Braves counting on Sale to enter All-Star break with series win over Padres

The pitching matchups in this series have been all sorts of wacky, with the Padres “passing” starting pitcher Randy Vasquez, scheduled for Friday, in favor of Matt Waldron and Dylan Cease. That robbed us of a battle of the aces between Chris Sale and Dylan Cease on the final day of the “first half,” and instead we’re treated to a Chris Sale-Randy Vasquez showdown this afternoon.

At this point, Chris Sale and his video game stats need no introduction. He has the second-most fWAR in baseball among starting pitchers, but he’s the only guy in the top 10 with 17 starts so far. probably Chris Sale won’t have the 0.4+ fWAR he needs to tie or pass Garrett Crochet for the MLB lead in this start, but with Sale, you never know. He has an absurd 66 ERA, 57 FIP, and 62 xFIP, his xERA is in the same ballpark, and he’s only had one bad start (in which he still had a 94 xFIP) all season. It’s hard to say he’s been on a roll lately, given how good his overall numbers have been, but his line over his last six starts is 52/43/57, which is even more astounding than his overall line. Basically, Chris Sale, he’s been dominant. Now, that’s the Padres’ problem to deal with.

Opposite him, rather than having pitched in the first game of this series, is the aforementioned Vasquez. Acquired from the Yankees in the Juan Soto blockbuster, his first season in San Diego has been rather bland, as he has essentially been a generic fifth starter: 120 ERA-, 129 FIP-, 113 xFIP-. He has certainly had some good outings, such as his most recent start (6-1 K/BB ratio, one home run allowed, in 6 ¹⁄₃ (10-plus innings against the Diamondbacks), but it was also the first time in four starts that he had more strikeouts than walks.

This game is a rematch of the game from earlier this season, when the Braves won 3-0. Sale dominated, giving the Braves their only win of the four-game series, going 9-0 in seven scoreless innings. Vasquez, meanwhile, had the misfortune of facing Sale. He was charged with three runs while posting a 2-0 K-to-BB ratio. Marcell Ozuna hit him for a home run, but he had already allowed two runs before that, as the Braves gave up extra-base hits with singles. The Braves will have to endure that kind of result again as they try to figure out how to navigate the rest of the season with a team decimated by injuries and now sporting the third-highest xwOBA underachievement in the league.

One thing worth pointing out about this game and this series is that all three of the starters the Padres have used or will use in this series have giant platoon splits. The Braves won Game 1 against Matt Waldron without any lefties doing any damage, and no one did any damage against Dylan Cease yesterday. Vasquez has truly horrendous numbers against lefties (7.31 FIP, 5.49 xFIP), so maybe at least this part of the game will go according to script for once. The Braves’ lefties have just a .250 xwOBA and a .147 wOBA in 31 PAs collectively in this series, compared to a .326 xwOBA and a .395 wOBA in 39 PAs for righties, despite those platoon splits.

Game Information

Game date/time: Sunday, July 14, 4:10 p.m. ET

Location: Petco Park, San Diego, California

TV: Bally Sports South East

Streaming: MLB.tv

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan

XM Radio:Ch. 186 / Online