Braves vs Twins Preview: Atlanta hopes Tyler Mahle can continue dominant run

As the Braves are in the midst of a bit of a lull in performance, particularly on offense, they will hope to get more of the same from Tyler Mahle, who has been fantastic through two starts in a Braves uniform. The Twins will throw the big righty Zebby Matthews, who has struggled mightily this year.

Mahle has dropped his cutter usage in favor of his splitter so far with Atlanta, using his four-seamer and splitter a combined 85% of the time, with the cutter as more of a change of page than a real weapon. This is a plausible explanation for at least some of his success, although he certainly won’t continue his pace of 12.0 innings over two starts with 16 strikeouts and 1 run allowed since joining Atlanta. The Twins have a pretty good lineup, so this will be a decent challenge for Tyler and his new pitch tendencies.

Matthews has struggled to the tune of a 4.21 xFIP and a 5.05 FIP for the Twins this year, over 91.0 innings. His strikeouts have cratered from previously impressive numbers to 7.62 K/9, while his walks sit at a solid 2.97 BB/9. He’s lost a tick on his fastball compared to last year, but his fastball still has decent shape. He is a pitcher who works off of an above average fastball, but is otherwise more succeeds on volume of pitches than quality of his secondaries, with his slider, changeup, curveball and cutter, with a token sinker mixed in. While his fastball has good attributes, the heat map for its placement is essentially the heart of the strike zone, which is really not where you want to be pumping a non-prime-deGrom fastball against major league hitters. This would be a good pitcher for the Braves’ offense to get out of their slump against and drop a large number on the Twins.

Game Date/Time: Tuesday, August 18, 7:40 p.m. EDT

Location: Target Field, Minneapolis, MN

TV/Streaming: BravesVision

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan, Los Bravos