Mahle delivers in Braves debut

On Sunday, when Tyler Mahle was traded to the Braves, he was on a plane. With the Giants. About to fly from San Diego to Arlington, Texas, where his now-former team was going to play the Rangers the following day.

“Right before we took off, (Giants president of baseball operations) Buster (Posey) called me. So made that flight with the team, even though I was just traded. That was a little weird,” Mahle said. “Yeah, there, and on the bus to the hotel, and in the lobby, and everything. I was receiving a lot of texts and stuff, too, and talking through it with my wife and stuff like that. So I was a little busy. It was a little crazy, hectic.”

Mahle spent his first full day with the Braves on Tuesday at Truist Park. He was with his new teammates Wednesday, too, but shipped up to New York on Thursday ahead of the Braves’ three-game series with the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

When Friday finally rolled around, and with Mahle’s name on the lineup card scheduled to make his Braves debut, rain delayed his first pitch by nearly two hours.

“Kind of sucked,” Mahle said. “But we’ve all done it before so it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

What was a big deal was how Mahle threw the ball. He didn’t get the win, nor did the Braves, as closer Raisel Iglesias gave up two runs in the ninth and then the Yankees walked it off in the 10th for a 3-2 win. But Mahle’s six innings of scoreless ball could set the standard for what could be a massive lift for the Braves’ pitching staff over the next two months.

Mahle allowed just three hits, tied a season-high in strikeouts with nine and walked just two batters. The last pitcher to strike out at least nine hitters in their Braves (not MLB) debut was David Palmer against the Cardinals on April 11, 1986.

“He was good, man,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “He’s got a good fastball. He can pitch with his fastball, and he does. He does a good job with that. And he’s got the split, the cutter — he was in full command.”

Weiss, Braves pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and even president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos have all said they believe Mahle is better than his results showed this season with the Giants — with whom he went 3-9 with a 5.13 ERA, and also missed a month with a hamstring injury. Part of that belief lies in simplifying Mahle’s attack some by sticking to four-seam fastballs, splitters and cutters.

That’s what the 31-year-old righty did Friday. Of his 92 pitches, 49 were fastballs ranging from 92-96 mph, 31 were splitters at 86-89 mph and 12 were cutters between 85-90 mph. The formula worked.

“I think it’s game-to-game depending on who you’re facing,” Mahle said on whether that will be the game plan moving forward. “I mean, there was a lot of lefties in there (Friday), so my best pitches to lefties are fastball, split. There’s more righties in there, we’ll see more sliders, more cutters. We could have thrown some more cutters to lefties, but there was just better pitches to, you know, be made, so that’s what we did.”

Sean Murphy caught all 92 of Mahle’s offerings Friday. Murphy credited Mahle with breaking down what he wanted his mode of attack to be. Murphy also said he, Hefner, catcher Drake Baldwin and catching coach Dustin Garneau all got together to talk about how to best help Mahle succeed.

A big part of that success is Mahle’s fastball usage, a pitch that doesn’t overpower by any means, but when located properly, is an equalizer.

“I saw great fastball command,” Murphy said. “We were able to use all our lanes with the heater and keep guys off-balance with the split. It was good. (The fastball) is just a true four-seam, spins nice and true. So there’s a little bit of bump on it and we can miss some bats with it.”

Mahle took the mound in the bottom of the first inning wearing No. 54, coincidentally the same number Yankees starter and former Braves pitcher Max Fried was wearing Friday as well. Working from the left side of the rubber, Mahle threw a ball well out of the zone to Yankees center fielder Trent Grisham and his Braves tenure was underway.

Mahle worked around a two-out walk in the first by getting a broken-bat comebacker. A clean second inning included his second strikeout, a fly out and a sharp grounder to shortstop.

Mahle briefly lost his command in the third when he began the inning by walking Ryan McMahon. But then Austin Wells was caught looking at a fastball on the outside black for strike three, Grisham struck out swinging at a fastball tailing away and Ben Rice whiffed on an 0-2 splitter to retire the side.

Heliot Ramos’ leadoff double in the fourth was the first hit Mahle allowed — Ramos took a cutter down-and-away to the opposite field into the gap in right. Mahle then got two pop-ups on two pitches before Spencer Jones hit a ball to the warning track in center that Mauricio Dubón caught with a leaping grab.

Mahle gave up a one-out double to the corner in right field with one out in the fifth. He got a fly ball to center for the second out and then froze Grisham with a cutter on the outside edge.

Ramos chased a 96 mph, 3-2 fastball for the second out of the sixth. And after a Luis García Jr. soft single to right, and a mound visit by Hefner, Mahle threw four straight fastballs to Jazz Chisholm before finishing off the Yankees second baseman with a splitter.

Friday marked the fourth time this season Mahle has pitched six innings or more and it was his sixth scoreless outing of the campaign.

“They made me feel really welcome here,” the mild-mannered Mahle said of his new team. “It’s a really great group of dudes. ‘Murph’ was great behind the plate. It’s just another day at the office.”