BS Report: The Braves Need This Series

Don’t you love technology? I can tape a B.S. report while stopped for a train on the road in Brantley County, Georgia. Well, tonight in Cobb County, Georgia, the Atlanta Braves will host the Los Angeles Dodgers for the first of a three game series. Brian Lara will be on the mound for Atlanta. And it will be Tanner Glass now pitching for the Dodgers.

Glass, now right handed pitcher who has had a long injury history. He’s kind of the two a ton of a lot of Major League Baseball. He’s a very good pitcher when he’s healthy, but he’s not able to be healthy very much because he’s always on that injured list. Well, he’s been out for four months with a back issue, some back spasms.

He doesn’t have that. These days. And so he’ll be back on the mound for the first time. I like the Dodgers have the luxury with their lead of the National League Western Division to rest these pitchers to get him ready for that pennant stretch. And of course, we’re in that right now with about 30 games left for all the teams in Major League Baseball, the Braves desperately need to have a good series.

There’s no question about it. They have struggled here in the last week. They thankfully won the game on Sunday night against Milwaukee to avoid the sweep in that series. But this Dodger series is important because of the fact that obviously the Dodgers are ahead of the Braves and the Brewers are ahead of both teams. Well, so the Braves are 2 or 3 from the Brewers, and now they play the Dodgers for three games.

And look, this is important because the Braves would love to get home field advantage in the playoffs against those two teams. And if they’re one of the top two teams in the National League, they will have the first round off. So if they finish third like they are in the position they’re in now, they would have to play the first round and would have to host.

If you look at the standings as of right now, the San Diego Padres, well, you know, that’s a scary because the Braves have struggled in the playoffs last years not winning a series, and they have to play another round would be troubling I think. So if they can win over the Dodgers and get ahead of the Dodgers and finish ahead of both Milwaukee and Los Angeles, that would be a great advantage for this team, especially to try to play the majority of their games at Truist Park.

So this game tonight is going to be important. And it’s important probably for their mindset to just play well against a good team. And I’m sure they felt better after that win on Sunday. The rays offense continue to struggle. Well, there’s no question about it. They just have not played well at the plate and hit well at the plate.

They scored four runs on Sunday. That was good, but they need more. They need to have some offensive outbursts here and they are relying on home runs so much that when they don’t hit them, they’re kind of out of luck. And that’s the problem for the Braves. So you have to wonder what they’re going to be able to do against these good pitchers.

You got Suzuki going on Wednesday and then Yamamoto on Thursday. So the Braves will have three very good pitchers to face in the series with the Dodgers. Of course, the return of Freddie Freeman. That’s always part of the equation when the Dodgers head to town, of course. And that’ll be part of the sideshow with this series as well.

So Braves and Dodgers coming up on the super station’s first pitch tonight will be at 715. Out of the hand of Bryce Elder.