Ozzie Albies' surge, Austin Riley errors and more: 4 Braves takeaways

New York Times

26-05-2025

ATLANTA — Ronald Acuña Jr. made his much-anticipated return from the injured list and provided the most electric moment of the Atlanta Braves' season by hitting a 467-foot first-pitch homer to lead off his first game back after being out nearly a year following knee surgery.
Acuña supplied other highlights with his bat, glove and arm during a sold-out three-game series against the San Diego Padres. But in the end, the third-place Braves lost two of three to the Padres, slipping to 25-27 and 8 1/2 games behind National League East leader Philadelphia before a three-game road series against the Phillies that starts Tuesday.
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It wasn't what the Braves or their fans had in mind for Acuña Weekend, particularly after he started it off with such a bang. He was the first player in MLB history to hit a leadoff homer after missing 150 or more games — and went 4-for-12 with a double, two homers and three RBIs, playing all three games and showing no sign of favoring the surgically repaired left knee.
Was it a disappointing series after such a dynamic start?
'I think so,' Braves manager Brian Snitker said. 'Because I kind of felt really good today about coming in and winning another series. So yeah, it kind of is. That was a really good pitching matchup (Spencer Schwellenbach vs. Dylan Cease). We knew that coming in.'
The Braves have lost four of five games, including two in a rain-shortened series at Washington, and now face the Phillies and this starting trio: Ranger Suarez (3-0, 3.70), Zack Wheeler (6-1, 2.42) and Cristopher Sanchez (4-1, 3.17).
Atlanta will counter with Spencer Strider in his third start of the season, followed by AJ Smith-Shawver and Chris Sale.
'We've got a hundred-plus games left, and this is a team of fighters and a lot of really good players, and we know that we should be in every game and win every game,' said Schwellenbach, who had 11 strikeouts with no walks in seven innings and and was charged with four runs (two earned) and two homers among seven hits.
'So we have all the confidence in the world that we're going to play better baseball.'
'We've got a lot of time for things to get really good,' Snitker said. 'We're not gonna win the division in May, we're not gonna win it in June, we're not gonna win it in July. I'm encouraged that we haven't played our best baseball yet and we're hanging right in there.'
Now that they've added Acuña back at the leadoff spot and are using hot-hitting rookie catcher Drake Baldwin in about half of the games, the Braves have a formidable five with the lineup Sunday that had Acuña followed by Baldwin, Marcell Ozuna, Matt Olson and Austin Riley.
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That's why Ozzie Albies' mini-resurgence has them cautiously optimistic that their lineup could start to produce far more.
Albies was 2-for-2 with two doubles and a walk Sunday, his first game with multiple extra-base hits this season. He extended a hitting streak to 11 games in which he's 13-for-37 (.351) with four doubles. He's raised his average from .207 to .239 and his OPS from .587 to .650 in that span, which began after a career-worst 0-for-28 skid.
'Hopefully Oz is getting ready to get a little something going,' Snitker said. 'Man, that'd be huge if we could get him going consistently like he has over the last few years.'
Third baseman Austin Riley's error leading off the sixth inning Sunday led to two unearned runs on Gavin Sheets' two-out, two-run homer off Schwellenbach.
The homer came on an 0-2 slider that Schwellenbach didn't throw as low as he wanted. He's a big-time strike-thrower, one of the young pitcher's biggest strengths, but Schwellenbach also knows he needs to improve on not throwing hittable pitches in those situations. In other words, throw fewer strikes at times.
As for the error, it was Riley's fifth in the past 15 games. Four of those errors came at Truist Park, which Snitker implied was not a coincidence.
'I don't think it's all him, if you want to know the truth,' Snitker said of Riley's recent errors. 'He's getting some bad hops and things like that. I don't think it's a bad infielder. I think some of the stuff is out of his control.'
He didn't cite an issue with the condition of the infield, but sounded as if that's what he meant.
When Sale went 0-2 with a 6.17 ERA in his first six starts, with 36 hits, four homers and nine walks in 28 1/3 innings, and five or fewer innings in each game, the comments on social media and elsewhere were predictable: Sale was showing his age (36), and the Braves had gotten the last great season out of him in 2024.
