Grant Holmes is set to start Friday night for the Atlanta Braves against the Colorado Rockies, giving the home team a chance to stretch its winning streak to five and move one step closer to 80 wins. The game opens a four-day series at Truist Park on Friday, August 28, at 7:15 p.m. ET.
The timing matters because the Braves arrive at 79-55, while the Rockies come in at 52-82, a gap that makes this more than a routine opener for Atlanta. Holmes, 8-5 with a 3.64 ERA, has given the Braves steady innings in August, with six-inning outings in three of his four starts and quality starts against the Marlins, Yankees and Chicago White Sox.
That run, though, has not been spotless. Holmes also took a rough loss at home on August 15 against the Diamondbacks, when he allowed six earned runs in 3.2 innings. The contrast is part of why Friday feels like a test of which version of Holmes shows up first: the pitcher who has worked deep into games for most of the month, or the one who got knocked out early in a blow-up start.
The matchup on the other side brings Tomoyuki Sugano, who is scheduled to start for the Rockies with a 12-7 record and a 4.96 ERA. He spent twelve seasons with the Yomiuri Giants before reaching MLB in 2025 with the Baltimore Orioles, and he brings a seven-pitch arsenal built around the split-finger. His walk rate sits in the top 7% of MLB, but his recent results have been shaky, with 16 hits and 12 runs, 11 earned, allowed over his last eight innings.
There is also a small but telling layer in the numbers. Lane Thomas is 1-for-6 against Sugano, Dominic Smith is hitless with a strikeout in two at-bats, and Hunter Goodman and Connor Norby each have six at-bats against Holmes, with Mickey Moniak producing the lone home run off him. That kind of matchup history does not decide a game by itself, but it is the sort of detail that can matter when a team is trying to keep momentum alive.
The broader picture still leans Atlanta. The Braves have already swept the Rockies once in May, and they have handled good teams well enough to go 37-23 against winning opponents, even as questions linger about their results against weaker clubs. Brandon Gaudin described the stretch as “a taste of October,” and Friday night gives the Braves another chance to make that feel less like a line and more like a standard.
Reynaldo López remains the unresolved piece on the pitching side, but for now Holmes is the answer in the rotation and the next confirmed step is simple: first pitch at 7:15 p.m. ET, with Atlanta trying to keep the streak rolling and the Rockies trying to keep the game from getting away early.
