Chris Sale is scheduled to start Thursday’s series finale against the Cubs at Truist Park, giving Atlanta its veteran left-hander for the last game of a three-game set with one of the hottest teams in the game. The Braves entered the series against the NL Central leaders with the Cubs just one game behind them for the best record in baseball.
Sale has been one of the reasons Atlanta has stayed at the top of the standings. He is 6-2 with a 2.20 ERA, has struck out 56 hitters in 49 innings and has done it through eight games, giving the Braves a steadying presence as they try to hold off a club that has spent the season pushing right behind them.
The matchup matters because it comes at the front of a stretch that could shape the race for the best record in the majors. Grant Holmes was scheduled to start Tuesday and JR Ritchie was set for Wednesday before Sale takes the ball Thursday, and Atlanta is asking its patched-together rotation to keep matching a team that has been hard to separate from the pack.
That rotation has worked better than anyone around the club could have expected. The Braves have been using Sale, Strider, Elder and Ritchie as part of a four-man rotation, with Holmes and Martín Pérez serving as swingmen and Reynaldo López and Didier Fuentes staying in the bullpen as long relief options. Even with all the moving parts, Braves starters have combined for a 3.03 ERA and a.206 opponent average, both best in baseball.
The tension inside that setup showed up in the last two turns through the rotation. Holmes was tagged on May 1 in Denver, when he allowed six runs, five earned, on seven hits against the Rockies, but Walt Weiss said he “stayed in the fight” and “ends up going five and keeping that game in reach,” praising him for what the coach called a tough first inning. Ritchie had a different kind of night on May 4 in Seattle, walking six in five innings of a 5-4 Braves loss, and the rookie said he would need to “go back and look at some video” to figure out what went wrong, adding that he may have been trying to be “too fine” early instead of attacking hitters.
That is the backdrop for Thursday, when Sale gets the ball with the Braves trying to protect their place in the standings and keep the Cubs from turning a tight series into something bigger. For Atlanta, the question is not whether Sale can handle the moment. It is whether the rest of the rotation can keep giving him one.
