The Atlanta Braves are looking to stay above .500 here in the infancy of the season and they’ll likely need a strong start from Bryce Elder if they’re going to pick up their third win in four games so far.
The Athletics are coming into this game licking their wounds a bit. The defending American League champions Toronto Blue Jays opened up their season in style with a three-game sweep over this A’s squad. In fact, Toronto’s pitching was a bit too much for the A’s to handle at times, as the Blue Jays ended up recording a whopping 50 strikeouts across the three-game series — which is an MLB record for the first three games of the season.
With that being said, whenever the Athletics did manage to make contact with the ball, they made some noise. The A’s had a Hard-Hit percentage of 36.5 percent across the first three games of the series, which placed them in fourth behind the Dodgers (sure), White Sox (actually makes sense), and the Marlins (they played the Rockies). The biggest culprit over the weekend was Shea Langeliers, who had a Barrel rate of 37.5 percent and clubbed three dingers over the course of the three games North of the border. Of course, the Braves will have to worry about guys like Nick Kurtz and Lawrence Butler waking up and also guys like old nemesis Jeff McNeil continuing to be annoying while wearing a different uniform but the onus will be on Bryce Elder to cool down Langeliers and his bat.
Speaking of Elder, this’ll be his first start of the season and if we’re being honest, he ended spring training on a high note. He struck out six Red Sox batters while only giving up one run on one hit and two walks over five innings of work. Sure, he had a blip against the Rays right before that start but he also didn’t have “mechanical issues” like Reynaldo López did, so maybe this’ll be a case of Elder peaking at the right time. It’s also been over two weeks since we’ve seen Elder pitch and while I’m sure that he’s probably had bullpen sessions between now and then, we’ll have to see how the layoff effects Elder as he gets his season going. Maybe all of these elements will translate into a shutdown performance, which would be a lovely way to mark his first time making the Opening Day roster.
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Elder’s equivalent for the A’s will be Jacob Lopez, who is coming off of a successful first season with the A’s where he ended up with a 4.08 ERA (97 ERA-) and 4.26 FIP (100 FIP-) across 92.2 innings of work in 2025. “But Demetrius, those ERA- and FIP- numbers suggest that he was very average! Why was it successful and considered to be a breakout season?”
Well, the main numbers suggest that he was perfectly okay but the underlying metrics suggest that Lopez is extremely tough to deal with. His xERA in 2025 was 3.64, his xBA was .211, his average exit velocity against was a leisurely 86.9 mph, his Hard-Hit percentage placed him in the 94th percentile of all starters and he had a strikeout rate of 28.3 percent. Those are some very good numbers (as evidenced by all of the red on his Baseball Savant page) and indicate that he’s a lot better than his ERA and FIP would suggest.
He’ll also have the benefit of being a very new face for this current Braves squad to deal with. Only three current Braves players have faced Lopez before and surprise, surprise, they were the three players who have arrived here from the American League: Mike Yastrzemski, Jonah Heim (2 AB each) and Mauricio Dubón (5 AB). With Lopez being a lefty as well, that means that we likely won’t be seeing Yaz get a crack at him so that’s another thing to take into consideration. As such, Lopez’s mix of a four-seamer (35 percent usage, 91-mph average velocity), slider, cutter, change-up and sinker will be something new for the vast majority of this Braves lineup to deal with.
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As far as the recent history goes, the Braves actually dropped the series out in Sacramento when these two teams last locked horns with each other. The one win for the Braves was a 9-2 laugher where the starting pitcher nearly went seven innings while striking out seven and only giving up two runs on eight hits and a walk. That pitcher? Bryce Elder, of course. While we’d certainly like to see fewer baserunners for Elder to deal with, a repeat performance would be very nice to see, thank you very much.
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Can the Braves keep their good start to the season going with another series-opening win? Will the Athletics break out from a frustrating trip to Toronto with a breakout win tonight? I think we’re all rooting for the first scenario there so let’s see that one tonight happen, please.
Game Date/Time: Monday, March 30th, 7:15 p.m. ET
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan
