Dan Johnson takes you through his preview, prediction, and best bet for today’s baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Atlanta Braves.
Monday belonged to Los Angeles—clean starting pitching, a couple of loud swings, a 6–2 win that felt controlled. Tuesday flipped hard in Atlanta’s direction, a 7–2 game with more traffic, more leverage, and a much clearer reminder that the Braves still have a deeper offensive floor even when the stars are not fully lit. So this rubber match lands in a familiar early-April space: the Braves are 7–5, the Angels are 6–6, both teams have already shown they can win this series in different ways. Below is my preview, prediction, and pick for today’s baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Atlanta Braves.
Here’s how I’ll play it. I’ll be pumping out these predictions for individual games all season, with plenty of coverage here on DraftKings Network. Follow my handle @dansby_edits for more betting plays.
The team-math layer leans Atlanta, even if the pitching matchup is tighter than the full-game moneyline implies. Grant Holmes comes in with a 2.45 ERA and, more importantly, a contact-suppression profile that fits this specific opponent: Baseball Savant’s game preview has him at 86.8 mph average exit velocity allowed, a 26.7% hard-hit rate, a .274 xwOBA against, and an 18.6% strikeout rate. Detmers has been good too—2.38 ERA, 13 strikeouts in 11.1 innings, and a much better 27.7% strikeout rate—but his contact profile is louder underneath the surface, with an 88.5 mph average exit velocity and a 41.4% hard-hit rate allowed. That matters because Atlanta’s offense has been better and more stable than Los Angeles’ offense so far: the Braves own a .256/.323/.420 team slash with a 110 wRC+, .334 wOBA, .165 ISO, and just a 19.9% strikeout rate, while the Angels sit at .200/.304/.340 with a 90 wRC+, .298 wOBA, and a 29.3% strikeout rate. The gap so far that Atlantas putting more balls in play, with more authority, against a starter who has already allowed firmer contact than Holmes has.
The player layer makes that case more interesting because Atlanta is not getting there in the usual superstar-heavy way. Drake Baldwin has been the loudest bat in the lineup at .327/.389/.653 with five home runs, 14 RBI, a .456 wOBA, and a 190 wRC+, while Matt Olson has produced a .283/.365/.543 line and a 150 wRC+. Ozzie Albies has chipped in a 126 wRC+ and homered Tuesday. That matters because Ronald Acuña Jr. has opened slowly at .178/.283/.200, Austin Riley has been quiet, and Michael Harris II has also lagged, yet the Braves are still producing because the lineup depth has covered for the slow starts. The Angels have real top-end bats too—Zach Neto is at a 144 wRC+, Mike Trout at 142, and Nolan Schanuel at 117—but once you move past that group the swing-and-miss gets dangerous in a hurry: Jorge Soler is striking out 38.0% of the time, Yoan Moncada 39.0%, Jeimer Candelario 42.1%, and Josh Lowe 38.9%. That is a dangerous trait against a contact manager like Holmes, especially when Atlanta can survive cold stretches from its stars because Baldwin, Olson, and Albies are carrying real weight right now.
Braves vs. Angels pick, best bet
The counterargument is Detmers, who just worked 6 2/3 scoreless innings against Seattle, Reuters notes he has opened the season looking far steadier than the erratic version from a year ago, and his bat-missing profile is the best single weapon in this game. Atlanta also is not at full offensive fluency yet; Acuña’s slow start is real, Riley has not looked like Riley, and a left-hander with swing-and-miss can absolutely turn that into five tight innings. If you want the Angels case, it is simple: Detmers is the most likely arm in this game to miss enough bats to flatten the opponent’s deepest advantage, and Neto-Trout-Schanuel is a good enough top three to cash a couple of mistakes.
But over nine innings, Atlanta still has more ways to win this game. The Braves have been the better defensive team early, while the Angels have graded poorly in the field, and that matters in a matchup where both starters are likely to allow at least some contact. Atlanta’s bullpen shape is also cleaner, and Tuesday’s game was a good reminder of what the broader roster gap looks like once this stops being only a starter-vs.-starter problem. The weather is warm enough in Anaheim to keep offense live, so this is not the kind of environment where I want to lean too hard on a low-total, low-event script. It is a playable run-scoring setting, and that favors the lineup with the better contact profile, better depth, better defense, and more trustworthy late-game run prevention.
Best bet: Braves ML (-120). This is the cleanest version of the Atlanta case because it respects Detmers instead of pretending he is a soft fade. The way it dies is that Detmers’ strikeout stuff overwhelms Atlanta’s still-cold stars and the Angels’ top of the order does just enough damage to steal another starter-driven game. But all signs still point to Atlanta being the sturdier team in the fuller nine-inning script—better lineup quality, lower strikeout drag, better defense, and more reliable run prevention once the game opens up.
Final score: Braves 5, Angels 3.
Best bet: Braves (-120) at Angels
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