The Braves will go for their eighth straight win on Thursday night as they kick off a four-game set with the Pirates. The obvious thing to watch is the glory that is Max Fried, but we can go a little deeper. (We can also set aside that weirdly, Fried has struggled with the Pirates. He’s faced them three times and had poor results twice; his start with good results had bad peripherals.)
Instead, here are some other things to be aware of:
Pirates not so hopelessly punchless
You might look at Pittsburgh’s teamwide 86 wRC+ (third-worst in MLB) and figure that they’re not a huge offensive threat.