Brewers to Taste Sip of Victory in Atlanta on Saturday
Atlanta hosts Milwaukee Saturday at 7:10 ET on FS1. The Brewers are ready to thrive on the road after a rough home stretch.
Brewers at Braves
MLB Pick: Milwaukee
Milwaukee’s Wade Miley (7-7, 2.10 ERA) has been enjoying a positive transition from Baltimore to Milwaukee. His 3.91 FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) is down from 5.27 last season. His biggest improvement has been to make fewer mistakes with location and to drop his opposing home run rate from 1.43 homers per nine innings to 0.26. Miley is yielding +2.1 units overall, +2.6 on the road and +3.1 when facing a right-handed starter.
Miley relies on five different pitches with between 13 and 34 percent frequency. His favorite pitch to left-handed hitters is the fastball, tor righties the cutter. He ably places the fastball on all parts of the plate, concentrating on the peripheral and vertical borders of the zone. He concentrates his cutter with 50% frequency on the periphery of the zone. Miley doesn’t have the velocity to generate many strikeouts, but he uses the location and movement of his pitches to deceive the opposing batter into thinking that he can make good contact, when he only makes soft contact. Miley induces ground balls at a 52% rate.
As a southpaw, Miley excels against left-handed batters. In 34 at-bats, they have five hits against him, only one of which was an extra-base hit, a double. This makes him match up well against Atlanta, whose top hitters are left-handed, Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis. Both are among Atlanta’s BA leaders. But, Freeman is only 4-for-15 (.267) in his career against Miley, Markakis 2-for-7 (.286), both hits being singles. Recently acquired Adam Duvall is a righty, but only 1-for-9 against him.
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Atlanta’s Julio Teheran (8-7, 4.48 ERA) shows atrocious form, yielding 13 combined runs and four home runs in his last three starts. He’s walked eight in his last two. His FIP was over 5.40 in each of his last three starts.
Teheran relies on a fastball-sinker-slider combo. His fastball is his favorite pitch. He relies on it with 43% frequency and most in every scenario. His sinker and slider comprise 42% of his arsenal. He’s struggling to command his pitches for strikes. In his past three games, they’re landing with lower frequency in the strike zone than his season average. Because he’s struggling to just throw a strike and because a pitcher needs to throw strikes, he’s throwing easier pitches to hit when he really needs to throw a strike. Hitters are taking advantage by hitting more homers.
His poor form notwithstanding, Milwaukee matches up well against Teheran. They rank above-average in slugging against his three favorite pitches from righties. Based on the metric xSLG-SLG, which compares what a team’s slugging rate is with what it should be based on quality of contact, the Brewers are underachieving, meaning that they are due for statistical progression. Look out for Jesus Aguilar, who slugs .658 against these three pitches from righties and Eric Thames, who slugs .649. Christian Yelich is slugging above .500 against them and is also enjoying strong form, batting .400 in his last seven days.
The bullpen provides a decisive advantage for Milwaukee. Milwaukee’s ranks sixth in FIP, Atlanta’s 14th. Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader boast sub-2 ERA’s. Recently acquired Joakim Soria is reviving his season thanks to the change of scenery and the fact that he’s playing for a playoff contender, instead of the White Sox. He has allowed only one run in 5.2 innings.
Atlanta hosts Milwaukee Saturday at 7:10 ET on FS1. The Brewers are ready to thrive on the road after a rough home stretch.
Brewers at Braves
MLB Pick: Milwaukee
Milwaukee’s Wade Miley (7-7, 2.10 ERA) has been enjoying a positive transition from Baltimore to Milwaukee. His 3.91 FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) is down from 5.27 last season. His biggest improvement has been to make fewer mistakes with location and to drop his opposing home run rate from 1.43 homers per nine innings to 0.26. Miley is yielding +2.1 units overall, +2.6 on the road and +3.1 when facing a right-handed starter.
Miley relies on five different pitches with between 13 and 34 percent frequency. His favorite pitch to left-handed hitters is the fastball, tor righties the cutter. He ably places the fastball on all parts of the plate, concentrating on the peripheral and vertical borders of the zone. He concentrates his cutter with 50% frequency on the periphery of the zone. Miley doesn’t have the velocity to generate many strikeouts, but he uses the location and movement of his pitches to deceive the opposing batter into thinking that he can make good contact, when he only makes soft contact. Miley induces ground balls at a 52% rate.
As a southpaw, Miley excels against left-handed batters. In 34 at-bats, they have five hits against him, only one of which was an extra-base hit, a double. This makes him match up well against Atlanta, whose top hitters are left-handed, Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis. Both are among Atlanta’s BA leaders. But, Freeman is only 4-for-15 (.267) in his career against Miley, Markakis 2-for-7 (.286), both hits being singles. Recently acquired Adam Duvall is a righty, but only 1-for-9 against him.
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Atlanta’s Julio Teheran (8-7, 4.48 ERA) shows atrocious form, yielding 13 combined runs and four home runs in his last three starts. He’s walked eight in his last two. His FIP was over 5.40 in each of his last three starts.
Teheran relies on a fastball-sinker-slider combo. His fastball is his favorite pitch. He relies on it with 43% frequency and most in every scenario. His sinker and slider comprise 42% of his arsenal. He’s struggling to command his pitches for strikes. In his past three games, they’re landing with lower frequency in the strike zone than his season average. Because he’s struggling to just throw a strike and because a pitcher needs to throw strikes, he’s throwing easier pitches to hit when he really needs to throw a strike. Hitters are taking advantage by hitting more homers.
His poor form notwithstanding, Milwaukee matches up well against Teheran. They rank above-average in slugging against his three favorite pitches from righties. Based on the metric xSLG-SLG, which compares what a team’s slugging rate is with what it should be based on quality of contact, the Brewers are underachieving, meaning that they are due for statistical progression. Look out for Jesus Aguilar, who slugs .658 against these three pitches from righties and Eric Thames, who slugs .649. Christian Yelich is slugging above .500 against them and is also enjoying strong form, batting .400 in his last seven days.
The bullpen provides a decisive advantage for Milwaukee. Milwaukee’s ranks sixth in FIP, Atlanta’s 14th. Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader boast sub-2 ERA’s. Recently acquired Joakim Soria is reviving his season thanks to the change of scenery and the fact that he’s playing for a playoff contender, instead of the White Sox. He has allowed only one run in 5.2 innings.