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Since then, Sale has not just quieted skeptics who thought he was done, he's returned to a level not far from what he displayed throughout his first season with the Braves, when he was a runaway winner of his first Cy Young Award.
In his past six starts, Sale has a 1.64 ERA with 46 strikeouts, nine walks and 32 hits (three homers) in 38 1/3 innings. He's worked at least 6 2/3 innings in four of his past five starts, including seven innings in each of the last two.
'I never had a doubt that he was going to come back and do what he did last year,' Braves pitcher Grant Holmes said. 'He's Chris Sale for a reason, you know? And I don't have any doubt that he's gonna continue to do what he's been doing.'
So, how did Sale get things turned around?
The lefty said it involved contributions from plenty of others helping him break down what he was doing differently than last season, via video and pitching-motion skeletal biomechanics. For a couple of weeks, Sale said he threw as many as three bullpen sessions between starts to get things ironed out. This from a guy who sometimes skipped between-starts bullpen work altogether during the 2024 season and earlier in his career.
'We were looking at some of this, like, skeletal layout — which I guess is probably a little easier for me,' said Sale, in a typical self-deprecating nod to his slender physique. 'And it just showed some little things, specifically with my arm angle being a little bit lower. And then Schwelly and Holmes were looking at some of the stuff on the iPad in between starts on just angle and spin stuff — some of the stuff that's kind of over my head, but they were really good with it.
'It was just kind of everybody taking a look at what it was and what it is and kind of figuring out a place where it needed to be. There were probably at the very least a handful of people in on this with my hand angle, my arm angle, and some of the newer technological things.'
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In his past two games, at Boston and Friday against the Padres, Sale allowed nine hits and two runs and had 14 strikeouts with three walks in 14 innings.
Holmes followed Sale with an equally strong start Saturday — seven innings, six hits, one run — and afterward was asked about Sale's mention the night before of how Holmes and Schwellenbach had helped in Sale's turnaround.
'Oh, yeah,' Holmes said, smiling. 'I think it was Schwelly and I, and we were down in the bullpen talking. I think was more Schwelly than myself, but I kind of gave my two cents as well. But (Sale) made that transition. He made that switch, and he's come a long way with it.'
After every Sale start, regardless of how he pitches, the veteran never makes excuses and never casts blame on teammates, even if there are costly errors or a lack of runs. He goes out of his way to cite contributions of teammates and deflect praise toward them.
'And he's one of those guys that isn't too big (to) get help from others,' Holmes said. 'He's just like us, but just a lot better.'
In three of his past five starts, the Braves lost by scores of 2-1 (twice) and 4-3, and not once did Sale blame anyone but himself, even if he pitched great. Instead, he credited his defense several times for making plays behind him, and called Acuña's first-pitch homer Friday one of the coolest things Sale had seen on a baseball field.
'He's truly an amazing person,' Braves shortstop Nick Allen said of Sale. 'And obviously a great baseball player, but just an amazing person… That's why he is who he is, you know, and why he's able to stay in this game for so long. Just because of how he was brought up.'
Eli White has hit .291 with nine extra-base hits (three triples, two homers) and an .814 OPS in 87 plate appearances against right-handers, the Braves' fourth-best OPS against righties. Alex Verdugo has hit .309 with eight extra-base hits (all doubles) and a .760 OPS in 100 PAs vs. righties, an OPS that ranks seventh among current Braves.
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But White bats right-handed and Verdugo bats left-handed, and that's why the Braves aren't focusing on the small-sample stats and decided to go with a straight platoon in left field, at least for the time being. White had performed ably as the most recent fill-in right fielder before Acuña returned from the injured list Friday.
Snitker said he would start White in left field against lefty pitchers. Verdugo will be in left field against righties, as he was for all three games against the Padres.
'Honestly, I'm not going to rule out anything,' Snitker said. 'But my plan when we got Ronald (back) was, it's gonna obviously push Eli off of right field. And I think I felt like we'd have kind of a good right-left option in left' with Verdugo and White.
(Top photo of Ozzie Albies: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)