The Atlanta Braves took on the Pittsburgh Pirates in Bradenton, FL today in their second to last Spring Training game. We got to see the continuation of Didier Fuentes’ fantastic spring, but it was not due to good circumstances. Spencer Strider was initially supposed to start this game but was scratched due to an oblique injury and will start the year on the IL.
Fuentes continued to look sharp at the start of the game. In his first two innings he saw the minimum number of hitters. He did however give up his first hit of the spring in the second inning fittingly to former teammate Marcell Ozuna. Ryan O’Hearn grounded into a double play though and Fuentes continued his streak of scoreless innings at eleven after completing the second inning.
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Interestingly, Fuentes had seventeen strikeouts in his first 9.0 innings of spring, but did not have any strikeouts through his first 3.2 innings today. He was able to get revenge on Ozuna by striking him out to end the fourth for his first strikeout of the day on an eight pitch at-bat.
Fuentes ended his scoreless streak by giving up his first earned run after 13.2 innings in the spring. The way he gave it up was not entirely his fault though, even the box score will show it that way. He was replaced by Samuel Strickland after walking Spencer Horwitz with two outs and the bases empty. Strickland then gave up a double to the first batter he faced that scored Horwitz.
Fuentes ended his excellent spring with 13.2 innings pitched, eighteen strikeouts, one walk, two singles, and one HBP while maintaining an ERA of 0.66.
Another positive pitching note is that Joel Payamps continued to look sharp yet again. He did give up a single, but had two strikeouts and zero walks in 2.0 innings pitched.
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The Braves’ offense was mostly players who will likely see most of the playing time against RHP this season. They were facing Carson Fulmer who had yet to give up a hit in his 4.0 spring innings. That did not slow down the Braves as Matt Olson took him deep in the first and Eli White took him deep in the second. It should also be noted that Ronald Acuña Jr. doubled in the first, but got caught trying to steal third.
The long balls continued for the Braves as Mike Yastrzemski and Matt Olson both went deep in the top of the sixth off of Mike Clevinger. After his two HRs today, Matt Olson has six longballs this spring. This is encouraging considering it seemed that Olson had been trading his HRs for doubles the past few seasons.
The key takeaways from this game were that Ozzie Albies, and Michael Harris seem to continue to struggle while Matt Olson is continuing to heat up. Didier Fuentes was not as dominant today, but it is still clear he deserves a shot on the MLB team. With today’s injury to Strider he may even get some starts.
Fuentes is easily a better option than some of the other slated starters.
The Braves took this game 5-2 and continued to have the best run differential amongst all MLB teams in spring training. Of course, spring numbers don’t truly matter, but it does show the offense has had life, at a minimum. Although there is bad news today with Strider, the good news is the there is only one more spring game, and then it is Opening Day.
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The Braves will finish up their spring training tomorrow against the Tampa Bay Rays where newly minted number three rotation arm Grant Holmes will take the mound at 1:05 at EDT.
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