BREAKING NEWS: Drake Baldwin terminates contract due to an outbreak in the locker room

It was an ugly outing all around for Bryce Elder, though save for his terrible inning in the second he didn’t give up a whole lot of contact to the Jumbo Shrimp. The big problem for Elder was that he couldn’t throw strikes in this game, with a zone rate of only 31%, issuing three walks in the game one of which kicked off that second inning rally. After that walk Elder gave up consecutive hard hit doubles, putting Gwinnett behind 2-1 early in the game. The hits would not stop coming though, but Elder was hard to blame for the next two as the Jacksonville hitters chased off of the plate and didn’t make great contact, but got two singles to fall in a row to score a third run in the inning. Dane Myers put a bow on the inning by lacing a 100 mph single up the middle to score the fourth run of the inning and Gwinnett never caught back up to that 4-1 deficit. To Elder’s credit, despite missing the zone he wasn’t missing it by much, sitting just off the plate and often taking advantage of the aggressive Jumbo Shrimp hitter to coax out weak contact. Elder left few pitches in the middle of the plate, but his struggles to find a consistent release point meant there just weren’t enough pitches on the plate for him to get ahead in counts.

For Allan Winans it appears the Braves have made a move back into the bullpen (where he pitched before the Braves picked him up last year), and the results have been pretty awful in a very small four game sample. Winans has as many walks as strikeouts in his four short relief appearances, and is getting hit harder while not missing as many bats as he did as a starter. Winans has seen a slight tick up in his velocity, though pretty much all of these statistics lack significance in the sample size here, but his changeup has been awful seeing a dramatic decrease in whiff rate and increase in hard hit balls. This could simple be a case of sample sizes playing tricks, or a matter of the increased usage of his changeup (48.9% in this sample) making it easier for hitters to recognize the pitch. In any case the move to the bullpen might spell an end to his Braves tenure, where a soft-throwing multi-inning reliever may not have enough value for the Braves to tender him a contact this winter.

Nacho Alvarez had a tough game at the plate, and between the fifth inning where he made a play on a ground ball and seemed fine and his top of the sixth inning at bat something led to him being pulled from the game for a pinch hitter. I’ll refrain from speculation as I have nothing to go on here, so I’ll simply talk about his three at bats and keep an eye on whether he plays in the Stripers finale tomorrow. Alvarez got a heavy dose of sinkers at the bottom of the zone from Yonny Chirinos, and while he did come out with two singles neither were hit very hard. He flicked a 2-1 sinker on the inner edge into center field for a single in the first inning, but he and Drake Baldwin (who drew a walk off of Chirinos’s first inning wildness) were stranded. Luke Williams doubled to bring home the first run of the game in the second inning, setting up Alvarez with a chance to drive in a run and extend a lead in the second inning. Alvarez coaxed a splitter left a bit up in the zone and made his best contact of the game, but flew out to the warning track in right center field to end the inning. Alvarez worked ahead 3-1 in the fourth inning and got a good pitch to hit, but rolled over it and just beat out a grounder that deflected off the pitchers mound to make the shortstop’s play a bit more difficult. Alvarez has managed to lift the ball a bit more this month without seeing an appreciable difference in whiff rate, but he still just isn’t hitting the ball hard consistently and in the past week or so hasn’t been running into those home runs and hard hit balls to the opposite field like he was in the past.

After Baldwin worked that walk in the first inning he was all over Chirinos in the third inning, cracking a 101.9 mph single on his first swing of the game. Chirinos countered by not giving Baldwin a fastball in the zone in their third time facing each other, and quickly got ahead of Baldwin by fooling him and having him swing over a couple of splitters. After changing his eye level and going over the zone with a fastball he came back with a splitter that Baldwin didn’t bite on, bringing up a 2-2 count. He got Baldwin a bit out in front of another splitter, but he left it further over the plate than he wanted and Baldwin was able to get contact and hook it inside the line for a ground rule double. Chadwick Tromp had a chance to tie the game with Alvarez at third or give Gwinnett a lead with Baldwin on second, but grounded out to end the Stripers biggest threat of the game. Baldwin flew out to somewhat deep right center field in the sixth inning, then came up with two runners on, no outs, and a two run deficit in the ninth inning. Baldwin worked the count to 3-2, but couldn’t get to a slider that was perfectly located on the low-outside corner and struck out swinging. Chadwick Tromp got a hittable sinker on the first pitch but popped it up for the second out, and Harold Ramirez struck out to end the game.