POSTCAST: Grant Holmes, Atlanta Braves SHUTOUT Miami Marlins to even series | LIVE REACTION

POSTCAST: Grant Holmes, Atlanta Braves SHUTOUT Miami Marlins to even series | LIVE REACTION

the Atlanta Braves shut out the Miami Marlins 7 to nothing tying the series at one game a piece and setting up a rubber match tomorrow afternoon let’s talk about it [Music] this is the Braves postcast your instant game reaction for the clan of Braves part of the Locked On podcast network your team every day yes welcome on in to the Braves postcast part of Locked On Sports Atlanta where we cover your Atlanta sports teams each and every day i’m your host Lindseay Crosby author of the Braves Today newsletter over at braves.com you can follow me on social media Crosby Baseball uh Jake Mastriani is still on his vacation but I hope that he got to watch this one because this ended up being a pretty fun game the Atlanta Braves take down the Miami Marlins 7 to nothing uh the getting a shut out on the road and I want to get to the offense i want to talk about how absurd Ronaldo Jr.’s been i want to talk about changing the lineup like they did to have Matt Olsen bat behind Ronald want to talk about Drake Baldwin and Alex Verdugo don’t let me don’t let me forget the Verdugo stuff but first we need to talk about Grant Holmes okay because on a day where you got terrible news about Chris Sale going to be out for some undetermined period of time they have not given us a time frame for his return from from a fractured rib cage it typically is going to be measured in weeks and not days i would imagine off the top of my head you’re looking at six to eight weeks or something so you’re in a situation where you lost a starter you lost not only a starter arguably your best starter going off of results from the last year and a half in Chris Sale and Grant Holmes was already a guy that I be became convinced did not need to move back to the bullpen you needed to keep him in the rotation but after what he did today I think you’ve seen that he is a starter right he can go to the bullpen and he can be useful there but Grant Holmes deserves to be a starter because the stuff that he did today was very good um he finishes the game it’s not a super impressive sounding line right five and two/3 innings five hits five walks five strikeouts no runs allowed obviously not allowing runs is impressive but when you look at the way Grant Holmes did it a lot of the jokes floating around Brave social media in this one we’re talking about calling Grant Holmes Houdini right because runner he he got a runner on third in the first in the second and in the third and every single time uh stopped him from scoring okay first like very first inning of the game he gives up a a a leadoff walk to Xavier Edwards after a fly out he Edwards moves to third on a single by Otto Lopez from that point strikes out August Ramirez who we saw hit the big home run on Friday gets Kyle Sters to fly out inning over you go back you know he’s up one- nothing he has a small lead here second inning leadoff double to Eric Wagaman liam Hicks singles puts runners on first and third from that point Connor Norby strikeout ground into double play by Dane Meyers inning over he does it again in the third inning there’s a there’s a one out or a yeah a one-out double by Jesus Sanchez he steals third and then from that point Otto Lopez strikes out gets August Ramirez to ground out only in one inning did Grant Holmes face the minimum and that was the fourth inning and even then somebody got on base leadoff walk from Grant Holmes 543 double play fly out to right inning over and the fact that he was able to navigate these situations every single time I think tells you that Grant Holmes is comfortable facing these hitters multiple times on a day when he clearly does not have his best control he’s still able to do more than enough to give Atlanta the victory and get out of that not only in a position where Atlanta can win but to get out of that with a scoreless outing after five and two/3 he actually half of all of the pitches he threw today were sliders it’s the highest usage I’ve seen for Grant Holmes of his slider in his career he was around the 30% mark on the slider coming into today 50% usage he threw 48 of them in 96 pitches part of the reason he threw it was they couldn’t hit it that well 22 swings 13 of those were whiffs six more were foul balls only three were put into play by the Marlins uh he you know he threw the cutter he threw the force he threw the curveball but the star of the show was the slider and actually Grant Holmes didn’t get a single whiff on a pitch that was not the slider so again did not have his best stuff today but one of the things we talk about when you can tell a starting pitcher is feeling good and is really in his stuff is when he’s not he doesn’t have his best stuff that day and his locations aren’t great and he’s able to not only get through the outing but in this case to get through it scoreless i thought that was fantastic enel de los Santos comes out wraps up that sixth inning gets a ground out to end it gets two more