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Game Thread #91: Brewers (40-50) at Braves (53-36)

The Brewers have three more chances to avoid the sweep.


Current Series

Braves lead the series 1-0

Thu 07/15 WP: Jair Jurrjens (2 - 3)
SV: Billy Wagner
LP: Dave Bush (4 - 7)
1 - 2 loss

Milwaukee Brewers
@ Atlanta Braves

Friday, Jul 16, 2010, 6:35 PM CDT
Turner Field

Randy Wolf vs Tommy Hanson

Partly cloudy,rain. Winds blowing out to left field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 90.

Complete Coverage >

Sat 07/17 6:10 PM CDT
Sun 07/18 12:35 PM CDT

Follow the jump for tonight's pitching matchup, lineup and more!

Mets)

. He's struggled lately, posting a 7.32 ERA and allowing 33 hits in 19.2 innings over his last four starts. With that said, he dominated the Brewers on May 10, pitching eight shutout innings and allowing just four hits. The Braves are 13-5 in his starts.Hanson throws a 93.3 mph fastball 58.3% of the time, and also relies heavily on a slider (27.4% of all pitches). Both pitches are above average. Ryan Braun is the only Brewer who's seen him at least ten times: He's hitting .333/.400/1.111 with two home runs in ten PAs.

He'll face Randy Wolf (4.56 ERA, 5.82 FIP), who continues to defy his exceptionally high FIP. Since a disaster start against the Cubs on June 9, Wolf has posted a 3.05 ERA over six starts but continues to allow a lot of baserunners (29 walks and 19 BB in 38.1 IP) and home runs (6 over 6 starts). He's the NL leader in walks and home runs allowed this season.

The good news is that Wolf's slider (+0.89 runs per 100) and change (+1.85) have both been above average pitches. The bad news is that they combine for just 26.4% of his arsenal. The other bad news is the fact that three of the six Braves that have faced Wolf at least ten times have OPS'ed over 1.000 against him:

Player PA AVG OBP SLG OPS
Chipper Jones 64 .392 .500 .765 1.265
Alex Gonzalez 37 .257 .297 .371 .669
Matt Diaz 17 .538 .647 .538 1.186
Brian McCann 12 .444 .583 .889 1.472
Martin Prado 10 .222 .222 .222 .444
David Ross 10 .111 .200 .222 .422

As of 4:00, I still hadn't seen tonight's lineup. If you have it, post it in the comments.

And in the bullpen:

Zach Braddock pitched 1.1 innings (16 pitches) yesterday.
David Riske pitched .1 innings (4 pitches) yesterday.
Todd Coffey pitched .1 innings (3 pitches) yesterday.
John Axford, Kameron Loe, Carlos Villanueva, Trevor Hoffman and Chris Capuano all haven't pitched since before the All Star break.

Enjoy the game!