Offense struggles, Reynaldo López had his highs and lows vs the Pirates

The Atlanta Braves took on Chase Anderson and the Pirates today at LECOM Park. Reynaldo López took the mound for the Braves for his fourth appearance, and second start, of Spring Training 2024.

Prior to this outing, López had been solid with a 1.13 ERA, 4.27 FIP, and 3.67 xFIP across eight innings of work, with the ERA pushed down by a literal 100 percent strand rate.

However, López started off shaky in this one, giving up a homerto the first hitter he faced in Oneil Cruz. However, that was the only run he ended up surrendering in his 3 ²⁄₃ innings pitched.

In the bottom of the first, López was able to record two outs before Jack Suwinski hit a double and promptly stole third. Fortunately, the inning ended with a fly out from Rowdy Tellez.

López then struggled mightily in the second, walking the first two hitters he faced, followed by a single to load the bases. The escape from said jam was helped by a strikeout-aided double play in which Nick Gonzales was picked off first by Sean Murphy. López then walked Cruz and was removed from the game. Brian Moran, who seems to be the designated one-batter-in-Spring-Training-to-reset-a-struggling-pitcher was able to get Bryan Reynolds to pop up to first.

Since this is Spring Training, the Braves brought López back out to pitch again and he looked much better in the bottom of the third, in which he went three-up-three down in the next two innings. López ultimately ended his day with 3 ²⁄₃ innings pitched with one earned run, three walks, a single, a double, a HR, and two strikeouts. The line was kind of ugly, but it should be worth noting that he had a bunch of bad misses in the second and then came out and only threw fastballs in the third, before resuming his full arsenal in the fourth. He may have had a minor injury or something that resolved itself after a few minutes, or was just trying something new and needed a reset. Still, he wasn’t showing his usual strikeout stuff today.

López was followed up by Joe Jiménez, who gave up one earned run via a homer to Suwinski, and collected one strikeout in 1 ¹⁄₃ innings. Ian Mejia finished things up for the Braves on the pitching side with 2 ²⁄₃ innings pitched while allowing three earned runs (all via three-run homer) on three hits in 2 ²⁄₃ innings pitched. He did have four strikeouts, though.

The Braves offense could not get things going. Chase Anderson retired all nine hitters faced before he was replaced by Colin Holderman, who walked Forrest Wall to start the fourth inning. After a single from Luis Guillorme, there were back to back forceouts that ultimately led to Wall scoring the lone run for the Braves.

Guillorme and Jordan Luplow had the only two hits for the Braves in this game and they were singles.

Fortunately, the most exciting thing about this game was most likely seeing how López would perform in a starting role again, and we got to see that he had his struggles but got out of some jams. It will be interesting to see if it was enough to lock in the fifth starter spot. Bryce Elder will probably get a chance to counter in the immediate future.