The Braves head into their final regular-season weekend with the standings already settled and the postseason picture no longer in their hands. After dropping two games to the Reds, Atlanta is locked into the No. 3 seed, out of the race for a first-round bye, and facing a Friday night trip to Miami that carries no real effect on what comes next.
That makes this three-game set against the Marlins more about preparation than pressure. The club already began lining up its pitching in the Reds series with expected Game 1 and Game 2 starters Chris Sale and Tyler Mahle taking the final two games there. Now the focus shifts to getting everyone in order for what’s ahead.
The Braves waited until after 2:30 p.m. EDT to announce their Friday starter, and the choice makes the tone of the series pretty clear.
Left-hander Ray Kerr (0-0, 1.76 ERA) will open what is expected to be a bullpen game when Atlanta faces Miami at 7:10 p.m. EDT.
Kerr has been sharp in a limited role this season, allowing two runs across eight relief appearances and 15 1/3 innings. One of those runs came in his last outing last weekend at Houston.
Friday will be only his third major league start, with the other two coming for Atlanta in 2024. He has topped out at 35 pitches this year with the big-league club, so a short outing of two or three innings seems likely.
Miami is going with a more conventional option in right-hander Eury Pérez (7-11, 4.14). He’ll face the Braves for the third time this season after going 0-1 with a 7.00 ERA in the first two matchups. Against Atlanta in his career, Pérez is 0-3 with a 9.78 ERA.
While this weekend won’t change Atlanta’s postseason path, it still gives the lineup a chance to get moving before next week’s playoff opener in Atlanta. The Braves are trying to get in rhythm now, with the bigger goal still sitting just ahead: winning their first postseason series since the 2021 World Series.
In Other News...
Braves Playoff Rotation Just Lost A Starter At The Worst Time
The Braves playoff rotation took a hit at the worst possible time Monday, when the club announced that Martn Prez is headed to the injured list with lower back inflammation. It is a late setback for a team trying to line up its pitching for October, and it leaves Atlanta with less breathing room than it wanted as the postseason gets underway.
Prez was in position to matter in the NL Wild Card Series, and his absence also carries over into the NLDS if the Braves advance. With only a short window to adjust, Atlanta now has to rethink how it wants to piece together its early-round pitching plans while waiting to see how the rotation picture settles. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Could Dangle Big Names To Fix A Roster Problem
The Braves have already wrapped up the NL East, but the work ahead in Atlanta is likely to be less about celebrating the division title and more about figuring out how to smooth out a roster issue that has lingered beneath the surface. With an offseason in front of them, the front office could have to weigh whether the cleanest path to improvement means moving from a position of depth or from a few recognizable names who still carry real value in the market.
Alex Lodise, Cam Caminiti, Eric Hartman, Ozzie Albies, Spencer Strider and Reynaldo Lopez are among the players mentioned as possible trade candidates, and each brings a different mix of recent performance and contract considerations that could shape how other clubs view them. For the Braves, the calculation is less about attaching a label to any one player and more about deciding which pieces are most useful in solving the problem at hand without weakening the core that got them back to the top of the division. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Leave Cincinnati With One Big October Concern
The Braves spent a weekend in Cincinnati with little left to decide in the standings, but plenty to monitor as October approaches. Ronald Acua Jr. left with a shin contusion, though the early tests came back clean, and Atlanta also got a mixed bag on the field with a shutout loss, a narrow extra-innings win and another close defeat. There were bright spots along the way, including work from pitchers JR Ritchie and Chris Sale, plus contributions from Matt Olson and Austin Riley, but the bigger picture was less about the record than about how the group is holding up.
For a club that already has its division and postseason position locked in, the final tune-ups are about health and rhythm, and Acuas status now sits at the center of that conversation. The Braves do not need to chase anything in the standings, which makes every late-game decision and every awkward step on the bases feel a little more important than usual, especially with October closing in and the margin for error shrinking in a different way. [Read more 🡒]