Last night, the Braves won for just the second time in eight games, thanks in large part to a dominant pitching performance by Charlie Morton. With their season still in “mostly dead is slightly alive” straits, they’ll try to make it two in a row over the Cardinals, as Max Fried faces off against Carlos Martinez.
It’s been an up-and-down season for Fried so far, as he’s combined dominant outings with underwhelming stretches. He was very solid iif not great after returning from injury (59 ERA-, 68 FIP-, 98 xFIP- across six starts, with just one bad-result start mixed in), but got punked by the Marlins his last time out, allowing two homers and another non-homer run with just a 4/2 K/BB ratio in six innings of work.