ERA- below 50, nine starts with an FIP- below 50, and four starts with an xFIP- below 50. He’s been absurd.

Yilber Diaz (11 GS in Double-A; 4 GS in Triple-A this year)

Prospect Yilber Diaz will get the call to make his major league debut against the Braves on Monday night. Generally considered an eventual high-leverage reliever, the Diamondbacks have continued to use Diaz as a starter so far, and bumped him up to Triple-A after he was pretty good in 11 Double-A starts to begin the year. A hard thrower with two breaking pitches, Diaz hasn’t lasted long in his outings, so this may be a pseudo-bullpen game. That could be a bit of a challenge for the Snakes, because their bullpen has been heavily used given a bunch of shootouts with the Dodgers and Padres lately, so it’ll be up to the Braves to take advantage and hit Diaz as he gets deeper into the game.

Tuesday, July 9, 9:40 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)

Charlie Morton (16 GS, 91 IP, 96 ERA-, 103 FIP-, 100 xFIP-, xERA well above FIP)

Morton’s middling age-40 season continues, and he’s alternated good and bad outings for his last five starts. The Giants hit two homers off him in a July 4 Braves loss. If the pattern continues, this should be a good outing for the veteran right-hander. One thing to watch out for is that the Diamondbacks are good at going platoon advantage-heavy where relevant, and it’s very relevant for Morton, who once again has an FIP and xFIP above 4.00 when facing lefty bats this year — he simply can’t avoid walking (or plunking) them.

Zac Gallen (13 GS, 67 ²⁄₃ IP, 75 ERA-, 81 FIP-, 82 xFIP-, xERA way way above xFIP)

After a 5+ fWAR season last year, Gallen is pitching pretty similarly this year, but his total production is down because he missed almost all of June with a hamstring injury. He dominated the Athletics in his return from the Injured List and was so-so against the Dodgers last time out, which is also kind of how his season has gone: his great numbers on the year are a mix of meh outings and ones where he completely carved up the opposition.

Both Gallen starts against the Braves last year ended up being insane games. One was the Eddie Rosario grand slam game (not off Gallen) that kinda-sorta turned the season around; the other, in Atlanta, featured a late Austin Riley three-run homer (also not off Gallen) to result in another comeback win.

Wednesday, July 10, 9:40 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)

Max Fried (17 GS, 102 IP, 77 ERA-, 89 FIP-, 86 xFIP-, xERA well above FIP)

Fried had a pretty horrible outing against the Phillies, but it’s not clear how much we should hold it against him given that he was, inexplicably, asked to pitch to some guys a fourth time through the order, where he issued a walk and a second two-run homer of the night to Trea Turner.

Fried’s season began with nightmarish starts against the Phillies and Diamondbacks; now, in July, he’s already had another bad outing against the Phillies, and the Diamondbacks are next on the slate again. After a really strong outing against the Yankees, Fried has now been not-so-good in his last two tries, so this would be a good time to get back into a groove.

TBD

The Diamondbacks haven’t announced a starter for this game. It lines up for Slade Cecconi, who’s been very unlucky (149/123/111) but has generally pitched like a reasonable fifth starter. Cecconi really struggled in April and May, but has been much better since (148/92/90) despite not being able to exorcise the usual BABIP and strand rate demons that have haunted him all year, so it’s not clear why the Diamondbacks wouldn’t start him, but they may have other ideas anyway.

Thursday, July 10, 9:40 p.m. ET (Bally Sports South)

Spencer Schwellenbach (7 GS, 37 ²⁄₃ IP, 121 ERA-, 91 FIP-, 90 xFIP-, xERA somewhat above xFIP)

After a number of starts with third-time-through issues, Schwellenbach put together the best start of his career against the Phillies last time out, posting a 6/0 K/BB ratio across six scoreless innings, despite facing the first two-thirds of the Philadelphia lineup for a third time. The rookie right-hander actually has a sparkling 26/4 K/BB ratio over his last four starts, and has already come a long way since his first few starts in the majors.

Also TBD

The Diamondbacks will probably end up starting Brandon Pfaadt here, but haven’t announced anything because Pfaadt left his last start after getting hit by a comebacker in the ankle area. Pfaadt has been solid so far (103/98/95) and is on a bit of a roll, with a 14/2 K/BB ratio over his last two outings. Like a number of other pitchers (hi, Charlie Morton), Pfaadt’s season has seen him veer between hot and cold for various short stretches, so it’s hard to know exactly what version of him you’re going to get — or if you’re going to get him at all in this slot, given the whole liner-off-the-ankle thing.