This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
PHILADELPHIA -- With their loss to the Phillies in the first game of Thursday’s doubleheader, the Braves fell four games below .500 (25-29) through the first one-third of the season. Have they ever reached the postseason with just 25 wins through their first 54 games?
When looking for optimism during rough early stretches, Braves fans can always count of the 1914 Miracle Braves, who had a 22-31 record long before claiming a four-game sweep of Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s in the World Series.
No other Braves team has reached the playoffs after losing at least 29 of their first 54 games. But those clubs also didn’t have the benefit of turning to Ronald Acuña Jr. during the final two-thirds of a season.
Yeah, I get it, the Braves have lost four of the first five games played since Acuña returned. And yeah, it has been very hard to watch the underperforming offense. But even after losing AJ Smith-Shawver to a likely season-ending elbow injury on Thursday, there’s reason to remain optimistic.
But the optimism will quickly fade if the Braves don’t start getting more from these players.
1. Ozzie Albies
Albies entered Thursday with a 12-game hitting streak that stretched back to May 13. He hit .364 with four extra-base hits (all doubles) during this stretch. He has seemed to hit the ball harder over the past few games. But during that 12-game stretch, he produced a team-low 85.1 mph average exit velocity. This isn’t overly concerning, because even in his greatest seasons, he never wowed with exit velo. His two-run homer off Zack Wheeler on Thursday extended his hitting streak to 14 games. He’s moving in the right direction, but his 26.9 hard-hit rate is down from the 39 percent mark he produced during his second 30-homer season in 2023. The Braves haven’t received any power from their middle-infield spots, and they certainly aren’t going to get any from shortstop Nick Allen.
Allen leads MLB in Outs Above Average. His offensive struggles aren’t a surprise. Remember, this is where you saw him compared to Rafael Belliard before the season started. But the big surprise is that Harris hasn’t gotten going two months into the season. Harris is playing just his fifth full season above the high school level. But nobody could have seen the 2022 NL Rookie of the Year producing a sub. 600 OPS a third of the way through his fourth big league season. He has provided great defense and this wouldn’t be the first time he has finished strong after an ugly start.
3. Austin Riley
Injuries derailed Riley’s bid for a fourth straight 30-homer season last year. He seemed like a great fit for the lineup’s second spot when he produced an .878 OPS from 2021-23. But he has a .783 OPS since the start of 2024. Riley has also had some torrid summers, and he may have sparked a surge with his two extra-base hits in Thursday night’s nightcap victory. But he’s far too valuable to this offense to go through stretches like he did from May 5-May 28, when he tallied just three extra-base hits, none of which were home runs.