Today's Three Things: Braves bullpen blows sweep with late collapse to Rockies
The Braves bullpen pitched horrendously today
The Atlanta Braves watched their bullpen collapse late in an ugly 10-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies in Truist Park on Sunday afternoon.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
As much as I want to criticize this offense for only scoring one run despite four consecutive singles in the sixth inning, we’re looking at the top of the 7th here.
I’m okay with the decision to send Grant Holmes back out, for the record - he had allowed just one unearned run1 with one walk and fourteen strikeouts to that point in the game. He was sitting on just 80 pitches and although he was about to face cleanup hitter Ryan McMahon, McMahon had struck out in his previous six at-bats against Braves pitching.
But after a good piece of hitting by McMahon to put one in the seats - launching an 0-1 fastball down and away on the corner for a homer - Holmes then struck out Thairo Estrada and walked Brenton Doyle. Snit chose that moment to pull him, putting Enyel De Los Santos into a 2-1 game with a runner on first base.
De Los Santos proceeded to allow two straight singles, a walk, and a double and was lifted without recording an out, but giving up five runs (four charged to him). The next bullpen option wasn’t much better - José Ruiz got two outs, finally, but allowed an RBI single, and another run to score on a disengagement violation.
Ruiz came back out for the eighth and allowed two walks and a single to load the bases before being replaced by Aaron Bummer. Against the first batter he faced, Braxton Fulford’s 50.8 mph bouncer squirted past Matt Olson and all the way to the right field corner for a bases-clearing triple that ended any hope of an Atlanta comeback.
Just a dreadful collapse from a team that really couldn’t afford to give one away to a team on pace to finish with potentially the worst record in baseball history.
Today’s Player of the Game
The joke here is Luke Williams, who was Atlanta’s most effective relief option today - the righty utilityman pitched a scoreless ninth inning with only one hit allowed, but his lack of strikeouts meant that the Braves finished one punchout shy of tying the all-time MLB record for strikeouts in consecutive games.
I don’t have a choice here - let me know if you can think of someone who deserves a POTG award, but I’m drawing a blank.
UPDATE: I’ve been told that I’m being too harsh on Grant Holmes here because of his defensive error, and so let’s retroactively make him the Player of the Game.
Holmes finished with a career-high fifteen strikeouts, and the way he did it was dominant - he ran a 45% CSW and picked up 25 whiffs, including sixteen on his slider in just 28 swings. Colorado had just two hard-hit balls off the righty, although the homer, once again, came off a fastball.
What You’ll Be Talking About
The weekend’s offense.
Atlanta entered the series preparing to face off with starting pitchers who had ERAs of 7.00, 6.85, and 4.75 (Austin Gomber’s ERA last season; today was his season debut).
The Braves offense finished the weekend against those three guys with five earned runs in sixteen innings, striking out fifteen times and going just 3-13 with runners in scoring position. Most of Atlanta’s offensive production this weekend came off of Colorado’s 26th-ranked bullpen.
And it has ramifications for the rest of the season.
We’ve seen this offense produce against quality starters - they’ve roughed up Zack Wheeler twice (11 earned runs in 10.2 innings this year), San Diego’s duo of Dylan Cease and Michael King (in the first series of the year), and Lucas Giolito.
But they’ve also been dominated by Pittsburgh’s Bailey Falter and Carmen Mlodzinski, as well as Milwaukee’s Quinn Priester and Germán Márquez.
They have to be better if Atlanta wants to have a shot at getting back into contention, and that’s all there is to it.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves get an off day before Tuesday’s series opener against the Mets. Here’s the pitching matchups for the virtually must-win series:
Tuesday: David Peterson (5-2, 2.49) versus Spencer Schwellenbach (5-4, 3.11)
Wednesday: Paul Blackburn ()0-0, 6.75) versus Chris Sale (4-4, 2.79)
Thursday: Clay Holmes (7-3, 2.87) versus Spencer Strider (1-5, 4.35)
Both the errors, on the same play, were on Holmes so maybe this should be an earned run, yeah? I will die on this hill.
I felt like the Braves had to get their act together and part of that was to sweep the worst team in baseball this weekend. As it stands now, this team is doing everything they can to bow out. They found yet another trap door to rock bottom, and jumped right in. That very well may be where this team belongs. Time for a break from the Braves. I wish them well.