The Braves head into Baltimore with a little momentum and a lot to sort through.
Atlanta opened the second half with a 5-2 homestand against two contending teams, then now turns to its first road test since the break: a six-game trip that begins Friday night with a weekend series against the Orioles at 7:05 p.m. ET.
The two clubs have traveled similar roads in recent seasons. Both followed promising 2024 campaigns with disappointing finishes last year.
But this season has split them apart. The Braves have rebounded to sit atop the NL East at 60-42, while Baltimore is fourth in the AL East at 50-53 and three games out of the final AL wild-card position.
The Orioles have been better since the break, though. They’re 4-2 after sweeping Houston on the road and then snapping the Red Sox’s 15-game winning streak on Wednesday after dropping the first two games of that series.
Atlanta will open the trip with Grant Holmes on the mound, and his start is part of a rotation that underscores why the Braves still need pitching help before the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Holmes is 6-4 with a 3.70 ERA, and he comes in off what was technically his worst outing since June 16, even if it still produced a win. Against the Rangers on Sunday, he gave up three runs on seven hits in Atlanta’s 8-5 victory.
The underlying numbers have been a little rougher lately. Since the start of June, Holmes has allowed 32 hits and 16 walks with 25 strikeouts over 35 1/3 innings, good for a 1.358 WHIP. Still, the results have held up: he’s 3-2 in that stretch and 2-0 in July with a 2.40 ERA.
Holmes has only seen Baltimore once before, and that outing ended in a loss. Last July, he allowed two runs on four hits across six innings in a 2-1 defeat.
Trevor Rogers will start for the Orioles. The left-hander is 6-7 with a 4.28 ERA, and his season has been a tale of two stretches.
After a strong first full year with Baltimore in 2025, when he went 9-3 with a 1.81 ERA in 18 starts, this season began badly. From mid-April through the end of May, he gave up at least three earned runs in seven straight starts, and his ERA climbed as high as 6.96.
Lately, though, Rogers has settled in. Since the start of June, he has allowed fewer than three runs in seven of his last eight starts. Over his last five, he has given up just three total runs while striking out 33 and walking 10 across 30 2/3 innings.
Even so, there’s some smoke behind the numbers. Rogers carries a 1.04 ERA through three July starts despite a 1.27 WHIP and 3.39 FIP. What’s helping him most is limiting damage: only two of the 14 hits he has allowed in that span have gone for extra bases, leaving opponents with a .281 slugging percentage.
That’s a test for a Braves lineup that has been piling up home runs. Atlanta has hit multiple homers in five of its first seven games since the break and trails only the Washington Nationals in July home runs with 33.
Rogers has plenty of history against the Braves, but not much of it has gone his way. He’s 1-7 with a 4.81 ERA in 10 starts against Atlanta. Only one of those outings came as an Oriole, when he threw 6 2/3 shutout innings for his first win over the Braves last July in the same game Holmes started for Atlanta.
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