The Atlanta Braves have won three of their past four series and split the other one, moving them up to second place in the National League East. While that’s the good news, the Braves are still five games under .500 and far away from the division-leading Nationals. They will aim to creep closer when they face off against the San Francisco Giants this weekend.
The Giants have struggled thus far through nearly two months of baseball and sit 11 games out in the National League West. If they have any plans of turning it around, this is an important series as the games are in San Francisco.
The Giants will aim to break their three-game losing streak when these teams get together and claim at least a pair of victories in the three-game tilt.
This series will be contested from Friday, May 26 through Sunday, May 28, 2017 at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California. All three games will be televised on MLB Network.
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Pitching Matchups
The Friday game will feature Jaime Garcia throwing for the Braves. He is 1-3 on the season with a 4.07 ERA. Garcia has a poor strikeout-to-walk ratio, but did go eight innings while only allowing one earned run against the Nationals. The Giants will send Matt Cain to the hill. He is 3-2 on the season with a 4.91 ERA. Cain is a former All-Star and started the season strong, but gave up seven earned runs last time out against the Cardinals to watch his ERA balloon.
On Saturday, Atlanta is scheduled to start Mike Foltynewicz. He is 3-4 on the year with a 3.86 ERA. Foltynewicz has allowed three runs or fewer in all but one start this season and will aim to keep that up against San Francisco. The Giants are scheduled to counter with Ty Blach, who is 2-2 with a 4.10 ERA. Blach has thrown seven innings in each of his last three starts and has allowed an average of two runs per game in those games.
The finale will feature R.A. Dickey on the mound for the Braves. The knuckleballer is 3-3 on the season with a 4.17 ERA, but only has 28 strikeouts against 24 walks in 58 innings pitched. The Giants will have the advantage on the mound as they will send out Johnny Cueto. He is 4-4 on the year with a 4.64 ERA but is striking out nearly a batter per inning and has the type of track record which suggests the ERA will come down.
Injury Report
The Braves will be without star first baseman Freddie Freeman, who will be out for several weeks with a broken wrist after getting plunked by a ball while batting. Freeman was dominated early on, as he had a .341 average, 14 homers, 25 RBIs and a 1.209 OPS.
The team has tried to make up for his absence by trading for Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams. Adams is batting .300 on the season with three homers, 11 RBIs and an OPS of .848. He isn’t quite that good offensively during his career, but Adams is a decent replacement and will try to help out the offense until Freeman can return.
The Braves weren’t expected to be in the playoff hunt this season, and the loss of their best player makes it that much tougher.
Key Stat
166. That’s the number of runs scored by the Giants on the season, which is the worst mark in the National League and second-worst in the majors behind only the Kansas City Royals. San Francisco has not gotten it going at all offensively this season.
Catcher Buster Posey is the one pulling the most weight, batting .345 on the season with seven homers, but unbelievably only has 11 RBIs as the players ahead of him haven’t gotten on base. Brandon Belt is the other hitter playing well, as he is batting .244 with nine homers and 21 RBIs.
But Hunter Pence has struggled badly, as has Joe Panik and Christian Arroyo. The Giants have some experienced bats in the lineup but other than Posey and Belt, they are not delivering. San Francisco has some good pitching matchups in this series and need to break out in order to make up some ground in the N.L. West.
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