The New York Yankees will host the Atlanta Braves in a best-of-three series this week as the team with the second-best record in the AL host the team with the second-best record in the NL. Despite a similar positioning in their respective leagues, the Yankees entered Sunday with six more wins than the Braves. Atlanta still has more to prove this season than the Yankees, but a good showing in a three-game series against the Bronx Bombers would sure make a statement.
The first game of the series between the Braves and Yankees is scheduled for Monday, July 2, 2018, at 7:05 p.m. ET at Yankee Stadium. Tuesday’s game will also be a night game before a day game on Independence Day to wrap up the series. All three games will be broadcast locally with Tuesday’s game also on MLB Network.
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Odds Analysis
The Braves are maintaining the top spot in the NL East ahead of a Nationals team most consider better on paper and a Phillies team that has been similarly as surprising of a contender.
Over the last month, the Braves have looked a bit more vulnerable after a red-hot start, but still went 14-11 in June. Still, back-to-back series losses to the Orioles and Reds casts doubt in the Braves’ ability to sustain their success going forward.
A rebound series win against the Cardinals help assuage some of those concerns and helps build confidence going into the tough Yankee series.
Speaking of the Yankees, they may have a bit of a letdown after their big rivalry series against the Red Sox, a team they’re battling for the top spot in the AL East.
Aaron Boone, of course, will do all he can to keep the team focused at the game ahead, but it’s only natural for a team to have a letdown after a hard-fought series like that with so much on the line. Keep an eye out for that in this series.
That might be grasping at straws a bit for the Braves, but the emotional rollercoaster of a big-league season is real.
Overall, however, the Yankees are still playing great baseball, but teams that are less than them on paper still get in wins. After all, a couple series ago, the Rays swept the Yankees in three games. And, besides, the Braves stack up more favorably against the Yankees than most teams.
Going into Sunday, the Braves had outscored the Yankees by a single run with 407 runs to the Yankees 406. Of course, Atlanta had played an extra game, but the numbers are very close.
New York has the higher OPS, driven by a much higher slugging percentage. The Yankees have a MLB leading 131 home runs while Atlanta has 91. They, however, have the higher batting average and OBP, manufacturing more runs instead.
On the mound, the Yankees and Braves are separated by 0.25 runs per game per ERA. The Yankees hold the advantage there with most of it coming in the bullpen.
Probable Pitchers
The starting rotation for the Yankees doesn’t lineup that well for this series with the Braves. New York burned it’s only healthy, proven starters in C.C. Sabathia, Sonny Gray and Luis Severino in the weekend series against the Red Sox. Sabathia should be lined up to start Wednesday’s game.
Masahiro Tanaka is nearing a return to the Yankees, but won’t be ready this week. He’ll pitch in a rehab game this week, leaving the first two games of this series to the youngsters of Domingo German and Jonthan Loaisiga in some order unless the Yankees opt to call someone else up instead or make a surprise trade.
There’s no question that New York needs rotation help and the Braves may be beneficiaries of that need.
Of course, Loaisiga’s looked pretty good in his three starts with the Yankees. The middle start was a bit bumpy, but Aaron Boone got the 23-year old out of there before things got too out of hand.
In his three starts, he’s 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA and 2.24 FIP. He’s also limited base runners thanks to a low number of hits allowed though he has walked eight batters in 14 innings.
Before his promotion, Loaisiga had made four starts for Single-A Tampa and six with Double-A Trenton. The youngster is unproven at the high minors with just those six starts above A-ball. In fact, most of his starts last year came with the Rookie League team in the gulf coast of Florida.
A bit raw, Loaisiga certainly has good stuff, but he showed better command in the minors with just four walks and 58 strikeouts in his 10-combined minor starts. He was 6-1 in the minors with a 3.00 ERA though his 4.32 ERA in six Double-A starts is a bit inflated.
As for German, the 25-year old right-hander is a bit more polished though his numbers in the Majors aren’t great. He has a -0.2 WAR and is 2-4 with a 5.32 ERA in 15 games, including nine starts. He started off looking very good, but has struggled recently. The league has adapted and now he must, too.
The rookie last pitched in relief on Wednesday, tossing a scoreless inning against the Phillies. Before that he went three innings, allowing six runs to the Rays. If one of the two young starters is out, it may be German, but with Luis Cessa not pitching well in his start earlier this week, it would put German as the favorite to get another start.
Until the Yankees announce the probable starter for the Braves series, it’s hard to analyze the pitching matchups, but Atlanta is slated to go with Anibal Sanchez on Monday and the young southpaw Sean Newcomb on Tuesday.
Sanchez against one of the Yankees’ young guns may be an even matchup, but Newcomb—based on his season so far—would seem to have the significant edge on Tuesday.
As for Sanchez, the former Tiger and one-time AL ERA champion had struggled the last few seasons, but has seemingly found a place in Atlanta. He’s not completed six innings in five of his eight starts this year, but has posted a 3-2 record and 2.68 ERA. That ERA is fantastic, but his 4.04 FIP probably paints a more realistic picture of how well the righty is throwing. He’s also not going deep in games, but he’s pitching reasonably well when he is in the ballgame.
