Braves Insider Discusses the Diamondbacks Chances in Atlanta

Lindsay Crosby from Braves Today joined the Snakes on the Diamond podcast to discuss the upcoming series.

Jul 19, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. (13) looks at Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Kevin Ginkel (37) after scoring a run on a wild pitch. / Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

The Diamondbacks will travel to Atlanta play the Braves in a three-game series over the weekend. To get an insider's perspective on the Braves, I brought in Lindsay Crosby as a guest on the Snakes on the Diamond Podcast. Crosby is the Managing Editor of Braves Today, the Braves' affiliate on the FanNation Network.

Baseball Writing Background

"I've been running Braves Today since we started two years ago. This is our second season, a fully credentialed beat wrter. I'll actually be in the ballpark on Friday and Saturday for this series. Before this, I was the host/producer of the Locked on MLB Prospects Podcast, actually won the IBWAA (Internet Baseball Writers Association of America) Prospect Writer of the Year Award for my work over there. And then we just launched Inside the Marlins, and what's been a pretty disastrous start for the Marlins. So it's been fun to see the two extremes of Braves and Marlins, right?"

Spencer Strider's Curveball

"I had a chance to talk to Spencer Strider in Northport during Spring Training and he broken down the issue with the changeup. That was always his third pitch. His bread-and-butter has been the fastball/slider combo and they're both plus-plus pitches. The issue he had with the changeup was more biomechanical. He had done as much as he could to improve the changeup with the way his motor preferences work. The way he holds a ball, he's middle finger dominant. And so just the specific stuff about how he throws baseballs biomechanically, he couldn't really get the changeup any better than what it was. So it maxed out about 6-7% of usage. And it really was just if a team or batter was sitting slider and they were just fouling off all the fastballs, it gave him a velocity change that he could use throwing the changeup."

"He wanted something that could both give more movement than what the slider did and be significantly slower. What he ultimately came down to was the curveball because he has the middle finger dominance. The big concern when we saw it early in spring was it's going to be a handedness thing, he's only going to use it in certain situations against certain batters. He's been able to use it both against righties and lefties and has a lot of confidence that what it's going to allow him to do is sequence just enough to punish a hitter who sits sliders and fouls off the fastball. That was the game plan the Phillies had against him in the NLDS last year. And so facing Phillies on Friday, you could see situations where they were looking for the slider. He could drop a curveball under their bat, get a weak ground ball or a swing-and-miss."

Braves "Lefty Killer" Lineup

"They're so good up and down the lineup against lefty starters. A lot of teams last year just changed the rotation so that they didn't have to send lefties against Atlanta. The Braves faced a league-low 32 left-handed starters last year, and there's a reason for that. In those 32 games, they batted .290 with an .870 OPS and hit 60 homers."

"Matt Olson's a little bit worse against lefties, a couple guys here and there, but they have hitters who do really well against lefties that are good enough against righties to stay in. Michael Harris II is a guy who batted almost .300 last year, but batted over .300 against lefties. So there's enough depth in the lineup where most of your guys can play every day because they can hit lefties. Adam Duvall is going to rotate in for Jarred Kelenic because while Duvall doesn't have a significant lefty/righty platoon split. Against lefty starters, he batted .280 last year. You'll see Atlanta with a specific lineup just to face the starter. When he comes out of the game, you'll probably see Kelenic rotate in. All of their guys can hit lefties well enough to win this game."

Max Fried and Chris Sale

"It was a rough start against the Phillies, 2/3 of an inning, threw 40-something pitches. He talked after the game that he was having trouble with grip and things like that because of the cold weather and then just didn't really have his locations that well. He threw a side session, everything looked fine, the Braves aren't too concerned. One of the issues you had in that game was the inning was extended because of a middle-middle pitch called a ball that ended up extending that by three more batters and a couple of runs. Velocity wasn't 100% there, but he was also getting ramped up, it did increase throughout that first inning."

"The good thing is, I guess for Atlanta fans, not for Diamondbacks fans, is a lot of Sale's pitch movement is back to maybe not vintage Chris Sale, but not the reduced movement and velocity we saw last year. It's back to 2018-2019 numbers on the slider, the amount of break on the slider, the fastball velocity and induced vertical break on that. And so it's not runner up to the Cy Young Chris Sale, but it's 2018 World Series-winning Chris Sale. Braves fans are pretty high on his ability to hold his own against a lineup like this, especially one that has had struggles in the past with some lefties."

D-backs Starters

"That's I guess a bad break for Atlanta with Gallen and Kelly going in the last two weeks. I was high on Brandon Pfaadt just back doing the prospect podcast, really high on what he could have done last year, we saw it late. Obviously he had a terrible start to the year, those first six starts. I feel like he probably has the best chance of the three of keeping Arizona in it."

Crosby is predicting the Braves will win the series, two games to one, over the weekend. You can watch the full discussion here or by clicking on this link.