What a matchup for the folks at Truist Park tonight.
After spinning seven innings of two run ball in his MLB debut, JR Ritchie earned another shot to start. He’ll bring his 2.57 ERA and lessons from his first outing to make his debut in front of the home crowd and build his case to stay.
If you missed his performance in the last game of the series against the Washington Nationals, 24-year old Ritchie had a game to remember. He took the field at 1:05 pm ET and took a breath. BravesVision panned to his proud and anxious parents. He came set, and a ball meant for Drake Baldwin’s glove was launched for an immediate James Wood home run. Welcome to the bigs! (In a conversation with 680 the Fan yesterday, Ritchie shared that his fiancée Makena really wanted that home run ball back, and it lives on their nightstand so he can see it all the time. Damn.)
Outside of the homer to Wood and one later to CJ Abrams, Ritchie absolutely dealt. He was working all six pitches, relying primarily on the curveball and four-seamer, followed by the changeup, slider, cutter, and sinker.
It was a historic performance. Ritchie became the first pitcher in franchise history to complete at least 7.0 innings while allowing no more than two runs and striking out at least seven in his major league debut.
After groin tightness caused starting pitcher Casey Mize to exit early last night, the Tigers will turn to their ace to try to even up the series. No big deal… it’s just two-time and reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal.
What else is there to say about Skubal? Arguably baseball’s best pitcher, he’s set to take the mound versus the Braves for the first time since 2024.
Skubal (3-2, 2.72 ERA) will be looking for a return to his usual brilliance to keep the Braves boppers at bay. He started strong in his six innings versus Milwaukee. But the Brewers would adjust and tag him for seven hits, four earned runs, and allowed the tying run and departed the top of the seventh without recording an out. An inherited run would score to give the Brew Crew the lead, meaning he was in line for his first loss at home in Detroit since July of last season. As reported by Detroit Tigers reporter Jason Beck, he flipped a mini-cooler in the dugout about it. It would all work out for him, though – the Tigers walked it off to give him the happiest no-decision in recent memory.
Skubal’s last outing at Truist was on June 19, 2024, where the Braves would shut out the Tigers and win 7-0 (Reynaldo López, who is now temporarily figuring stuff out in a bullpen role, was the opposing starter). Much of this particular game’s offense was provided by the currently-rehabbing Sean Murphy, who went 4-4 with two two-run bombs. In pretty limited ABs, Ozzie Albies, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, and Eli White have minimum one hit off of Skubal. Our former AL boys Jorge Mateo, Mauricio Dubón, and Jonah Heim have seen Skubal the most, with Mateo posting the highest AVG and OPS among them (.600, 1.200). Heim is 3-for-16 and Mauricio is 1-for-9, but they’ve got the only homers with one apiece.
Detroit will be looking to make some noise after being shut out for eight innings last night. We’ll see a buzzy prospect versus buzzy prospect with rookie Kevin McGonigle in the lineup for Detroit. McGonigle, of course, was a victim of a great catch by Ronald Acuña Jr. at the wall last night to keep Martín Pérez’s outing scoreless. Catcher Dillon Dingler has been making waves and leads the team with 19 RBI, followed closely by Riley Greene and team HR leader Kerry Carpenter with 17 driven in.