Regardless of how it feels right now, the Atlanta Braves will be OK.
The Atlanta Braves struggled last week. The Braves were 1-5 on their most recent road trip, which took them across the West Coast, winning one game against the Seattle Mariners before being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers. It has resulted in a lot of hand-wringing among fans and mistaken “the Braves are in trouble” statements from the national media.
Let’s be honest: the Braves aren’t doing so well right now. Atlanta hitters batted during their six-game road trip.168/.218/.244 with 58 strikeouts and just eight extra-base hits. They left thirty-one runners on base and scored fourteen runs, averaging slightly over two per game.
Ronald Acuña Jr. has forty strikeouts in just 32 games this season. He has already eclipsed previous season’s record of multi-strikeout games, with forty punchouts, about half of last season’s total of eighty-four. Matt Olson is batting.197, and Austin Riley is hitting.237.
Here’s the thing: It’s fine.
It’s not great, mind you, but it’s fine.
Despite these troubles, Atlanta is the third-highest scoring club in terms of runs per game, with 5.09. They’re 20-12, the last team to record double-digit losses this season. They are going to be alright. Because every team struggles, including Atlanta.
We can all agree that the 2023 Atlanta Braves were among the best offensive teams we’ve ever seen, right? They hit 307 home runs in a single season, tying the all-time record. They led baseball in practically every offensive category, scoring a whopping 947 runs. However, they also battled with stretches. Speaking of awful road trips, remember the Toronto Blue Jays’ mid-May sweep? The Braves lost all three games after being outscored 14-7 in runs. Remember going out to Oakland Athletics and barely getting one win in three tries?
What about the six-game homestand in mid July against the Chicago White Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks, where you won the first game and the last game while getting outscored by seventeen runs in the middle four losses?
The same Dodgers team that speed-bagged the Braves this weekend had a similar six-game stretch in mid-April, going 1-5 against the San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals and New York Mets. In those six games, they struck out 52 times.
It happens.
These things happen when you play 162 games. You’re going to have those situations where you get the combo of facing a good opponent, having a rough few days, and having some bad luck.
And I don’t mean “bad luck” as in “the ball took some unusual bounces.” I’m talking about those erratic events in baseball that balance out over a 162-game season but not over a three-game series or a six-game road trip. Ronald Acuña Jr. is picked off second base just before Austin Riley blasts his first home run in three weeks. Matt Olson is thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double, just before Marcell Ozuna homers.
Is there anything to find out for this Braves team? There is…but these players are too good not to figure it out. This will not last the entire season, no matter how plausible it appears to be right now.