Perhaps the biggest positive to him being slated in a start against New York is that he’s posted a strong 4-1 record with a 3.79 career ERA in six career starts against the Yankees.
As for Newcomb, the young lefty has emerged as one of the team’s best starters. He’s thrown 11 quality starts this season, including each of his last three starts. He has yet to face the Yankees in his career, but is 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA in three interleague starts this year.
Overall, Newcomb is 8-2 with a 2.71 ERA and 1.183 WHIP. He’s got a 3.43 FIP and has done an excellent job keeping the ball in the ballpark. That’s significant against a power-laden offense like the Yankees.
The southpaw enters the game having only allowed more than three runs once since the start of May. That’s an 11-game stretch. In that time, he’s 7-1 and the Braves are 7-4.
In the series finale on the Fourth of July, the two teams—two of the most historic club in America’s Favorite Pasttime—send their two longest tenured arms to the mound.
For the Yankees, that arm is C.C. Sabathia. The 37-year old southpaw is 5-3 with a 3.02 ERA. Somehow, he’s kept that ERA that low despite a 1.236 WHIP and 4.05 FIP. Overall, he’s a proven arm that knows how to pitch. His stuff may not be what it was in his prime, but he can still deliver big games and key outs.
Sabathia has a lot of history and experience on his side. He, however, has primarily been an AL pitcher and has only faced the Braves four times. He’s 3-1 in those four starts with a 3.31 ERA.
More recently, the lefty has been pitching well. He held the Red Sox to one run in seven innings and the Rays to four earned runs in 13 innings combined in his two games previous to that.
Opposing Sabathia on the mound for Atlanta is right-hander Julio Teheran.
Teheran has been a bit up-and-down, but is hard to hit when he’s on his game. He was just that in his last start, going six shutout innings, allowing only two hits against the Cardinals. Like most pitchers, fastball command is paramount to Teheran. When he’s not locating, he’s hittable, but when the fastball hits its spots, it allows his other pitches to play up.
At just 27-years old Teheran is just now hitting his prime so there is still some growth potential for the right-hander. He’s 6-5 this year with a 4.21 ERA and 1.209 WHIP. His FIP is inflated at 5.11 largely due to 15 home runs allowed and a 1.88 strikeout to walk ratio.
When he’s not making his pitches, he leaves balls up in the zone that get belted and he also allows too many free base runners.
In this game, the key will be which Teheran shows up because if it’s the same one that pitched last Friday, the Braves have a chance, but if not, this series finale could easily fall to the Yankees.
Live Betting
The Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton duo is the most obvious offensive advantage for the Yankees though Judge has cooled off some recently. Stanton, on the other hand, has been on fire with eight home runs and 17 RBIs leading to a .950 OPS in his last 27 games.
Along with Judge and Stanton bashing home runs, the Yankees have Brett Gardner still getting on base, Aaron Hicks hitting well right now with a .883 OPS and six homers over the last 30 days.
The Yankees have several established sluggers, but rookies Miguel Andujar and Gleybar Torres have been just as important as anyone else in this lineup.
The Braves, of course, have their own rookie star in Ronald Acuna Jr. Coming into the year, Torres and Acuna were two of the top prospects in baseball. Andujar didn’t quite stack up, but he’s certainly kept pace in the big leagues with the other two.
After missing some time, Acuna is back from injury to deepen the lineup that’s one of the best in the NL. Ozzie Albies is having great season with 17 home runs to lead the team, but Freddie Freeman with 15 homers and 54 RBIs is the centerpiece of the offense. Freeman has a .948 OPS and a .316/.408/.540 slash line. He’s probably a front runner for NL MVP, but the Yankees have three players with at least as many homers. They have five with at least as many homers as Albies, though one—Gary Sanchez—in on the DL.
As many star players as the Yankees have, they haven’t been able to outscore the Braves due in part to some glaring holes.
First base is probably the biggest. From Neil Walker to Tyler Austin and Greg Bird, they haven’t found a good solution. Bird is fine against right-hander pitchers, but they have a lefty in Newcomb going on Tuesday. Brandon Drury probably gets the start there. He was acquired to play third, but Andujar has been better. Drury was hitting well in the minors when recalled and could be an answer there.
Offensively these two teams are very different, but balanced. In the bullpen, the Yankees are much better. New York has a 2.76 bullpen ERA while the Braves’ pen has pitched to a 4.18 ERA. That’s quite a gap and one the Yankees and easily exploit.
MLB Pick
The Yankees are the better team and they’re playing at home with American League rules. That’s quite a lot of advantages for New York in this three-game series even without breaking down the matchup any further.
Look for the Yankees to come away with the series victory, but don’t look for it to be as easy a series as it would have looked at the beginning of the season. The Braves are for real. They can hit, they can pitch and they and play defense.
In the end, look for a well fought series and count on the Braves to steal a game, but ultimately, the Yankees—behind their powerful offense and stacked bullpen—will take two of three.
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