Braves stick with Ozuna, Rosario for critical final game with Mets

Oct 2, 2022 - 8:07 PM

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The Braves are not changing a thing from yesterday’s 4-2 win, lineup-wise. Let’s deploy the Statcast graphic!

Notably absent from the Braves’ lineup is William Contreras. Despite their very different results (Contreras outhitting his xwOBA, Ozuna way underhitting his), they’ve been pretty similar batters this year, both victimizing straight stuff. One option for the Braves could’ve been to start both Ozuna and Contreras in lieu of Eddie Rosario, but the Braves apparently care about some combination of Chris Bassitt’s extant platoon split and/or not playing Ozuna in the field behind Charlie Morton, who has allowed a lot of fly balls to date.

The Mets, meanwhile, stack a bunch of lefties against Morton, who has a very large platoon split this year. Pete Alonso, Mark Canha, and James McCann are the only righties in the New York lineup. This is a new lineup for the Amazin’ crew, and it’s somewhat interesting that they aren’t opting to give Morton yet another lefty to deal with in Tyler Naquin. The only time the Mets have used this defensive arrangement, they lost 4-1 to the Cubs.

In case you care, here are wOBAs and xwOBAs against the respective starter for these guys: