The Atlanta Braves are back home in Cobb County for another homestand and they’ll be getting things started with Bryce Elder getting the ball for tonight’s game against Chris Paddack and the Minnesota Twins.

At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a very exciting pitching matchup. That view holds up on a second and third glance as well. Both of these hurlers have gotten off to extremely underwhelming starts to their respective season. Bryce Elder in particular has thrown 10 innings over two starts and in both outings, he gave up two home runs. Only one of those four dingers were outside of the “hanging slider/sinker” variety. As long as he can avoid those pratfalls of delivering juicy meatballs for big league hitters to crush, then Elder should be okay!

That’s been the issue for Elder, though — he made 10 big league starts in 2024 and gave up at least two homers in three of those appearances. Every time he got punished for throwing hangers, he ended up in huge trouble. It sounds comically simple but that’s the name of the game at this point: If he can avoid serving it up to the opposition, Elder will be okay. That’s especially the case against the Twins, who have not exactly been tearing it up at the plate to start this season. Minnesota is heading into this game with the 25th-best team wRC+ in all of baseball so far (82) and the 24th-lowest Isolated Power number as a team in baseball so far (.121). Elder is in a situation where he’s facing a team that doesn’t exactly crush the ball. If he gets lit up by this lineup then whew boy.

Meanwhile, the Braves themselves haven’t exactly been crushing the ball, lately. Atlanta is coming into this game with 92 wRC+ as a team, which is tied for 21st in baseball with the Nationals. They have been improving their power as of late, as they’re now all the way in 12th place in baseball when it comes to Isolated Power. Hopefully they’ll have a chance to continue improving as they face off against Chris Paddack. To be fair to Paddack, a lot of his awful numbers are inflated by the fact that he had an absolutely horrific start against the White Sox on March 31, which is when he got bombed for nine runs and three dingers over 3.1 innings. He’s been trying to work out of that hole ever since then and he actually made a pretty decent start in his most recent outing, where he went five innings and gave up two runs (one earned) against the Tigers.

With that being said, Paddack mostly relies on a fastball that has topped out at 94-mph this season. None of his pitches have been particularly impressive (though he’s done a solid job at getting hitters to chase his stuff) but one thing is still clear when it comes to the Braves: If you give them fastballs, they’ll probably hit it. Matt Olson, Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna and Austin Riley hav all seen some big success whenever they’ve gotten a chance to feast on fastballs — folks, those are the heavy hitters in this lineup. If Paddack continues to lean on that fastball, the Braves could have a chance to do some damage tonight. It’s also entirely possible that they could find a way to continue scuffling after their rough day to end the series in Toronto. It’s all on the table!

Both teams have been struggling a bit to start this season so far. I mentioned that the two squads have been kindred spirits of sorts with the way they’ve been struggling so far. Both teams will be in desperate search of a series win and the Braves in particular will be trying to wipe the memory of that awful showing at the plate against the Blue Jays. If both lineups take advantage of the pitching matchup, we could see runs galore today. Or baseball could throw us one of those curveballs and we’ll see these two dueling late into the game. That’s the beauty of the sport: We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Friday, April 18, 7:15 p.m. EDT

Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA

TV: None

Streaming: Apple TV+

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan