ATLANTA -- Ronald Acuña Jr. has been back for a week and the pitching staff has posted the National League’s third-best ERA this month. But neither of these encouraging developments have helped the Braves, who have lost seven of their past nine games to fall to 12-14 in May.
“I still think we’re right on the edge of turning this thing around and playing the baseball we can play,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said.
Instead of riding the energy created when they handed Zack Wheeler his worst start of the season on Thursday night in Philadelphia, the Braves returned to Truist Park on Friday and suffered a 5-1 loss to the Red Sox, who came to town with a five-game losing streak.
“We had a lot of chances tonight,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
After going 7-for-19 with runners in scoring position during Thursday’s doubleheader against the Phillies, the Braves tallied just one hit with a runner in scoring position (1-for-10) in this series opener. This unfortunately, has been the trend. Atlanta’s .659 OPS with RISP in May ranks 11th among the 15 NL teams.
This is one of the reasons the Braves have sputtered, despite ranking third in the NL with a 3.20 ERA this month. The two clubs in front of them are the Giants (2.69), who have gone 13-13 this month, and the Mets (3.12), who have gone 14-12 in May because they have actually been less productive than Atlanta with RISP.
Offensive struggles weren’t envisioned when the Braves entered the season with Olson, Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna, Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II, each of whom were an integral part of the 2023 team that matched and set MLB records for home runs and slugging percentage, respectively. Last year’s offensive decline was just a fluke, right?
If nothing else, once Acuña joined this group, they would really start rolling, right? Well, the Braves have lost five of seven since the 2023 NL MVP returned from knee surgery last week.
“We've played a lot of tight games here lately, and not come through on a good bit of them, and we don't feel like we're clicking at all,” Olson said. “I feel like you can spin it two different ways. You can say we can't win the tight game, or you can look at it and say we're not playing really great baseball for us, and we're still in a lot of ballgames.”
Six of the seven losses the Braves have suffered within the past nine games have been decided by two runs or less.
“We just have no room for error, whether it’s a pitch, or a play or a run or whatever,” Snitker said. “It’s kind of hard to play the game like that.”
The Braves’ only run on Friday night came courtesy of what appeared to be a bad send by third-base coach Matt Tuiasosopo, who has had a couple rough weeks. Acuña was going to be easily out at the plate in the first inning had Boston catcher Carlos Narváez not fumbled the throw.
Narváez dropped another throw to the plate in the seventh inning. But the run didn’t count because a replay review determined Abraham Toro held his foot on the first-base bag while lunging to get shortstop Trevor Story’s throw.
Consequently, the Braves squandered backup infielder Luke Williams’ leadoff double. Acuña grounded out, Ozuna struck out and Olson hit the 112.7 mph grounder that Story turned into an out.
As frustrating as the past two weeks have been, the Braves aren’t in unfamiliar territory. They are four games under .500, exactly where they were entering June in 2022. They won 14 straight to start that month and finished with 101 wins.
“We’ve made some good runs before,” Olson said. “I don’t see any reason we can’t do it again.”