Braves vs Rays Lineups: no Joc Pederson yet, Abraham Almonte takes the start Friday night

As the title says: no Joc Pederson yet. Maybe tomorrow. With a bit of luck. Instead, we get a lineup where Abraham Almonte comes in at the start, with the usual 2-3-4, and then Orlando Arcia hitting fifth.

Almonte is yet to make No. 1 with the Braves this season, and he hasn’t started a game there since September 2019, when he was with the Diamondbacks. This is also a new defensive arrangement, as the Braves have yet to face Arcia and Almonte in the same outfield.

As for this unit’s familiarity with Michael Wacha – there is, but not much.

Wacha has been around forever but hasn’t really got off to a good start against the Braves since the start of 2017; he was destroyed by Atlanta while pitching for the Mets in an outing last year.

Spokes without DH line up as follows:

Randy Arozarena is the big omission from this roster – the Rays spin their DH a lot, but it’s usually Austin Meadows, who starts in right field today while Arozarena rests more. After the exploits of 2020, Arozarena has an xwOBA below 300 and plays quite poorly, so maybe that was an obvious choice, even given Meadows’ potential defensive issues.

The Rays know Morton from the fact that he was their teammate – but not so much their opponent:

It’ll be a little interesting to see how Morton and Mike Zunino adjust to each other, given they were teammates not so long ago.

And now for the Statcast chart.