Today's Three Things: Braves blow winning streak with lack of offense in Miami

The Atlanta Braves continue to let subpar starters look like Cy Young contenders

The Atlanta Braves struggled to score runs, losing their series opener against the Miami Marlins 6-2 in loanDepot Park on Friday night.

Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The top of the 4th inning, which is frustratingly early.

Miami had just taken a 4-0 lead after Agustín Ramírez got all of a hanging Didier Fuentes curveball and deposited it in the seats, putting up a three-spot in the bottom of the 3rd inning.

But Atlanta had designs to answer back. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Alex Verdugo led off with consecutive singles off Marlins starter Jansen Junk.¹ Austin Riley appeared to hit into a double play, but beat the throw at first to leave runners on the corners with only one out. Matt Olson promptly singled, bringing in Acuña and getting Atlanta on the board.

But from that point, Marcell Ozuna struck out and Ozzie Albies flew out, ending the threat with only a single run coming in. The Braves would score only one more time in the game, off of an 8th inning Austin Riley solo shot when it was already 6-1.

Today’s Player of the Game

Believe it or not, I’m giving it to Didier Fuentes.

It may be a surprising decision to make a prospect who allowed four runs on six hits across five innings the player of the game, but I saw a lot I liked in this one.

The runs predominantly came off of a three-run homer in the 3rd inning, but Fuentes rebounded to allow only two baserunners in his final two innings, one on a walk and the other on a single, with neither advancing past first base. And despite only striking out three batters, Fuentes showed surprisingly good stuff. Despite my expectations going in, he showcased the entire four-pitch arsenal, heavily featuring the curveball as his third pitch and even breaking out the splitter late.

Fuentes finished with nine whiffs and another 15 called strikes, ending with a close-to-average 28% CSW. Only walking one in his MLB debut is a sign of poise, although there are a few pitches and locations that he’d undoubtedly like to have back.

One of my to-dos after this start is to go look at his fastballs and cross-reference the IVB with his spin - he looked to be struggling to grip some of them and the performance of the pitch varied accordingly. It’s only his second start with the MLB ball, which is exclusively used in the majors and AAA, so some shakiness is expected.

While I expect him to get sent back down to Gwinnett to keep working on things, I have a suspicion that we haven’t seen the last of Didier Fuentes this season.

What You’ll Be Talking About

More frustrations from Atlanta’s offense.

I talked after the Mets series about how New York beat themselves more than Atlanta’s offense won the series. A combination of dominant outings from Atlanta’s starters combined with numerous and repeated miscues by New York - baserunning issues in game one, the catcher errors in game two, and all of the walks in game three - allowed the Braves to get the sweep despite an offensive performance that wasn’t actually that great.

Today, we saw what happens when the opponent doesn’t beat themselves and the pitching isn’t world-beating: The Braves got in an early hole and couldn’t dig out.

While Atlanta had two hits with runners in scoring position tonight, it took them ten at-bats to get them. Austin Riley had yet another defensive error, while the Braves didn’t draw a single walk against the Marlins.

For as much momentum as they created with a sweep of the then-NL East-leading Mets, tonight’s loss showed that there’s still more work to be done for the Braves’ offense to get back to its identity.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s got a late afternoon start time to try and get back into the series. Grant Holmes (3-6, 3.97) takes on injury-returner Eury Perez (0-1, 6.43) at 4:10 PM ET.

1. Atlanta’s first hits of the game, by the way.