Reynaldo López wants to help Atlanta Braves to victory

The Atlanta Braves look to complete their revenge tour against the Colorado Rockies and defeat them completely in game three tonight.

Reynaldo López is on the mound for the Braves and there is a strong possibility that he will lower his ERA for the season below the 2.00 ERA mark at some point in the game. Of course, since he is currently at 121.2 IP, that feat would be impressive.

López doesn’t have enough innings to be a qualified pitcher for the ERA crown. He’s nineteen short of what he needs to qualify, which isn’t much this late in the season. Still, let’s look at how many pitchers have finished a season with a score below 2.00.

In the last decade, only eight qualified starting pitchers finished the season with an ERA under 2.00, and three of those were in the shortened 2020 season. Keuchel, Bauer and Bieber did it in 2020, deGrom and Snell in 2018, Grienke and Arrieta in 2015 and Kershaw in 2014. While unlikely, it would put López in a special position if he reached the innings needed to qualify. Either way, it shows how impressive this stretch of run prevention has been.

It should be noted that his expected ERA (xERA) is 4.15 and his expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) has been about league average in his last hundred batting appearances against him. This is partly because he’s been pretty lucky in the area of ​​beach rate (LOB%). League average LOB% is usually between 70.0 and 74.0 percent, depending on the year. Currently, López has a beach rate of 86.5 percent.

This is not to diminish what he has accomplished. He has been an absolute blessing for the Braves. It is just a small glimpse into the fact that we may see a regression to the mean at some point.

Two of his last three starts have been against the Phillies, and in those last three starts he has allowed a total of three earned runs. He has not played against the Rockies this year, and has only played against four of their players in the past. Toglia and Jones have one at-bat against him, and Stallings has two. Neither of those players has gotten on base. The only player to keep an eye on is Jake Cave, who has played against López in thirteen at-bats. He has a career average of .385, 1.352 OPS, and two HRs in this somewhat limited sample.

Austin Gomber is on the mound for the Rockies and has a 4.69 ERA and a 1.299 WHIP in 144.0 innings pitched this season. He has not played against the Braves this season. It’s worth noting that he has an xERA of 5.23, which ranks in the bottom 8.0 percent of MLB-qualified starters.

He has faced most of the Braves’ players in the past, but in a very limited capacity. The most he has faced is Whit Merrifield with ten at-bats, the second most is Jorge Soler with eight. Merrifield has a .900 OPS and one home run against him, and Soler has a 1.625 OPS with two home runs against him. It will be interesting to see if Merrifield is healthy tonight after the scary HBP to his head earlier in the week.

Can the Braves pull off the sweep? First pitch is at 7:20 ET

Game info

Date/time of the game: Thursday, September 5, 7:20 p.m. ET

Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia.

TV: Bally Sports South

Streaming: MLB.tv

Radio: 680 AM / 93,7 FM The Fan