Braves takeaways: Performance 'embarrassing', facing reality of being sellers, whither rehabbing pitchers?

New York Times

6 days ago

ATLANTA – If it's been excruciating watching this Braves' season crater, imagine being a member of the team, a perennial contender that's about to see its run of seven playoff appearances end, and established players going rather than coming at the trade deadline.
The San Francisco Giants pounded them again Wednesday, 9-3, handing the Braves their 16th loss in 23 games. They fell to a season-high 13 games under .500 at 44-57, the fourth-worst record in the NL.
Advertisement
'It's embarrassing, honestly,' said Braves starter Spencer Strider, who gave up five hits, including two homers, three runs, and three walks in five innings. 'It feels like we've had a million opportunities to make adjustments and get headed in the direction that we think we're capable of, nobody more so than myself. And we just haven't been able to do it.
'It sucks. At some point, you can't keep thinking that you're better than you're playing. At this point, we've got to be brutally honest with ourselves — like I said, myself more so than anybody — and commit to finding a process that helps us get better, to where we can start winning some games to the level that we need to. Regardless of what the prospects of your season are, I think that's got to be the focus going forward.'
Not only are the Braves in ninth place in the wild-card standings, 10 ½ games out of the third and final NL postseason berth, but they are fourth in the East, a full four games behind the perpetually rebuilding Miami Marlins and 14 behind the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets before the Phillies' Wednesday night game.
The Braves won six consecutive NL East titles before getting a wild-card berth on the last day of the 2024 season.
'I was kind of thinking that maybe we were on the verge of getting on that run that I've been talking about all year,' Braves manager Brian Snitker said of the offensive resurgence just before and after the All-Star break, including a hard-fought series loss against the New York Yankees. 'And now these last couple games just got away from us.'
Strider's counterpart Wednesday was 42-year-old Justin Verlander, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who came in 0-8 with a 4.99 ERA in 16 starts, the longest-ever winless streak by a Giants pitcher within a season.
He ended that with five scoreless innings of one-hit ball against the Braves, who failed to capitalize on Verlander's five walks and a hit batter, including three walks in the first inning.
Advertisement
They were 2-for-18 with runners in scoring position in the past two games, the only hits coming in a three-run seventh inning, after they again trailed 9-0, the score of Tuesday's loss.
Atlanta has a .717 OPS with runners in scoring position, tied for 20th in the majors with the Seattle Mariners, the team that now employs Kevin Seitzer as its hitting coach after the Braves dismissed him in the fall in favor of Tim Hyers.
And so it goes. Crumbling bullpen, injury-riddled pitching staff, disappointing offense for a second year in a row. The July 31 trade deadline looms, and the Braves are expected to sell, with pending free agents Marcell Ozuna and Raisel Iglesias as top candidates.
'That's the unfortunate part,' Strider said. 'Losing in the playoffs has shown us that there are consequences for our failure. And I think in a lot of cases, myself as much as anyone, that we have a level of security that can insulate us from that reality. And I try to consider that if we fail in the field, if I fail to do my job, somebody else is probably going to be held accountable for it, and probably don't deserve it in a lot cases.
'So that weighs pretty heavy on me, and I know it does on a lot other guys in here. It's something that we've talked about as a group for the last couple of months, just the direction we were headed, that we might be saying goodbye to some friends if we don't turn things around. Unfortunately, we might be in that boat now.'
Braves manager Brian Snitker said of potentially trading away players, 'That's a part of this business. You're never guaranteed tomorrow in this game. You're never guaranteed tomorrow in life, quite honestly. So that's part of it, we all know that when we sign the contract. We see it happen all the time to our best friends. They don't come back, they get traded — that's the way this game is. You gotta have thick skin in this thing.'
Advertisement
So you're saying there's a chance…
No, not really. Fangraphs gave the Braves a 2.2 percent chance of making the playoffs after Tuesday's 9-0 loss and before Wednesday's dreadful game.
There was no score until Rafael Devers homered with one out in the fifth on a full-count slider from Strider that was less than a foot off the ground. Strider hit the next batter, Willy Adames, before Matt Chapman homered on a fastball up in the zone and on the outer edge of the plate.
In three batters, the Giants opened a 3-0 lead, while the Braves didn't have a hit against Verlander until Eli White's single in the fifth.
Braves reliever Dylan Dodd recorded two outs in the sixth and surrendered three runs on three hits, including Devers' second homer. Dodd has a 5.68 ERA.
Acuña gets a rest
There is always some panic among Braves fans when a lineup comes out without Ronald Acuña Jr.'s name, and no advance notice that he wasn't going to be in it.
That was Wednesday, when the Braves just wanted to give the star right fielder a rest, and to piggyback it with Thursday's team off day to give him two days before a four-city, nine-day, nine-game trip that begins Friday in Texas and ends April 2 in Bristol, Tenn., at the Speedway Classic.
With the Braves faltering, there's no reason to push Acuña, who had played in all 50 Atlanta games — started 48 — since coming off the injured list on May 23 after a year-long rehab from knee surgery.
He's shown no effects from his second ACL surgery, playing close to his 2023 MVP form rather than in 2022, when Acuña returned in just over nine months from his first torn ACL and had residual soreness that slowed him throughout the season.
This time, he's hitting .320 with 23 extra-base hits (13 homers), and a .601 slugging percentage and 1.038 OPS would exceed those of his MVP season.
Advertisement
He has played hard on both sides of the ball and looked as if he could use a rest day. He had 14 strikeouts in the past nine games, including three three-strikeout games.
Acuña exceeded all expectations by hitting a stunning .396 with nine homers, a .500 on-base percentage, .713 slugging percentage and 1.212 OPS in his first 28 games back, with 27 strikeouts and 21 walks. He had three stolen bases in the last 10 games of that torrid stretch.
But in 22 games since, he's hit .221 with four homers and a mere-mortal .355 OBP, .455 slugging percentage and .809 OPS, along with one stolen base and twice as many strikeouts (32) as walks (16).
Acuña hasn't tried to steal bases much, but he's still done full-bore sprinting, making diving catches in the gaps and taking extra bases at every opportunity.
Will rehabbing pitchers scale back?
Four key Braves pitchers – relievers Joe Jiménez, starters Chris Sale (fractured ribcage), Spencer Schwellenbach (fractured elbow) and Reynaldo López (shoulder surgery) – are all well down the road in rehab. Sale could possibly return by late August, Jiménez is throwing bullpens at North Port and aiming for September, and Schwellenbach and López also are hopeful of September returns.
But with postseason hopes diminished, would the Braves consider not having them pitch again this season, to not push back and instead focus on next season?
'That's a good question,' Snitker said, before indicating it was unlikely. 'I think all those guys, when they're working to get back, if they finish the year pitching, it's huge for them going into the offseason. If we get them back — I hope we do, and I know all them guys do — it's big for a guy to go into the offseason not in rehab. I've seen over the years, that's a big difference when you go into a normal offseason. Because they can do all their normal stuff and prepare for spring training and then have a normal spring training, and then they're ready to go.
Advertisement
'It would be great if we got all those guys back, and have them pitching whenever to finish the year. So they can go into the offseason with some normality, instead of coming in here (Truist Park) and working out all (winter) and not going home and just doing the things that they like to do.'
(Top photo of Spencer Strider: Dale Zanine / Imagn Images)