'A gut punch': Skidding Braves dealt another blow in heartbreaking loss

SAN FRANCISCO -- Ronald Acuña Jr. was still in disbelief as he slowly walked off the field after the Braves suffered a third straight gut punch loss on Saturday afternoon. Manager Brian Snitker fought back tears as he attempted to explain how excruciatingly painful these past few days have been.

“This is kind of beyond belief really,” Snitker said.

After blowing a six-run ninth inning lead in Thursday’s loss to the D-backs, the Braves lost Friday night’s series opener in San Francisco on Pierce Johnson’s wild pitch in the 10th. Enough was enough, right? Things couldn’t actually get any worse for a team that has been skidding for three weeks, right?

Wrong. Bryce Elder constructed the start of his life and the Braves managed to tally a pair of runs against Logan Webb. But none of that was enough when Johnson surrendered a two-out, two-run, walk-off homer to Matt Chapman in a 3-2 loss to the Giants on Saturday at Oracle Park.

“I’ve been on some losing streaks before in my career, but that’s a gut punch,” Johnson said. “It happened with me on the mound two nights in a row. So, it really doesn’t feel good.”

There haven’t been any recent reasons to feel good about the Braves, who have lost six straight games and 13 of their past 16. They left Boston a few weeks ago with the National League’s best record from April 18-May 18. But their three wins going back to May 19 match the A’s for the least in the Majors.

“It’s incredible,” Acuña said. “Obviously, no one wants to lose games in this fashion.”

The Braves have suffered an MLB-high nine one-run losses, including four within the past four days. Their bullpen has played a part in each of these four most recent losses.

Raisel Iglesias allowed a run in a non-save situation on Wednesday. This loomed large when Atlanta scored what would have been a game-tying run in the bottom half of the ninth. Iglesias then allowed four hits and issued a walk after entering Thursday’s ninth with one out, one on and the Braves holding a three-run lead.

Iglesias, who has a 6.75 ERA, has since been removed from the closer’s role. Who will now fill that role? Johnson’s two outings over the past 24 hours haven’t indicated he’ll be the right guy. Daysbel Hernandez is on the injured list and the Craig Kimbrel experiment lasted one day before he was designated for assignment.

“The team is going through a roller coaster and so is the bullpen,” Johnson said.

The team’s most stable aspect has been the starting rotation, which has produced a respectable 3.81 ERA during the current 3-13 skid. In other words, Elder isn’t the only starter whose strong work was recently wasted. But his start was one of the more impressive produced by any Atlanta pitcher over the past decade.

Elder recorded a career-high 12 strikeouts and surrendered just one run over eight innings. He became the first Braves pitcher to record 12-plus strikeouts over at least eight innings since Spencer Strider did it on Sept. 1, 2022 and April 24, 2023. The next most recent Atlanta hurler to do this was Alex Wood on Aug. 31, 2014.

“At the end of the day, I didn’t get the job done,” Elder said. “But I was pleased with how I threw it and we’ll roll on to the next one.”

Given the state of his bullpen, did Snitker think about sending Elder back out to pitch the ninth? The 26-year-old hurler had thrown 107 pitches, one more than his previous career high, but he had never pitched into the ninth inning since going the distance against the Nationals on Sept. 26, 2022.

“I’m not going to second-guess that at all,” Snitker said. “He did his job and we couldn’t finish it off.”

Better clutch hitting would also give the bullpen some breathing room. The Braves scored just one run after loading the bases with three straight singles against Webb in the sixth. Marcell Ozuna had to sprint to first to negate the double play that would have prevented that run.

The Braves, who rank 22nd among 30 MLB teams with a .699 OPS with runners in scoring position, also came up empty after putting runners at the corners with one out in the third. Webb escaped that threat with consecutive strikeouts of Acuña and Riley.

“As a team, we're responsible for turning this thing around and making it happen,” Snitker said. “It’s just tough [right now].”