Well, I’m not going to say the “Mauricio Dubon leads off against lefties” experiment is over, but whatever the case may be, it’s at least on hiatus for tonight’s game against Payton Tolle and the Red Sox:
Austin Riley is back hitting cleanup, and Michael Harris II has dropped to sixth. These all sort make sense if you think the lineup as responding to semi-recent trends as Riley has hit pretty well over the last two weeks, while Dubon and Harris have been okay at best in that span. The bottom of the lineup is what it is, for another day. The Braves find ways to keep winning anyway.
This will be Riley’s first time hitting cleanup since April 23; with this start, he will once again take over the mantle of “has hit cleanup for the Braves in 2026 most often” which he currently shares with Matt Olson. The Braves have used 32 different batting orders in 45 games so far; this game will make it 33 in 46.
The Red Sox will deploy a lineup pretty similar to the one the Braves experience last night, except that Mickey Gasper is catching, such that Carlos Narvaez is pushed to the bench in favor of Masataka Yoshida starting at DH. When you look at the Statcast game preview above, you can see why the Red Sox have struggled to plate runs, as only Gasper, Wilyer Abreu, and Willson Contreras have any semblance of good batting inputs.
This is also a novel Red Sox lineup, and the second time that Gasper will start behind the plate.
Gasper, Yoshida, and Durbin have not faced Bryce Elder in their respective careers; the other six guys in the Red Sox lineup have, but none have double-digit PAs in the matchup. The collective line is a .162 wOBA and .191 xwOBA in 26 PAs, which really isn’t anything at all.
Nobody in the Braves’ lineup has faced Tolle before, which makes sense given that the youngster hasn’t pitched much in the majors and hasn’t yet faced the Braves. Elder has faced the Red Sox just once before — a game last year where he gave up a three-run double to Trevor Story in the first, and the game ended 3-1 with no runs scoring beyond the first inning.
