Fried-Bieber match on Sunday night

After being criticized in the 17 rounds of Saturday's baseball, but finding ways to win a double break, the Braves are back on Sunday night, with a real chance to win a series and climb above the bar. 500. again. They will have Max Fried on the hill to try to do it. they will have to overtake Shane Bieber for a chance.

Fried will make his fourth start in 2019 and will have the opportunity to reverse a trend where each of his starts has been a little worse than the previous one. During his first lap in the rotation, he pitched six innings in one shot with a ratio of 5/0 K / BB, in which the batters hit the ground almost 80% of the time. After that, he pitched six round-robin innings to Coors Field (none of which was deserved), tuning only five pitchers with a ratio of 4/1 K / BB although the initiation rate has dropped to half. On his last outing, he gave the Diamondbacks two points out of six with a ratio of 3/1 K / BB and a base rate of 48%. On the plus side, its smell has actually increased with every start despite the drop in the number of strikes, so there is no reason to think its time is up or something like that. The offensive struggles of the Indians were against the right-handed and right-handed pitchers, although you might not know it in the first two games of this series. A group of right-handers did not really work for the Braves; maybe Fried can give Atlanta good runs to start the match unlike the performances of Julio Teheran and Touki Toussaint.

Shane Bieber, a 23-year-old right-handed player with a very unusual profile for an opposing pitcher, will be opposed to Fried. Unlike most youth who dominate the minor leagues as they climb, Bieber's main calling card is his command. His highest rate of walking at each stop was just 3.4% in Triple-A last year before his major league debut. Bieber did not get very good grades, but honestly, this concern seems to have always been exaggerated, as he still manages slaughter rates of almost 25% at all levels and his fastball seems to have a good efficiency of rotation, generating more "increase" (that is, less falling down) than expected given its average speed One thing to watch out for if you have never seen this would be Bieber's "slider", which is actually a harder pitch 12-6 rather than something that "slides" horizontally across the area. Its curved ball, meanwhile, is tight and lively, which can be a headache for the batters, as it forces them to repel multiple unorthodox shots. Bieber goes largely to the fast ball against the right-hander, but left-handers have to deal with all of his mix at four heights, which includes an evolution. (Although I'm not really very specific at all, I like to think of Bieber here as Dark Mike Soroka, not because of similarities everywhere, but mostly because they're both guys who have ransacked the minors without ever-screaming output rate, although Soroka Bieber is more of a walker than a strike guy.)

Shane Bieber was really good last year, although the usual variance of the baseball type (low spin rate, high BABIP rate) resulted in a disappointing ERA compared to its peripherals. His triple slash was 4.55 / 3.23 / 3.30, which corresponds to 102/76/78 less. His 2.9 fWAR as starter was the 31st best baseball player, despite the fact that he had made only 19 starts and counted only 110 innings. The pendulum is back in the opposite direction for Bieber this year (high strand rate, low BABIP rate), leading to a triple edge of 1.72 / 2.62 / 3.99 (or 37/59/90) in three starts and a lightening two-sleeve appearance so far this year. His debut to date is as follows:

• Six innings, two points (one circuit), 9/2 K / BB ratio against the Blue Jays;
• Seven rounds without goal, 6/1 K / BB ratio in Detroit; and
• Six innings, one point (zero circuit), 5/3 K / BB ratio in Seattle.

Cleveland has won each of these games.

The right-hand man has two tendencies to watch: does he still have to fish outside the zone? – Bieber recorded last year a rate among the top 10 and a fifth in the lower zone until the end of the season. now this year? his fastball not too devastating. If one or the other of these trends remains the same, the Atlanta hitter may be able to capitalize in the meantime or by punishing his fastball without having to deal with difficult throws.

Game information

Atlanta Braves @ Cleveland Indians

Sunday, April 21, 2019

19:05 EDT

Progressive Field, Cleveland, OH

TV: ESPN (sigh)

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan, Rock 100.5, Braves Radio Network, The Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM, SXM 178 (Streaming 847).