outs in the uh the seventh they pull him for Dylan Lee and Dylan Lee finishes up the seventh takes the entire eighth raphael Montero in the ninth i still believe and I know we’ve a lot of people have talked about this Jake talked about it on the show i still think Raphael Montero’s ninth inning shows you that the Braves still have work to do in the bullpen right he faces four batters he gets to full counts on each of the first three batters and like it was it was a way to take a seven round uh it’s a seven round a sevenrun game and still make it feel a little bit dramatic is it felt like Ravio Montero really struggled to get those final outs in the ninth inning so great game by Holmes given everything going on with his stuff not being fantastic he not in any way to be concerned his four seam velocity was a little bit down like half a mile an hour from his career average he still touched 96 on the four seamer i’m not worried about any sort of issue there i think he just didn’t really have the four seamer today but he battled and great start by Grant Holmes in just a second I want to talk about the offense ronald Luna Jr did a lot of stuff drake Baldwin hit a home run today and I want to talk about that lineup decision we’ll do that next right here on the Braves Postcast i had a friend who was wanting to buy tickets to a baseball game and she had multiple browser windows open cuz she’s trying to check the prices in one she had tried to figure out what the view would be from the seat and where the sun would be in another she had a calculator to do the math on what the fees and taxes and everything would be and I’m like you know there’s a much better way to do this let me introduce you to Game Time because Game Time makes buying tickets fast and simple prices like on the app they drop the closer you get to first pitch they’ve got fantastic last minute deals it shows you the view from your seat before you buy and gives you an all-in price with all of the fees and taxes and everything included and a lowest price guarantee on that price you don’t have to worry about uh it’s not a good deal because again they guarantee it will be the lowest price or you get money back so take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time download the Game Time app create an account use code lock.mlb for $20 off again create an account redeem code locked on MLB for $20 off download the Game Time app today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed welcome back to the Breaks Post i want to talk about the offense real quick because this was something I had talked about this in the Mets series and then it came back up last night that they didn’t like technically didn’t do enough to win and I think today you like the Braves absolutely did enough to win and so that’s kind of like that’s you scored plenty of runs it wasn’t a blowout until the ninth inning right but Atlanta picks up one in the first they pick up two more in the fifth and the ways with which Atlanta was doing this to me was really interesting first inning Ronald Kuni Jr walks to open the game we’re going to talk more about Akuni in just a second but suffice to say he’s fully healthy right um he’s on first base two outs marcelo Zuna doubles he scores from first base he runs through a stop sign actually from Freddy Gonzalez still still scores and like checking the sprint speed and everything he’s running full speed like he normally does you feel good about Ronald there you turn around you go to the fifth inning and it’s something where Nick Allen single this is where I think the change from Nick Allen from Orlando Ari to Nick Allen really kind of pays off because Orlando Arcio was yeah he could pop a homer every now and then but he wasn’t a great contact bat and Nick Allen while his batting average isn’t awesome he is much better at making contact than Orlando Arcia is and so Nick Allen gets on via single to left ronald doubles immediately brings him in it feels like almost every single time Nick Allen gets on base Ronald’s driving him in it’s just he doesn’t always get on base and I think I think he gets on base enough for a number nine hitter somebody in last night’s post uh postcast pulled the stats on how often he he’s been walking since Ronald comes back and after that it’s something where Austin Riley singles to score Ronald so double single single you get a couple runs atlanta’s putting them together the right way and then you get to the ninth inning and this is something where you see the classic Braves thing that they always do where Drake Baldwin sorry yeah the eighth inning Drake Baldwin singles Eli White singles and then you score on a ground out right ninth inning Drake Baldwin comes back around pops a three-run homer so absolutely like multiple ways to score today and the thing for Oh sorry on the Drake ball home run I do I do want to point out real quick the actual pitch he hits a sweeper down in a way that is just absolutely dotted it’s a fantastic pitch goes down and gets it and not only gets it but pulls it to right center field fantastic piece of hitting from Drake Wall that’s