Seven wins, none of them comfortable
Atlanta take a seven-game winning streak into Monday’s meeting with San Francisco. Every one of those wins came by two runs or fewer. The latest landed on Sunday, a 3-2 decision over Colorado in 10 innings that completed back-to-back sweeps of the Dodgers and the Rockies.
The Braves now sit 27 games above .500 for the first time since 2023. A week ago they had lost five of six.
“It’s not good for my health, I’ll tell you that much,” manager Walt Weiss said of the run of one-score games. “Every night is the same game. But this team is battle-tested.”
Weiss went further on the turnaround. “It’s just another lesson of how quick things can change in this game. You play virtually every day for seven or eight months, things can change quickly. We’re worlds apart from where we were a week ago. You’ve got to have the right people in the room, people who are willing to fight through that stuff.”
Try it for $0.99.
A stray game on the calendar
Monday’s fixture exists because of a June 18 postponement. It is a one-game standalone series dropped onto what was supposed to be an off day, the sort of scheduling debris clubs usually resent. Atlanta will take it. An eighth straight win would match their longest run of the season.
Bryce Elder (8-7, 3.95 ERA) makes his sixth consecutive home start. He worked six innings against the Dodgers on Tuesday, conceded three runs on eight hits, struck out five and walked nobody in a no-decision the Braves won 4-3. San Francisco have given him more trouble: a 4.76 ERA across three career starts, the last a four-inning, five-run outing on June 27 in a 5-0 defeat.
Molina faces the club that traded him
The Giants hand the ball to Anthony Molina (1-0, 2.89) for the third start of his major league career, against the organisation that dealt him. Atlanta shipped the 24-year-old right-hander out at the August deadline in the trade for Tyler Mahle. His Giants debut came on Tuesday, 4 1/3 innings of one-hit relief against Cincinnati in a 3-1 win.
San Francisco had Sunday off before opening a seven-game, three-city road trip. They are tracking towards their worst season since 2017, when they finished 64-98, and yet they have taken four of the first five meetings with Atlanta this year.
“I think the door is open for some of the guys that we have in the organization that are teetering on, ‘Is this guy going to be a starter or not,’” first-year manager Tony Vitello said. “The opportunity is there more than ever.”
Discover the rest of our MLB news on MathODDS!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply