The Braves turned a tight series into a bigger statement Tuesday night, and now they can lock up the set behind AJ Smith-Shawver. Atlanta is scheduled to send the right-hander against Roki Sasaki on Wednesday against the Dodgers, with a series win and a 4.5-game division lead hanging in the balance.
That is why this game is drawing attention now. The Braves won the previous meeting in dramatic fashion on Ozzie Albies’ go-ahead single in the eighth inning, then survived a late scare when Raisel Iglesias closed it out after a leadoff triple to Shohei Ohtani. One win later, the standings picture looks a little sturdier, and the club can make it stronger with another result in a matchup that lands as the regular season moves toward its final month.
Smith-Shawver has not given Atlanta much length to work with in his two starts this season. He has thrown only 8.2 innings, has not gotten beyond 4.1 innings in either outing and has allowed two earned runs against the Mets and four against the Twins. The early results are uneven: a 5.75 xERA, a 17.5 percent strikeout rate and a 12.5 percent walk rate. He has kept hard contact to 35.7 percent, though, and his fastball has been in the top 24.0 percent of MLB pitchers in velocity even as he has cut that pitch’s usage by 5.0 percent and shifted some of those throws to curves.
The matchup on the other side is less about raw stuff than about whether the results can catch up. Sasaki has started 22 games and thrown 116.0 innings, and he owns a 4.42 ERA this season, just a tick better than his 4.46 mark last season. His chase and whiff rates remain elite, but the strikeouts have not fully matched that profile: a 23.1 percent strikeout rate and a 9.3 percent walk rate read as solid, not dominant. Atlanta has seen enough to know the danger, though. Ozzie Albies is 3-for-3 with a home run against Sasaki, while Austin Riley is 1-for-2, and Harris, Murphy and Olson have not solved him.
The bigger problem for Atlanta may be its own bullpen. The relief group has been used heavily lately, which makes a longer outing from Smith-Shawver more than a nice bonus. The Braves need offense to give that unit a cushion, and they need their starter to avoid turning a postseason-caliber game into a scramble before the middle innings are over. Wednesday offers both a chance to finish the series and a simple test of whether Smith-Shawver can be part of the pitching answer when the games matter most.