a that’s a big league swing that is a it’s a fanta that’s a rookie of the year caliber swing right there fantastic piece of hitting but Ronald was part of just about every single scoring play in this one since he’s come back he has been just an absolute machine he gets on base four times a day double single two walks he scores twice he drives in a run on the season he’s batting .391 with a 500 on base and a 696 slug so this is what’s absolutely wild okay his 15 RBI in 26 games that’s the same number he had last year in 49 games so he’s ahead of pace on that in the 2023 season where he won MVP he batted 337 with a 416 on base and a 596 slug he’s beating every single number from his MVP season now yes this is a smaller sample size right this is only 26 games but he’s making better he’s making more consistent contact he’s making better contact he’s getting on base a lot more i mean I can’t do math in my head here what 84 points different between 416 and 500 and he’s slugging a 100 points better than the year he won MVP after hitting over 40 homers this legitimately may be the best version of Ron Laguna Jr that Atlanta has ever seen like that feels like a little bit of hyperbole but I genuinely can’t think of another 30-game stretch and I’m sure somebody’s going to go look but another 30-game stretch where he’s been batting practically 400 with a 500 on base and a 700 slug this is dominance and it’s been a month of it now you saw Atlanta adjust the rotate uh not the rotation adjust the lineup to try to get more protection around him matt Olsen moved to the two-hole i still think that’s not a terrible move olsen was 0 for four today but in the last 30 games he’s batting .296 with a 583 slug he’s got seven homers and 27 RBI so I don’t think that was a terrible terrible option there i do wonder if Marcelo Zuna would be a great option and I mean look at what Olsson uh what Oza did today two for four with a run with an RBI i feel like putting leaving Matt Olsen where he’s been right batting batting third or fourth letting Marcelo Zuna bat second would be the the right way to do this we’ll see what Atlanta does but I’m just glad that they stretched this lead out to a sevenrun lead i had everything prepped a narrow Braves win because it was three to nothing going into the eighth inning one in the eighth three in the ninth to finish 7 nothing um we’re going to have Grant uh Bryce Elder tomorrow and he will take on Sandy Alcantra uh I’m I’m curious to see what you guys are thinking that you’re going to get out of Bryce Elder right he’s been very very good recently until the last time out when he stumbled against Colorado he’s facing Sandy who is struggling in his return from Tommy John he’s 3 and8 with a 688 erra so I feel like this game could go any of a number of different ways elder could shove sandy could shove he’s been good the last couple starts right this could be something where one of them stumbles they could both stumble it’s an and it’s an offensive shootout there’s really no telling what could happen in this game but it’s going to be incredibly interesting and you need though I think the worst case scenario here is for Elder to have a second consecutive shaky start because with Chris Sail on the injured list now for I’m assuming a month at least probably longer than that you really need to have um Elder do well you need to have obviously everybody else Strider Schwelenbach and because like Deed Fuentes is your fifth starter right now you have a couple options in Gwynette you can try to rotate in but you don’t have a set fifth starter you’re using a 20-y old prospect who’s made one start so knowing that you have the comfort that Bryce Elder can be a reliable number four pitcher can give you five innings every time can keep you in the game would go a long way that game’s at 1:40 tomorrow we’ll be back with another postcast to uh break down what happens in that one hopefully we’re breaking down a series win for the Braves as they prepare to head to New York for four Monday through Thursday against the Mets jake’s going to be back soon uh he will have an episode breaking down the Chris Sale injury and what all should happen if you want to make sure you catch that subscribe to both Locked on Braves and Locked on Sports Atlanta on YouTube hit the notification bell so you know when I’ve got a postcast when he makes his return to the postcast after vacation when he has episodes about Chris Sale and Atlanta’s rotation options do you try to trade for Charlie Morton or somebody else what do you do in that situation so stay tuned for that if you’re listening on audio by the way leave a fivestar review if you would apple Spotify YouTube music jake loves words of affirmation i do too would go a long way until next time this has been the Braves Postcast

Just hours after placing ace Chris Sale on the injured list, the Atlanta Braves and starter Grant Holmes pitched a shutout to even up their series with the Miami Marlins. Postcast host Lindsay Crosby went LIVE after the game to break down all of the action.

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