The Braves turn to Martin Perez on Friday night with their season wobbling and Jacob Misiorowski standing across from him. The game is set for 7:15 p.m. EDT, and Atlanta needs it to feel less like a slide and more like a stop.
That is the search now: who gets the ball when the Brewers come to Atlanta for a holiday weekend series, and whether Perez can hold down a matchup that looks steep on paper. The Braves have lost six of their last seven games and three straight series, leaving them only a half-game ahead of the Brewers as the two clubs meet with the standings still tight enough to matter.
Misiorowski is the reason this feels especially sharp. He has put together a 3.9 fWAR season through 14 starts and 87 innings in 2026, with a 33/40/49 line that points to a starter missing bats, limiting walks, and suppressing damage at a high level. He leads MLB in pitching fWAR, FIP-, and xFIP-, is second in ERA-, and has an 80/9 K/BB ratio over his last eight starts. He also just struck out 15 Phillies in a near-perfect game while throwing 95 pitches.
Perez brings a very different profile. He has 0.8 fWAR in 2026 and a 70/93/94 line in 62 total innings, and he has taken over the unexpectedly pretty good starter role from Bryce Elder. That makes him the arm Atlanta is trusting to steady a game that carries more weight because the Braves were already struggling at the plate before this skid and had spent a long stretch in first place in the best-record race.
The matchup also points to how much has changed since the pitching plan was first set. The original idea was a Chris Sale-Misiorowski pairing, but Friday’s version is Perez against one of MLB’s most efficient starters. If the Braves are going to break the run they are in, they do not just need a good start; they need Perez to make the game look ordinary long enough for Atlanta to catch its breath.
