This story was originally published by Dead Spin
The Atlanta Braves ended their swoon Saturday night and now will try to start a winning streak and help solidify their postseason status.
Atlanta’s 11-8 win over Colorado snapped a six-game skid and was the 14th win in the last 16 games against the Rockies. The Braves will send Spencer Schwellenbach (4-5, 4.04 ERA) to the mound Sunday in Denver while Colorado will counter with Kyle Freeland (3-4, 5.65) in the rubber game of the three-game series.
The Rockies won the opener 6-5 on Friday.
Schwellenbach, who has been pitching well over the past five weeks, has logged at least six innings in each of his past five starts and three times lasted seven innings. He has allowed nine earned runs over 33 innings in that span.
Sunday will be the rookie right-hander’s first start against the Rockies. Braves manager Brian Snitker praised Schwellenbach after he threw seven strong innings in his most recent start, a no-decision in the Braves’ 5-3 win over the Miami Marlins on Aug. 2.
“How he keeps and repeats his delivery is really refreshing. Uses all of his pitches. It’s not like he’s throwing for an iPad or whatever that thing is in the stadium that tracks everything,” Snitker said.
Another good outing will allow Atlanta to build momentum as it grinds through a 10-game road trip that heads to San Francisco on Monday. The Braves’ confidence hasn’t been shaken by a pair of six-game losing streaks since the All-Star break, despite the perennial National League East winner sitting in third place in the wild-card standings instead of at the top of the division.
“I’ve been part of some pretty special teams,” Braves veteran reliever A.J. Minter said. “You’ve got to embrace the [bad] just as much as you [embrace the good] when everything is going good.”
Freeland will be tasked with giving his team a series win against a club that has dominated the Rockies since the end of 2021 and has knocked him around in the past. The left-hander is 1-4 with a 6.26 ERA in eight career starts against Atlanta and lost both outings against the Braves last season.
Freeland had to leave his most recent start — a Braves’ 6-3 win over the New York Mets on Tuesday — after 4 2/3 innings with a blister on the index finger of his pitching hand.
“Developed in the fourth. Didn’t know that it was developing. It never got hot on me, which usually these things kind of do,” Freeland said of the blister. “And then got in the dugout. Saw that it had formed. Popped it. Got rid of it. Shaved down the nail a little bit to get rid of the corner. And it ended up just really blowing up in the fifth there, getting really big.
“Unfortunately, it was on a pitch that I use a lot, a curveball. And as we saw it getting bigger and kind of losing feeling in that area, kind of had to make a decision there.”
It spoiled what could have been another quality start for Freeland. He has pitched well since coming off the 60-day injured list in late June, going at least six innings in six of seven starts before the game against the Mets.
He has dropped his ERA from 13.21 to 5.65 over his last eight outings and is showing glimpses of how he pitched in 2018, when he finished fourth in the NL Cy Young Award voting.
–Field Level Media
