Padres and Braves Both Trying to Stay Afloat in Loaded Divisions
We have a battle of two of the best National League teams as the San Diego Padres head to Truist Park to take on the Atlanta Braves to begin a three-game set.
The Padres will send right-handed ace Yu Darvish to the bump as he is coming off a win over the Miami Marlins where he went seven innings and allowed two runs on five hits with no walks and three strikeouts.
The Braves send southpaw ace Max Fried on the bump as he is coming off a win over the Milwaukee Brewers where he also went seven innings and allowed a run on four hits with a walk and eight strikeouts.
The scores and odds indicate this should be a closely contested matchup as well.
The San Diego Padres are doing well without hitting better than average as they are currently tied for 18th in MLB with a .684 OPS so far. The offense has been extremely patient as they have drawn 130 walks thus far, which leads the majors.
Third baseman Manny Machado has been one of the best players in baseball as he has a 1.085 OPS with seven homers, 22 RBI, and six stolen bases. They need him to continue mashing if they want to continue winning games.
The Braves Need to Continue Improving
The Atlanta Braves have been a solid offensive team, but are still underperforming a bit as they are 11th in baseball with a .695 OPS. The offense is scoring a good amount of runs as they are averaging 4.09 runs per game as of this writing.
First baseman Matt Olson has been leading the charge offensively for Atlanta as he has a .838 OPS with three homers and 14 RBI but is only hitting .175 in his previous 15 games (10-for-57). If he can start hitting better beginning now, their MLB spreads will be a bit more favorable.
Padres vs Braves Head-to-Head
These teams have faced off for four games in San Diego earlier this season with each team picking up two victories. This is the beginning of a three-game set and that will end their regular season matchup for the 2022 season.
The San Diego Padres have been the better team and are beginning to click a bit more than Atlanta has, just looking at records alone.
Max Fried has clicked in his last four starts as he is 4-0 in 26 innings and has allowed four runs on 14 hits with a single walk and 26 strikeouts. That isn’t just against bottom-feeders either, as he has faced the Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, and Brewers in those four starts.
The offenses have been scoring consistently as the Braves are averaging 4.8 runs per game in their previous five games while the Padres are scoring 2.7 runs per game in their last six games right now.
The Atlanta Braves seem to have a distinct advantage though, with their offense and the pitching of Max Fried dominating so far.
Ryan Knuppel has been writing about sports & sports betting topics online for over 15 years. He was a college basketball All-American in the early 2000's and has always had a deep understanding for sports. Ryan was the 2011 Buffalo Wild Wings National "Pickem" Winner which earned him a trip to play flag football with Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders. He was also a 2015 FanDuel.com Playboy Mansion NBA Championships Qualifier in daily fantasy sports. But his true claim to fame is the fact that he has played basketball with and against THE Michael Jordan numerous times in his life. Ryan is excited to be writing and covering sports here and would love to hear from you on social media.
