ATLANTA -- Chris Sale is an early Cy Young Award favorite and Spencer Strider is once again pitching like a frontline starter. As for Bryce Elder, he has positioned himself to earn his second All-Star selection within a span of four seasons.
Matt Olson, Michael Harris II and Drake Baldwin have also produced strong All-Star credentials while helping the Braves tally MLB’s second-highest run total thus far. But as good as the offense has been, the starting rotation has been the key to Atlanta’s MLB-best 36-16 record.
Chadwick Tromp’s two-out RBI single in the 11th inning gave the Braves a thrilling 5-4 win over the Nationals on Friday night at Truist Park. Atlanta’s thrilling rally preserved another strong effort from Elder who pushed his ERA back below 2.00 and further legitimized a dominant stretch that extends back to August.
Tromp also began the bottom of the 10th with an RBI single and Mauricio Dubón tallied a game-tying single two batters later. This erased the lead the Nationals had gained via CJ Abrams’ two-run triple off Dylan Lee. Abrams also homered off Robert Suarez in the eighth. But the suburban Atlanta native’s efforts against his hometown team went for naught when Tromp laced his game-winning single to center.
Curtis Mead’s leadoff homer in the sixth accounted for the only run Elder allowed over six innings. The 27-year-old hurler ranks eighth in the Majors with the 1.97 ERA he has produced through 11 starts. This marks just the 10th time since 2000 that a Braves pitcher has notched a sub-2.00 ERA through the first 11 starts of a season. Elder is the only pitcher to account for two of these instances. He had a 1.92 ERA through the first 11 starts of his 2023 All-Star season.
Given Elder wasn’t assured a rotation spot at the start of Spring Training, his early season success can be considered a surprise. But it’s not like he came out of nowhere. The evolution of a cutter Greg Maddux helped create combined with some biomechanical fixes helped the right-hander allowed three earned runs or less over at least six innings in six of his final seven starts last year.
Elder has a 2.30 ERA over 18 starts going back to Aug. 24. The only qualified pitchers with a better ERA during this span are the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (1.93), the Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez (1.99), the Pirates’ Paul Skenes (2.03) and Sale (2.20).
Sale ranks sixth in the Majors with a 1.89 ERA and the Braves rank third with a 3.04 starting pitching ERA. Strider missed the season’s first month because of an oblique strain suffered near the end of Spring Training. But in his past three starts, he has looked more like the guy who led the Majors in strikeouts from 2022-23.