{"id":710422,"date":"2026-05-27T20:48:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/710422\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:48:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:48:49","slug":"jorge-mateo-slots-in-at-dh-as-braves-face-yet-another-lefty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/710422\/","title":{"rendered":"Jorge Mateo slots in at DH as Braves face yet another lefty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey, universe! Let Dominic Smith<\/a> get some starts! Which means, stop making the Braves face lefty starters!<\/p>\n

In tonight\u2019s contest, the Braves will be taking aim at a lefty starter for the fourth time in five games. You have to go back to May 4, the start of a streak where the Braves faced four righty starters in a row, to create a span where the Braves have faced more righties than lefties. The kicker? Immediately before that four-game stretch, they had to face five straight lefties. (But, there were six straight righties immediately preceding that.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So, with Drake Baldwin<\/a> still out with injury, the Braves are turning the DH slot tonight over to\u2026 Jorge Mateo. Now, Mateo isn\u2019t exactly eating gravel down in an alley, as he has a 124 wRC+ that\u2019s the result of massively outhitting his xwOBA. Against lefties, it\u2019s only a 66 wRC+, but he does have a decently-sized platoon split for his career. Actual useful full disclosure:<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Mateo, vs. RHP: .403 wOBA \/.325 xwOBA this year in 40 PAs | .268 wOBA \/ .269 xwOBA in 933 career PAs<\/p>\n

Mateo, vs. LHP: .266 wOBA \/ .281 xwOBA this year in 24 PAs | .292 wOBA \/ .295 xwOBA in 542 career PAs.<\/p>\n

This will be Mateo\u2019s first time starting at DH since his rookie season in 2020, when he did it all of one time. He\u2019s actually \u201cappeared\u201d at DH a bunch due to pinch-running for slow-footed actual DHes here and there quite a bit, but he\u2019s not really carried for his bat.<\/p>\n

So, maybe not a very exciting DH choice, but the Braves have persevered through a lot of unexciting choices to yield exciting games, and exciting results, so far this season.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox are using the exact same lineup as yesterday \u2014 which to their credit, worked out pretty well for them. They just got outscored.<\/p>\n

The six guys in the Atlanta lineup that have faced Connelly Early<\/a> did so two weekends ago in Atlanta. The other three (Chadwick Tromp<\/a>, Ronald Acu\u00f1a\u00a0Jr., and Mateo) weren\u2019t in that lineup. Early generally pitched pretty well but for allowing dingers to Baldwin and Michael Harris II<\/a>. The collective result among the starting sextet here was a .248 wOBA \/ .281 xwOBA in 15 PAs. Meh.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Everyone in the Boston lineup has faced Bryce Elder<\/a> at least once save Nick Sogard<\/a>. Some of those PAs came earlier this season, some in years past. Only Willson Contreras<\/a> and Cedanne Rafaela<\/a> have hit Elder particularly well: the collective line is a .262 wOBA and .263 xwOBA in 49 PAs, though only Contreras, who hit a game-winning homer off Elder in Atlanta, has more than ten PAs against the right-hander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hey, universe! Let Dominic Smith get some starts! Which means, stop making the Braves face lefty starters! In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4166,5,48,192,4720,49781,13458,36543,6977,18701,5931,915,661,4,8531,921,409],"class_list":["post-710422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-braves","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-atlantabraves","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-braves","tag-bryce-elder","tag-cedanne-rafaela","tag-chadwick-tromp","tag-connelly-early","tag-dh","tag-dominic-smith","tag-drake-baldwin","tag-jorge-mateo","tag-michael-harris-ii","tag-mlb","tag-nick-sogard","tag-ronald-acuna-jr","tag-willson-contreras"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116648513664991443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}