The schedule is primed for Atlanta to get back into the NL Wild Card race
The Atlanta Braves have an opportunity to get back into contention with some well-timed series wins
It’s safe to say that the start to Atlanta’s season has been a nightmare.
After winning yesterday’s finale in Milwaukee for just their second series win in the last seven attempts, the Braves sit at 29-38 and 14 games out of the National League East race.
But in the NL Wild Card standings, they’re just nine games out of a postseason berth, one that felt impossible just a week ago.
What needs to happen between now and the All-Star Break to make contention a reality? Let’s talk about it.
It’s a good mix of opponents
Atlanta’s schedule between now and the All-Star Break is a good mix of divisional opponents and struggling teams that any normal Braves roster should be able to put up a division win against.
In order, here’s who Atlanta faces between now and the Midsummer Classic:
vs Colorado
vs NY Mets
at Marlins
at Mets (4)
vs Phillies
vs Angels
vs Orioles
at Athletics
at Cardinals
Other than the Cardinals, who are currently 36-32 and in 2nd place behind the Chicago Cubs, everyone here is either in the division or currently sports a losing record.
(And some, namely Miami, are both in the division and under .500)
And because of that perfect mix of opponents, the Braves have an opportunity to make up some ground.
It’s not going to be easy - ten of their thirteen division games come against opponents with a combined .607 winning percentage in New York and Philadelphia - but it’s a good opportunity for the Braves to make up some ground.
There are some other interesting features about how the schedule further breaks down that I want to discuss, though.
This team has significant home and road splits
For some reason, probably the early schedule they faced, this is a different ballclub in Truist Park than when they pack up and go visit someone else’s stadium.
After Wednesday’s win, the Braves are 12-24 on the road, but 17-14 at home. It’s a stark difference.
Going deeper, it’s almost a completely different offense in both situations:
Home = .256/.322/.401, the 9th-best home batting average
Away = .233/.314/.374, the 23rd-overall road batting average
Sorted by OPS, it’s a similar, albeit less extreme, story:
Home = .723, 15th
Away = .688, 19th
Some of this is undoubtedly due to the rough 0-7 start the Braves faced on the road in Los Angeles and San Diego. Atlanta hit a collective .151/.251/.234 in that stretch, dragging down the overall numbers.
But either way, it’s an egregious difference.
But in this stretch, the Braves get five home series and four road series, with two of those trips being against teams with winning percentages of .379 (Marlins) and .371 (Athletics).
Atlanta might be able to manipulate their rotation
Chris Sale’s made a league-leading fourteen starts for Atlanta this season.
He’s thrown twice against a divisional rival1, despite Atlanta playing fourteen games versus the NL East. Sale’s made three times as many starts against the NL West (six) as he has against his own division.
But if Atlanta’s willing to play around with the rotation a bit, they can rectify that.
Sale’s currently announced as the starter for Sunday’s finale against the Rockies. If Atlanta wins the first two games of a series that they really should sweep, it might be smart to bump Sale to Tuesday’s opener versus the New York Mets.
Doing that would let him either start the finale in Miami against the Marlins on June 22nd or, with another “bump”, have a divisional two-start week by getting New York again on the 23rd and then Philly at home on Saturday the 28th.
With Sale being 4-2 with a 1.61 ERA in his last ten starts, it feels like maximizing his exposure to the division can help the Braves start to climb out of their hole in the standings.
They need to improve against “bad” teams
One of the quirks of Atlanta’s schedule is that they’ve not won the games they’re supposed to win. I.E., games against overmatched opponents.
Atlanta’s just 10-10 against teams with a record under .500, per MLB’s standings tracker. We’ll have a deep dive coming tomorrow into exactly where these losses have come from and who deserves the blame for them, but it’s not exactly a stellar record so far.
While winning your share of games against the best teams in baseball is a way to prove you’re championship caliber, winning the games and series you “should” win on paper is a great way to pad your cushion in the standings and give your team a fighting chance at staying in the playoff hunt if you stumble against the best of the best.
But on the note of victories against teams with winning records, the Braves haven’t done that, either, sitting at just 19-28 versus > .500 teams.
In 2024, five of the six division winners had a winning record against that same subset of teams, with only the Houston Astros (41-43) failing to reach that mark. Zooming out, most of the wild card teams, with the exception of two AL Central representatives in Detroit (47-50) and Kansas City (45-54) who had the lowly White Sox to beat up on, also won more than half their games against teams with a final record of .500 or better.
The back end of the bullpen
One of the reasons for Atlanta’s underperformance against bad teams this season is its inability to close out games against struggling ballclubs. Again, we’ll have the full breakdown tomorrow, but the Braves’ bullpen has failed to convert 12 of its 22 save situations this season.
Both those numbers, by the way, are 28th in baseball, ahead of just the Rockies and White Sox. While different relievers have allowed poorly-timed runs in the 7th or 8th innings on occasion, the blame almost entirely falls on the final frame of the contest. The Braves’ bullpen is 29th in baseball with a 6.60 ERA in the 9th inning, ahead of only the Arizona Diamondbacks at 6.79. Their 12 homers allowed is the worst mark in the league, despite being only one of nine teams that has pitched less than 50 ninth innings.
This traces mostly back to Raisel Iglesias and his 6.48 ERA, by the way - the Braves have played nine extra innings and have allowed just two hits and three runs, all unearned, for a league-leading 0.00 ERA, so it’s not really a high-leverage problem, it’s an Iglesias problem.
While Spencer Schwellenbach had a complete game on Wednesday afternoon in Milwaukee, Dylan Lee was warming up in case Atlanta needed to make a pitching change. Is it possible he can be the solution for saves going forward?
So, what should the goal be?
Win every series.
I know that’s a tall task, based on prior history, but most of that was logged without Ronald Acuña Jr. If Atlanta can win every series between now and the All-Star Break, that’ll come close to erasing the losing record and have them back in the thick of the wild card race.
I’d go a bit further and ask the Braves to sweep Colorado and then win every remaining series. That‘d be a 20-8 record, bringing Atlanta to a .516 winning percentage on the season.
A .516 record would have them the third team out of the Wild Card, about 3.5 games back, as it currently stands on June 11th. While a 20-8 record is not guaranteed to happen the way we drew it up, based on how the offense has struggled at times this season, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. From the start of the April 18th homestand to their series win in Boston on May 18th, exactly a month, the Braves went 19-10. They hit .262 over this span with 4.6 runs and an average of just one homer a game, while the arms pitched to a 3.33 ERA and struck out almost a batter a frame while not allowing more than a single homer per nine innings.
The point there is that it didn’t require superhuman performances from either the rotation or the lineup, just above-average play in all facets for a month.
They can do it again.
And if Atlanta’s able to get this done, they head into the All-Star Break with a few representatives on their own mound for the Midsummer Classic but, more importantly, a renewed sense of competitiveness. They’ll have shown that, as miserable as this start has been, it’s behind them and they’re back to playing Braves baseball again.
As premium subscriber Mike said on the game recap for Wednesday:
Take a breath, enjoy the off day, and get ready to continue this journey against the Rockies at Truist Park on Friday.
Philadelphia both times. Atlanta won both games, Sale picked up one win.