The Atlanta Braves are continuing their spring training while some of their star players are off to the World Baseball Classic to include Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuña Jr. facing each other today. The Braves will face off against the Minnesota Twins with Reynaldo López taking the mound again.
One of question marks for López after coming off a significant injury was whether he could get his velocity back. Back in 2024, when he arguably had his best season of his career, he averaged 95.5 MPH on his fastball. López was already hitting 94 MPH back on February 19th.
López has had positive results in spring thus far. He has pitched 5.0 innings while surrendering zero runs, only two hits and accumulating five strikeouts to only two walks. Of course, odds are it will be hard to replicate this over an entire season, but it is most certainly a positive sign.
It should also be noted that there is a fun stat on Baseball Reference that measures the opponent quality. It ranges from one being rookie ball to ten being a full MLB squad. So far López has a score of 7.0, which is equivalent of AA opponents.
It could be guessed before the lineup was dropped, but since the Braves are playing away from home, the lineup is largely full of players that will have minimal playing time in the regular season. Red hot Dominic Smith will get the start at 1B looking to boost his hopes for a roster spot now that Profar is done.
The Braves will face an outside-of-the-box trade option for them in Bailey Ober. Ober will be making his spring debut for the Twins who are already down a few rotation arms this year. It will be interesting to see if the Twins decide to go into a full rebuild mode this season.
The Twins’ lineup will feature former top prospect Royce Lewis, as well as old friend Orlando Arcia.
Game Notes
Time: 6:05 ET
TV: Gray TV
Streaming: MLB.TV (free game of the day)
Radio: ESPN 103.7/WIFN 1340
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