On Friday, the Milwaukee Brewers (57-46, 1st NL Central) will play the first of three games at Truist Park in their weekend series against National League rival the Atlanta Braves (64-36, 1st NL East). Milwaukee defeated the Cincinnati Reds 3-0 on Wednesday and won two out of three from Cincinnati to take over first place in the NL Central by 1 ½ games over the Reds. Atlanta was defeated by the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday 5-3 and were swept in their short two-game interleague series at Fenway Park. The Braves have lost seven of the last 10, but remain 10 games ahead of second place Philadelphia in the NL East. Milwaukee will play without five pitchers as well as position players Brian Anderson, Darin Ruf, Rowdy Tellez and Jesse Winker. Atlanta will play without nine pitchers as well as position players Ehire Adrianza and Sam Hilliard.
The Milwaukee Brewers are in the top 10 of four major pitching categories. Milwaukee is fourth best in both WHIP at 1.22 and batting average allowed at .233. Milwaukee is 6th in Quality Starts with 46 and the Brewers have the 10th best team ERA at 3.89. Corbin Burnes is the leader in victories for Milwaukee with nine and Freddy Peralta has a team best 131 strikeouts. Milwaukee will hand the ball to Adrian Houser on Friday. This season the right-hander is 3-2 with an ERA of 3.86 and 49 strikeouts.
At the plate, Milwaukee is 25th in both runs scored with 423 and on base percentage .312, while 26th in team batting average at .232 and 27th in slugging percentage at .377. Willy Adames is leading Milwaukee in home runs with 17, while Christian Yelich is the team leader in RBI with 48 and in hits with 110, while second in home runs with 15. Milwaukee has only 148 doubles, 10 triples and 107 home runs in 103 games.