The Braves’ franchise-record 13-game road winning streak remains intact, but their next seven games will be played in two of the three toughest stadiums for a visiting team to win this season.
First, the Braves have a three-game series, beginning Monday night, at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Dodgers are 43-23 this season — the third-best home record among the 30 MLB teams.
Then, the Braves will play a four-game set, beginning Thursday, at Coors Field in Denver, where the Colorado Rockies are 43-22 this season — the second-best home record in MLB.
Colorado’s home record is particularly remarkable because the Rockies are a below-.500 team overall (60-70). They are 17-48 on the road, but an entirely different team at home.
The only MLB team with a better home record than the Rockies this season: the San Francisco Giants, who are 42-19 at Oracle Park.
The key to the challenging week ahead, Braves manager Brian Snitker said, is to “compartmentalize and just take it a day at a time and try to win that game, win the series, not look at the big picture.”
The Braves last lost a road game more than a month ago: July 28 against the Mets in New York. Since then, the Braves won the final game of the series at the Mets (July 29) and swept three-game series at St. Louis (Aug. 3-5), Washington (Aug. 13-15), Miami (Aug. 16-18) and Baltimore (Aug. 20-22).
That 13-game streak has lifted the Braves’ road record for the season to 37-27, which is better than their home record (33-32).
The Dodgers have three formidable starting pitchers lined up to face the Braves: left-hander Julio Urias (14-3, 3.17 ERA) on Monday night, right-hander Walker Buehler (13-2, 2.02) on Tuesday and right-hander Max Scherzer (12-4, 2.51) on Wednesday.
The Braves’ scheduled starters are left-hander Drew Smyly (9-3, 4.54) on Monday, right-hander Charlie Morton (12-5, 3.60) on Tuesday and lefty Max Fried (11-7, 3.54) on Wednesday.
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