Ray Piedmont: Sunday Afternoon, One Question Answered

Sunday afternoon, one game, one answer to the question nobody wanted to ask yet.

What you need to know:

Royals 4, Braves 1. Seth Lugo threw 6.1 scoreless innings on 77 pitches and the Braves never got off the ground. Grant Holmes — the first arm behind Sale and López in the rotation depth experiment — gave up three runs in five innings. A solo homer to Carter Jensen in the fourth. An RBI single to Bobby Witt Jr. in the third. Another run in the fifth. Not a disaster. Not the answer the Braves wanted, either.

Holmes walked two, struck out four, and left after five innings and a 5.40 ERA. This morning's question — can the rotation hold behind the top two? — got a provisional reply: not comfortably.

The silver lining wore number 72. Didier Fuentes, 20 years old, threw four innings of relief and gave up one run on two hits with four strikeouts. The kid the Braves are developing as rotation insurance looked like he belonged. That matters more than the final score.

Drake Baldwin hit a solo homer in the eighth — his second in three games. The rest of the lineup went quiet. Acuña, Riley, and Olson went a combined 0-for-12. The Braves drew zero walks. Not one. The discipline that fueled the first two games disappeared entirely.

The series: Braves won it, 2-1. The record is 2-1. Sale was dominant Thursday. López was strong Saturday. Holmes was mediocre Sunday. The rotation depth chart has one arm it trusts, one it can live with, and one it needs to think about. Fuentes might be the one who rearranges the conversation.

Next up: the Athletics come to town Monday at 7:15 PM.

One more thing. It was Alumni Sunday at Truist Park — Leo Mazzone and Mark Wohlers signed autographs before the game. Two men from the greatest pitching staff in franchise history watching a team that is trying to survive April with what it has. The symbolism was free of charge.