The Atlanta Braves can get their revenge on the San Diego Padres this weekend

Previewing Atlanta's season opening matchup against the San Diego Padres

If the way last season ended didn’t leave a bad taste in the mouths of Braves players, we’d have a problem.

The Braves limped into the postseason after losing three Opening Day starters for the final 35+ regular season games, the first time any MLB team had ever done that.

San Diego sent them home in rather dominant fashion, outscoring the Braves 9-4 and with game one starter Michael King absolutely shoving - seven scoreless innings with five hits but twelve strikeouts.

Today’s the first chance for revenge. Let’s talk about it.

The vital stats

Atlanta Braves (0-0) versus San Diego Padres (0-0) from Petco Park in San Diego, CA

Pitching matchups:

Thursday: Chris Sale (0-0) versus Michael King (0-0)
Friday: Reynaldo López (0-0) versus Dylan Cease (0-0)
Saturday: Spencer Schwellenbach (0-0) versus TBD
Sunday: AJ Smith-Shawver (0-0) versus TBD

Projected lineups:

Atlanta:
LF Jurickson Profar
3B Austin Riley
1B Matt Olson
DH Marcell Ozuna
CF Michael Harris II
2B Ozzie Albies
C Drake Baldwin
RF Jarred Kelenic
SS Orlando Arcia

San Diego: (when facing a lefty)
1B Luis Arraez
RF Fernando Tatis Jr.
CF Jackson Merrill
3B Manny Machado
SS Xander Bogaerts
2B Jake Cronenworth
DH Yuli Gurriel - old friend alert!
LF Brandon Lockridge
C Elias Díaz

Last season’s results:

Regular season: Braves three wins in seven games, -4 run differential
Postseason: No Braves wins in two games, -5 run differential

This season’s matchups:

March 27-30th @ San Diego, May 23rd-25th in Atlanta

Can the Braves figure King out?

The Braves didn’t draw a single walk off of King in game one of the Wild Card and registered only five hits. One of those hits (a double) came from Travis d’Arnaud, who left in free agency.

However, Michael Harris had two singles, including the second-hardest hit ball (104.1 mph) in the game, while the other singles came from Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson. Austin Riley’s replacement, Gio Urshela, was 0-6 in the series while a hampered Ozzie Albies (batting righty only) went 1-8 in the series, but struck out in all three plate appearances against King.

King attacked Atlanta with his sinker/sweeper pairing in the contest, ramping up his sweeper usage from his full-season number of 18% (4th-most used) to 21% (2nd-most used) and cut his changeup usage from his usual 25% to just about 10% (and all but two of them coming against lefties). Atlanta never got good wood on the sweeper, maxing out at just 85.2 mph and whiffing eight times in twelve swings.

Will more health and a full offseason of thinking about it help the Braves hitters? It might. Marcell Ozuna was the team’s best hitter off of sweepers last season (+6 Run Value), while Austin Riley might as well be King Sinker (+8 Run Value and a top-20 figure in all of baseball). New addition Jurickson Profar also hit sweepers well last season (+4 Run Value) and presumably saw a lot of them playing behind King.

Additionally, Ozzie being able to hit lefty against King can potentially help negate the breaking ball, as sweepers have the largest platoon splits of any pitch in baseball.

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Sale should fair well against San Diego

While we’re in the pitch arsenal stats, no one expected to start on Thursday outside of Fernando Tatis Jr. was that great against sliders last season, and even then it wasn’t Sale’s slider. The big lefty had the 2nd-best slider in all of baseball by Run Value at +24, just slightly behind Dylan Cease’s +25 despite throwing over 200 less sliders than Cease.

It’s important to point out, though, that the only two existing Padres who have more than ten at-bats against Sale have faired well - Manny Machado is hitting .348 in 23 at-bats with a homer and two RBI, while old Chris Sale teammate Xander Bogaerts is hitting .353 in 17 at-bats with a homer and two RBI.

How Chris Sale did against San Diego last season:

2-0, 0.75 ERA in two starts with one run allowed on nine hits across twelve innings. Struck out thirteen and walked two. The one run came in the second start after Sale allowed three consecutive one-out singles in the bottom of the first, with the last scoring Donovan Solano from third. Sale buckled down and held San Diego to one more hit and two walks across the next 4.2 innings.

Who has the bullpen edge?

San Diego. While I think Braves closer Raisel Iglesias is better than Padres closer Robert Suarez, Jason Adam as the primary setup man for Suarez clears any of Atlanta’s options. I do think the Braves lefties, Dylan Lee and Aaron Bummer in particular, are better than the Padres’ options in Adrian Morejon, Yuki Mastui, and Wandy Peralta, but I’m giving the overall edge here to San Diego.

What will we be talking about tomorrow?

Chris Sale picking up where he left off. I expect this to be a dominant Sale start, with him finally leaving the game in a position for Atlanta to win.

For the position player group, as much as I’m thinking Jurickson Profar will pop off against his old team, give me Michael Harris II as the offensive MVP. I’m hopeful that he can not only pick up where he left off at the end of last season (hitting .316 with eight homers in September of 2024), but that he can sustain that production (and his health) to become truly one of the dominant all-around players in baseball.

Enjoy the games, everyone.