Sean Murphy and Ha-Seong Kim are in the Braves lineup against left-hander David Peterson, and there isn’t a whole lot unusual about the card beyond that. With Lane Thomas no longer available, Atlanta is rolling out what amounts to its standard setup, with Murphy and Kim near the bottom.
It’s the same lineup the Braves used in the 12-2 win over the Phillies, and if Peterson’s usual inefficiency shows up again, Atlanta may be hoping for something similar this time.
The bigger storyline in the lineup is Ozzie Albies, who is batting cleanup for the 21st time this season. His year has gone sideways.
He opened with a near-.400 wOBA in April while carrying an average xwOBA, then went through a rough May, an okay June, and another stretch in July where the production outpaced the underlying numbers by a lot. Since then, it has fallen apart.
In August, Albies posted a .275 wOBA and .283 xwOBA. In September, those numbers have dropped to .212 and .218.
The left-handed damage he once did has also largely disappeared. Across his first seven seasons, he had five years in which he hit lefties extremely well, and one of the exceptions was the injury-shortened 2020 season.
But in both 2024 and 2025, his xwOBA against lefties settled around the .325 range. This year, it’s down to .282.
He has only posted an xwOBA of .300 or better against lefties in April and July, and in September so far it sits at .171. There isn’t much time left for him to flip the script, and this shapes up as a disappointing follow-up to 2025 and the third straight underwhelming season for Albies.
As for the Braves against Peterson, the group has seen him plenty. Amazingly, neither Drake Baldwin nor Mauricio Dubon has ever faced him, and Ha-Seong Kim has only four plate appearances against him.
Everyone else has between 12 and 30. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson have done major damage, Riley has held his own, and the rest have had more trouble.
In 141 career head-to-head plate appearances, the Braves have a .318 wOBA and .347 xwOBA against Peterson.
There’s also a weird wrinkle: both teams have used this exact lineup only once before, and in both cases it ended with a 12-2 win for that club.
On the other side, the Cubs have a little familiarity with Reynaldo Lopez, but not a ton. Everyone except Pedro Ramirez has at least one at-bat against him, though only Alex Bregman has seen him more than nine times.
The results have been rough for Lopez. The lowest xwOBA in the group is .349, and the full line comes out to a .360 wOBA and .432 xwOBA across just 43 plate appearances.
That said, there’s still a long way to go, and even if the matchup numbers improve, the Cubs could still end up beating the daylights out of someone at Wrigley Field.
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The pitching side is where the newest wrinkle shows up, with Ray Kerr stepping into the projection in Elders place. Atlanta is also weighing the kind of depth pieces that can matter in October for pinch-running and pinch-hitting, and that leaves the front office and coaching staff with one more difficult call to make as the bracket approaches and every roster spot becomes a little more valuable. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Ownership Just Got Pressured Into An Awkward Franchise Debate
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The timing is what makes the pressure feel so pointed. Breach Inlet also pointed to potential labor disputes in Major League Baseball and upcoming tax law changes as reasons to consider moving now, turning a valuation discussion into a broader question of whether the right window to sell could be opening. For a franchise with no shortage of appeal on the open market, that is the sort of challenge ownership cannot simply shrug off. [Read more 🡒]