Braves takeaways: After 14th loss in 17 games, manager and players still searching for answers

New York Times

4 days ago

SAN FRANCISCO — If anyone was surprised to see the Atlanta Braves lose 4-3 Sunday to the San Francisco Giants, apparently they haven't been watching the Braves play.
Because lately, that's what the Braves do: They lose, usually by one run.
They have lost 14 of 17 games, their worst stretch since a 3-14 skid April 21-May 10, 2016. That was the week before Fredi González was fired and replaced by current manager Brian Snitker, who has helped develop a winning culture in Atlanta over the past seven years but is struggling mightily with this underperforming team and its flawed roster.
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The Braves have a seven-game losing streak, matching the 0-7 skid they had to begin the season, the first time they've had multiple skids that long in a season since 2016. They are 10 games under .500 (27-37) for the first time since finishing 72-90 in 2017, the year before their current streak of seven postseason appearances began.
Oh, it's bad.
'I'm a little lost for words, explanations on what it is to get us going right now,' said third baseman Austin Riley, who then described the mood of the team. 'It's a lot of disappointment and some self-reflection. You know, just trying to evaluate ourselves and what we can do to be better. A lot of guys that are in here have been a part of that (postseason streak) and know how to win. And it's just not happening right now.'
They've been swept in consecutive series by Arizona at home and San Francisco on the road, and the Braves already have been swept as many times (five) as all of 2024.
Their postseason streak is in peril, to say the least. The fourth-place Braves are 14 games behind the East-leading New York Mets and have the NL's fourth-worst record. The proud Braves, a gold-standard franchise, are 2 1/2 games ahead of the last-place and perpetually rebuilding Florida Marlins.
'I've always (believed) that tomorrow could be the start of something big,' Snitker said. 'I know it's sappy or whatever sometimes maybe, but there is still time. But we've got to start playing better. We haven't played our best baseball, we haven't put a total game together.
'We need to start doing that. Because some of these other teams are not gonna wait around for us, that's for sure. We gotta start making our own luck, and we gotta start making things happen and forcing the issue during the games. Everything, all that.'
The Braves have been outscored by just eight runs during the 3-14 skid, which includes eight one-run losses. They have lost each of their past five by one run, and for the season they are 9-19 in one-run games and 13-26 in games decided by one or two runs.
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'We're right there in all these games against everybody we play,' Snitker said. 'I mean, we're right there. We're a hit away, a pitch away. Just the little things in baseball that produces winning baseball, we're not doing. But we're right there. Again, that doesn't get it, being right there. It gets it when you're there and make it happen. I still think we're better than what we're playing. But until we are, we aren't, I guess.'
Riley said: 'I think when it continues and the same thing happens over and over and again, every day with the one-run games, you start trying to look for answers. And it's just not happening. Like I said, kind of lost for words on what we need to do.'
Spencer Strider had his best start Sunday since returning from a year-long rehab for elbow surgery but got another loss after giving up three hits, four runs (three earned) and three walks with five strikeouts in six innings. He's 0-5 in five starts, the first Braves pitcher to lose five consecutive appearances since Mike Foltynewicz lost seven straight in 2017.
'I don't think that the outcome really changes the fact that we need to get better, whether we're losing by a hundred or one,' Strider said. 'And that's me more so than anybody. There's two types of games, wins and losses. Doesn't matter how they look.'
Does Strider think the Braves can get rolling soon and take some momentum into July?
'I guess we're going to have to answer that,' he said. 'I think at this point everybody, and myself more so than anyone, just needs to be brutally honest and try to find as many ways as we can to get better, focus on the little things and just give ourselves a chance. I think it's unrealistic to expect to show up one day or have an inning or have an at-bat or whatever that you feel or see some enormous change. That's not how it works, good or bad.
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'That process takes time. You hope that if you put in the work, and like I said, you're honest and deliberate, purposeful consistently, that one day you'll look up and realize, oh, we've made an improvement. So, I think we've got to commit to doing that, and it's tough.'
