Braves Pad NL East Lead With Win Over Mets Sunday
The Atlanta Braves (99-59) pulled ahead of the New York Mets (98-60) in the NL East with a 4-2 victory in Saturday's meeting. Braves-Mets meet in their regular-season and 3-game series finale on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball in Truist Park with the first pitch scheduled for 7:08 p.m. ET.
ATL won the 1st two games of this series and evened the season series with N.Y. 9-9 entering Sunday. But, the Braves have a +14 run differential in those meetings (85-71).
The Braves wrap up their regular season with a 3-game road set at the Miami Marlins. While the Mets host the Washington Nationals for their last 3 regular-season games.
Betting Details (DraftKings)
BET: Braves (-130) ML, all the way up to -135
ATL has too much momentum coming into this game. N.Y. losing the last two games with Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer starting has to be soul-crushing. The Mets were atop the NL East for all but 2 games this season before the Braves overtook them with a win Saturday.
N.Y. starting RHP Chris Bassitt (15-8, 3.27 ERA) is having a nice season for the Mets and figures to be in their playoff rotation. But, ATL RHP Charlie Morton (9-6, 4.29 ERA) is a proven, big-game pitcher. Morton started in all 3 playoff series for the Braves in their 2021 World Series title run.
Also, Morton has better advanced pitching numbers vs. active N.Y. batters than Bassitt does against current ATL hitters.
Per Statcast, Morton has a 31.2% K-rate in 154 plate appearances (PA) vs. current Mets with a .193/.274/.336 expected batting average (xBA), wOBA (xwOBA) and slugging percentage (xSLG). Bassitt has a 25.0% K-rate in 56 PA vs. active Braves with a .240/.337/.430 xBA-xwOBA-xSLG.
Finally, ATL's bullpen has a higher WAR than N.Y.'s (7.5-4.1), per FanGraphs, and the Braves lead MLB in home runs vs. righties. The weather forecast is predicting 10 mph winds blowing towards center-field and I feel better about ATL's sluggers going yard than N.Y.'s.
Go to DraftKings Sportsbook and BET the ATLANTA BRAVES (-130).