With nine games remaining, the Atlanta Braves now face the Marlins, but are two games back of the last wildcard spot.

Charlie Morton is on the mound for the Braves and has pitched well since his horrific eight-run start on August 8. Since then, he has started seven games with a 2.68 ERA and a 3.20 FIP, with hitters hitting .233/.324/.353 against him. He has 49 strikeouts and 16 walks while striking out four batters.

The Marlins will bring rookie Valente Bello to the mound, who has started 11 games this season with a 3.70 ERA. Based on his 5.59 FIP and 1.286 WHIP, he’s likely lucky in the ERA department. His expected ERA is 5.08, according to Statcast, which is in the bottom 9.0 percent of MLB. His expected slugging percentage of .500 is in the bottom 2.0 percent of MLB.

However, the Braves have a strange habit of not scoring many runs after scoring eight or more runs in the previous game. They have scored eight or more runs nineteen times so far this season before yesterday’s onslaught. In the nineteen games in which they scored at least eight runs, they have averaged three runs per game. Nineteen games is a small sample size, but a significant one nonetheless.

The Braves’ offense has performed much better than expected in recent weeks. Since the beginning of September, they have the eighth-best wRC+ in the MLB and are tied with Seattle for the sixth most runs scored during that time.

The Braves have faced Bellozo before. On August 2, he had two earned runs in 5.0 innings. The Braves eventually won the game 5-3. In that game, Orlando Arcia was the hero with a home run against Bellozo in the fifth inning. Whit Merrifield also had a triple against Bellozo in the second inning. Those were the only two hits against Bellozo in that game. It’s a very small sample size, but it’s concerning that the Braves only managed two hits.

Although Morton has been in the league a long time, the Marlins have a young team. This means that most of them don’t face Morton often. Catcher Jesús Sánchez leads the team with twenty at-bats against Morton and has struggled to a .150 average and .461 OPS. Vidal Bruján leads the team with a 1.000 OPS against Morton, but has only three at-bats against him. Other than Bruján, no other player on the roster has an OPS above .666 against him in very limited samples.

This is a very important series for the Braves as they prepare to face the Mets on Tuesday of next week. This is one of those series where the team that is supposed to win has to win to stay in the race. This could be a potentially entertaining, but also stressful, season-ending wild card race.

Game info

Date/time of the game: Thursday, September 20, 7:10 p.m. ET

Location: loanDepot Park, Miami, Florida.

TV: Bally Sports Southeast

Streaming: MLB.tv

Radio: 680 AM / 93,7 FM The Fan