A potent offense could go a long way in covering up the Braves' lack of bullpen depth. This is not a potent offense.
The Braves were trying to snap a losing streak and avoid getting swept again Sunday, and they ran out a lineup that included four hitters batting below .240, each with an OPS of .650 or lower: Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, Nick Allen and Eli White, who is half of a left-field platoon with an underwhelming other half, Alex Verdugo.
Yes, poor situational hitting is a big reason the Braves are not a good offensive team, but so is poor overall hitting. When nearly half of the lineup is producing stats that awful more than two months into the season, that's hard to overcome. As Snitker said, the Braves have no margin for error with the way they're hitting.
The thing is, two of those hitters, Harris (.237 average, .608 OPS) and Albies (.232, .650), are among the core players the Braves signed to long-term extensions with the anticipation they would be All-Star-caliber players annually through their peak years. They are far from All-Stars right now.
Harris and Albies are among just 27 major-league qualifiers with .650 or lower OPS, with Harris having the 13th lowest. If Allen, who shared time at the beginning of the season with Orlando Arcia, had 14 more plate appearances to qualify, Allen's .575 OPS would be seventh lowest in the majors.
That'd make it one-third of the lineup ranking in the bottom 30 of baseball in OPS, and the combined stats of the left-field tandem are right there with them.
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The Harris and Albies situations are especially problematic because both are in what should be the prime of their careers; in Harris' case, barely entering the prime. He's a fourth-year major leaguer, only 24. And while the center fielder's defense remains elite, Harris has regressed annually at the plate.
Meanwhile, Albies is 28 and should be squarely in his prime but instead plays like he's on the downside. Regardless of the on-base streak he extended to 23 games with a bloop single in the ninth inning Sunday, Albies has been a major disappointment and doesn't provide the serious switch-hitting power threat he did in the past.
Perhaps multiple injuries for Albies over the years have taken a toll, but for whatever reason he's regressed to a below-average defender — his two-out error let in the go-ahead run in the fourth inning Sunday — with a poor throwing arm, and he's a mediocre base runner. This in addition to being a shadow of the hitter he was as recently as 2023, when he got MVP votes, made his third All-Star team and hit .280 with career highs of 33 homers, 109 RBIs and 126 OPS+.
White and Allen were supposed to be bench players but have regular roles because Jurickson Profar, the Braves' only significant offseason addition, was slapped with an 80-game PED suspension after the first series of the season and because Arcia continued his anemic hitting this spring and early season, as he has since the 2023 All-Star break.
The Braves should have addressed shortstop in the offseason — they also should've added a setup reliever — but continued to act as if they expected Arcia to be the hitter he was for a couple of months early in 2023 instead of the bad hitter he's been for most of his career.
And they shouldn't have made their only offseason hitter acquisition a player who raised eyebrows — and perhaps should've raised red flags — by having far and away his best offensive season at age 31, when Profar hit a career-high 24 homers and posted a 134 OPS+ after never having one higher than 115 previously.
The Braves were 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position Sunday and 3-for-22 in the series, and for the season they rank 16th in the majors with a .247 average in RISP situations and 22nd with a .696 OPS in those spots.
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In the late innings of close games, the Braves' .199 average ranks 25th in the majors and their .606 OPS is 24th.
They now rank in the bottom half of baseball in most offensive categories regardless of situations, including tied for 18th in average (.242), tied for 14th in home runs (68), tied for 21st in runs (259), 20th in slugging percentage (.383) and 18th in OPS (.694).
This is just two seasons after the Braves tied an MLB single-season record with 307 homers and became the first team in history to slug .500 or better (.501).
'Guys (on the team) believe that it's going to happen,' Riley said. 'And I do, I really do. You know, guys prepare, guys come in every day. We're doing our homework on pitchers. It's just those key hits. Typically, you get a couple key hits in a game that can change it, and we're just not doing that right now.'
(Top photo of Ozzie Albies out on a throw from Landen Roupp to Dominic Smith: D. Ross Cameron / Imagn Images)