Grant Holmes

Atlanta Braves news and notes from Thursday.

Let s see more of this from Holmes starting in April and beyond, please!

Holmes outdueled Pirates' right-hander Bubba Chandler in this one, with the only baserunner against him coming on a one-out walk to Ryan O'Hearn in the opening inning. The 29-year-old hurler got better as the game went on too, striking out five of the final six batters that he faced. He generated a whopping 18 swings and misses on 64 pitches in the ballgame -- 13 of those on his slider -- while posting an elite CSW of 42 percent. You can take spring training stats with a grain of salt, but Holmes has been among the most dominant hurlers in all of baseball, firing 12 1/3 scoreless innings with a 0.73 WHIP and a 16/6 K/BB ratio. It would seem he has locked up a spot in the Braves' Opening Day rotation.

Grant Holmes will be getting some work in under the lights in Bradenton

Holmes walked three and gave up a couple of hits, but Shay Shanaman was able to strand the bases loaded after replacing him with two outs in the second. Holmes then came back out for a scoreless third. Holmes fastball today was up 0.5 mph from last outing against the Twins, leaving him 0.7 mph shy of his 2025 average. So, he's trending the right way.