Here’s your handy dandy Statcast graphic for this afternoon’s series finale in New York:
The Braves are going full platoon mode against southpaw Steven Matz, with Duvall returning to the lineup in the five spot and Charlie Culberson getting the nod in right field. The Braves have only used this defensive arrangement twice before — last Saturday’s 4-3 win over the Dodgers and the 5-0 victory over the Marlins earlier in the week.
The Mets, meanwhile, are giving Rene Rivera his first start of 2019 after he was called up to the big league team on Saturday. The 36-year-old catching stalwart had spent the season at Triple-A Syracuse prior to his recall to fill in for Tomas Nido, who has been played on the 7-day Injured List for concussion protocol considerations.
Given that this pitching matchup is a reprisal of one that happened just a couple of weeks ago, there’s batter-versus-pitcher familiarity all around. Still, there hasn’t been too much damage done by these specific opposing hitters against Keuchel and Matz — Donaldson and Freeman have the only two homers, and only four Mets hitters (Davis, Ramos, Rivera, Rosario) even have hits off Keuchel in their careers.
First pitch is at 1:10 pm EDT.