The Atlanta Braves have now had a couple of off days to lick their wounds following a letdown loss to the Marlins and a rain delay that helped them avoid Sandy Alcantara. That’s the good news — the bad news is that the Philadelphia Phillies are coming to town and they already appear to be starting the season as they intend to go on. They’re 7-2 coming into this series and should be feeling especially confident after they just took a series off of the Dodgers.

While this is the first time the Braves are running into the Phillies here in 2025, at this point these two teams are well, well acquainted with each other. Both teams didn’t make a ton of changes during the offseason, which means that the usual suspects are going to be rolling into Cobb County looking to extend Atlanta’s misery even further. The main difference right now is that instead of the usual suspect Bryce Harper leading the way, it’s been Edmundo Sosa who has been blazing a trail for the Phillies so far. He’s off to a great start and has been swinging an incredibly hot bat to start the season. Of course, the familiar faces like Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos have been doing their fair share of damage as well but he’s been the clear danger man for this club so far.

With that being said, the Phillies have also given Atlanta’s batters so many fits over recent years and they’ve got their rotation set up to where the Braves will once again have to figure out a way to deal with the top of their rotation if they’re going to have any real hope of getting something going against this team. While it’s always possible that this Braves lineup could go off at any given moment, they figure to have some tough sledding ahead when it comes to the hurlers that they’ll be dealing with to end this opening homestand.

Tuesday, April 8, 7:15 p.m. EDT (FanDuel Sports South/Southeast, TBS [out-of-market only])

RHP Chris Sale (2 GS, 10 IP, 5.40 ERA, 133 ERA-, 2.89 FIP, 70 FIP-, 27.9 K%, 2.3 BB%)

So far, Chris Sale’s start to 2025 has nearly mirrored his start to the 2024 season. During those first initial weeks of last season, Sale didn’t look dominant but instead he looked like the type of pitcher that the Braves were expecting when they got him for Vaughn Grissom in a deal with the Red Sox. That’s to say that he looked like a middle-of-the-rotation guy and so far, he’s been delivering middle-of-the-rotation results here in 2025. He’s pitched five innings in both of his starts so far while striking out five batters in one start and seven in the other while giving up three runs in each of those starts.

While he still has yet to reach the gear that propelled him to the NL Cy Young Award last season, his peripherals suggest that he’s doing perfectly fine at the moment and he could probably do with having a bit of better luck in his starts. His bullpen let him down in San Diego and while he gave up all three runs the Dodgers scored in the game he started in LA, it sure would’ve been nice if Atlanta’s offense had shown up for him in that one. Either way, Sale’s done enough to keep the Braves in these games as of late — now it’s time for his teammates to start paying him back.

RHP Zack Wheeler (2 GS, 13 IP, 1.38 ERA, 35 ERA-, 2.99 FIP, 71 FIP-, 40.9 K%, 4.5 BB%)

You know him and you probably loathe him by now but one thing is for certain: Zack Wheeler ain’t going away any time soon. The Phillies are off to a great start and part of the reasoning behind that is that their starting rotation has been firing on all cylinders to start the season. That means that Wheeler has also been firing on all cylinders, as he’s once again showing why he’s one of the top pitchers in the game. He’s only given up two runs over 13 innings and has struck out 18 batters so far, with just a couple of walks to boot.

The unfortunate part for the Braves is that Wheeler usually saves his best stuff for the Braves — or the Braves just can’t figure him out. Whatever narrative you want to go with, the point is that Atlanta usually has a bad time whenever this guy is on the mound. The last time they saw him back on August 31, 2024, he pitched seven shutout innings. That was after had an “off-day” against the Braves in Cobb County on August 20 when he actually gave up a pair of runs — including a homer from Marcell Ozuna. Those two runs ended up being the only runs the Braves would score on Wheeler all season, as he pitched six shutout innings all the way back on Opening Day 2024. This might end up going like how it usually goes — just survive the Wheeler innings and then try to do some damage against their bullpen.

Wednesday, April 9, 7:15 p.m. ET (Fanduel Sports South/Southeast, MLB Network)

RHP Grant Holmes (1 GS, 5 IP, 7.20 ERA, 180 ERA-, 6.07 FIP, 153 FIP-, 22.7 K%, 18.2 BB%)

It’s been a weird start to the season for Grant Holmes so far. He made his 2025 debut on Opening Day when he entered the game after the Padres blew up Héctor Neris and Aaron Bummer threw a shutout inning. Then he was thrust into the “Go Get Em, Kid!” position against the Dodgers four days later. Predictably, it didn’t go well as he only pitched four innings, struck out three, gave up four hits, four walks and four runs against Los Angeles.

