The Atlanta Braves are set to face off against the Chicago Cubs for the sixth time in their past ten games in game three of the series. The Braves lead the season series 3-2 against the Cubs while outscoring them 22-13.
In the matchup today, A.J. Smith-Shawver was called up to make his seventh appearance of his career, and his season debut. He pitched relatively well last season in five starts and one relief appearance as far as preventing runs goes with a 4.26 ERA. However, his FIP of 6.69 FIP, 2.5 HR per nine innings, and .152 BABIP showed that he had some fortune on his side. These factors with undoubtedly other variables in place resulted in him not breaking the opening day roster.
It would be fun to say that Smith-Shawver has been dominating his competition in AAA this year, but unfortunately that has not been the case. In 31.0 innings pitched (eight starts), he has an ERA of 6.10, his HR per nine is 2.61, and his 22.6 percent groundball rate is his lowest so far of his young career.
On the bright side his strikeout rate of 10.16 per nine innings is a good sign, but he is walking 4.94 hitters per nine innings to go along with it. On paper, calling him up right now looks to just be a spot start. Hopefully the front office saw something in this matchup against the Cubs that is not as obvious as looking at the high-level stat sheet. It could simply be that he arguably had one of his best appearances against them last season.
Although Smith-Shawver only has 25.1 innings in MLB, he has faced seven of the players on the Cubs since the last team he faced last season were none other than the same team. He went 3.2 innings pitched in which he gave up one run on zero hits, one walk, and two strikeouts.
Bellinger, Gomes, Happ, Hoerner, Suzuki, Swanson, and Tauchman have all faced Smith-Shawver, and Tauchman is the one who drew the walk in the 3.2 inning appearance of Smith-Shawver last September. It goes without saying that none these players have a substantial sample size against him to draw from. None have more than two at-bats.
The Braves will be facing rookie Ben Brown. Brown has eleven appearances this season with four of them being starts. Interestingly, his starts have been in a sporadic capacity, and he has only gone over 4.2 innings once.
His run prevention has been solid with an ERA of 3.57. He has a WHIP of 1.245, 9.9 strikeouts per nine innings, 3.3 walks per nine innings, and has does an excellent job limiting HRs to 0.5 HR per nine innings.
Brown did face the Braves on May 15th in which he went 2.0 innings and gave up one run on four hits (two doubles) with three strikeouts. In this game, Orlando Arcia and Zack Short both had a double off of Brown, and Ozzie Albies and Matt Olson were able to get a bas knock off of him. Brown was able to strike out Jarred Kelenic, Travis d’Arnaud, and Michael Harris.
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