Fortunately, he’s gotten plenty of rest since then and maybe that’ll help him get the train back on the tracks. It also helps that he’s had a decent amount of success against the Phillies — in limited bursts of action, mind you. Holmes made three appearances against the Phillies last season and they were all relief appearances. He got 3.2 innings under his belt against Philadelphia and gave up two hits and one run across that span. However, he did give up a hit against them on September 1 and that ended up being a walk off from Nick Castellanos that basically killed off all hope that the Braves had of potentially defending their NL East crown in 2024. This’ll be Holmes’ first start against the Phillies and hopefully he can make it a good one.

RHP Taijuan Walker (1 GS, 6 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0 ERA-, 2.74 FIP, 64 FIP-, 18.2 K%, 4.5 BB%)

I can say with plenty of confidence that Taijuan Walker’s first start of 2025 was his best start in nearly two years. That’s because that was the first time he pitched at least five shutout innings and left the game with his opposition still shut out since June 11, 2023 when he managed to pull it off against the Dodgers and was in one of the best stretches of his career at that point. Clearly, times have changed but at least for one game this season, Walker reached back and found what he had during that run in 2023.

Speaking of 2023, that was the last time that Walker saw the Braves as he managed to avoid them throughout all of 2024. That appearance back on September 11, 2023 didn’t go well for Walker at all, as he gave up five runs on six hits and three walks, including homers from Michael Harris II and Ronald Acuña Jr. Matt Olson, Orlando Arcia, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies and Marcell Ozuna were also in the lineup for that game and all of those guys except for Ozuna recorded hits against him. That game ended up turning into a 10-8 slugfest in favor of the Braves and honestly, I could go for a game like that since it’s been so long since we’ve seen the Braves win a good ol’ fashioned slugfest. Hopefully Walker’s first start of the season ends up being a blip instead of the norm.

Thursday, April 10, 7:15 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports South/Southeast)

RHP Spencer Schwellenbach (2 GS, 14 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0 ERA-, 1.50 FIP, 35 FIP-, 30.4 K%, 2.2 BB%)

So far through two starts this season, Spencer Schwellenbach has pitched like one of the best starters in all of baseball. He’s 14 innings into the season and has yet to give up a run and has only walked one batter and given up three hits while striking out 14 so far. That’s about as clean as it gets and his start against the Marlins was an absolute work of art. Fortunately he was able to get the run support he deserved in that Marlins game and while it might be a pipe dream considering who the Phillies have going as their starter for this contest, it would be lovely if we got a result even approaching something similar to what happened against the Marlins.

The Phillies also got used to seeing Schellenbach last season, as they faced him three times during his rookie campaign. They couldn’t really figure him out either, as the right-hander threw 17.2 innings against them and gave up just five runs over that span. He might give up a few hits but as long as he can mitigate the damage while he’s out there then the Braves should have a chance to at least stay in the game against the Phillies while Schwellenbach is out there.

LHP Jesús Luzardo (2 GS, 12 IP, 1.50 ERA, 38 ERA-, 1.99 FIP, 46 FIP- 41.3 K%, 8.7 BB%)

The hits (or possibly lack thereof) just keep on coming in this series, huh. I was not playing with y’all when I said that Philadelphia’s rotation was firing on all cylinders to start this season and lefty Jesús Luzardo has been another guy who has just been dominant to get this season going for the Phillies. He struck out eleven batters and only gave up two runs over five innings on March 29 against the Nationals and then he shut out the Dodgers over seven innings while striking out eight and only giving up two hits. That’s pretty impressive.

Fortunately, the Braves do have some success against Luzardo, as Atlanta roughed him up for five runs over five innings back when he was with the Marlins on April 14 of last season — including a homer from (you guessed it) Marcell Ozuna. 2024 wasn’t Luzardo’s best and he was suffering from injuries that threw a wrench in his campaign. He appears to be healthy and raring to go this season and he could serve as yet another impediment to the Braves getting their season back on track here in 2025.