REPORT: WHAT IS GOING ON?

Atlanta’s struggled since clinching the NL East but it’s not a sign that the team’s doomed

Nobody wants to be on a losing streak.It’s even more difficult to swallow after not having to cope with losing in what has been one of the best regular seasons in Atlanta Braves history.

Atlanta Braves Minor League Player Review: Jared Shuster - Battery Power

So it’s simple to imagine the worst-case scenario and worry out.

I mean, the Braves aren’t just losing, but they’re losing badly: Pitching is being hammered, bats are going cold, and, worst of all, it was to the Marlins.

Don’t get me wrong: the last week has been a nightmare. In three games, Miami scored 36 runs.

Let’s take a look back at what transpired in Miami over the weekend and in Philadelphia on Monday.

Pitching

Miami scored a lot of runs, but the distribution of those runs wasn’t quite even amongst the entire pitching staff.

Looking at the starters, Bryce Elder gave up four runs in five innings. For your 4th starter in the postseason, that’s…kind of what you expect a typical outing to be?

Jared Shuster gave up five runs (four earned) in three innings. I don’t think Shuster’s on the postseason roster, so this isn’t an omen for the postseason.

Yes, Charlie Morton gave up six runs in 4.2 innings. Four of those came on a grand slam, so one bad pitch. It was the only extra base hit surrendered by Morton in the outing. I’d be more worried about the five walks, personally. This isn’t great, but it’s also one bad start. We’ve seen Charlie navigate around the walks this season, and in 2023 he’s only had three outings of more than four runs. This feels like an outlier.

In the bullpen, I’ll admit it’s a bit worse. Kirby Yates and Brad Hand are two of the pitchers that we expected to make the postseason roster, and they each got knocked around a bit. But neither of those guys are high-leverage guys (unless the three go-to high leverage relievers, Iglesias, Minter, and Jiménez are all unavailable, and the Yates usually gets the call).

But Dereck Rodriguez gave up eight runs on seven hits, and he’s already been DFA’d.

Against Philly, Kyle Wright made his second start after a three-month layoff – again, not surprised he struggled and not expecting him to bge one of the core starters in the postseason. Michael Tonkin gave up three runs in three innings, which isn’t great, but he’s usually used in games Atlanta’s losing already, so not as concerning.

Offense

Atlanta had more than five runs and nine or more hits in two of the three Miami losses. That’s normally good enough for you to win a game, so it’s hard to find fault there.

Atlanta’s last game in Miami saw only two runs on nine hits, and I think that comes down to bad luck as cashing in with runners in scoring position – Atlanta was 1-13 in the game with RISP. Some bad luck and an offense that wasn’t clicking with Ronald Acuña Jr.

Being held to one run on four hits by Philly isn’t great, admittedly, but Atlanta got the ball in play, with only nine strikeouts in the game. It wasn’t a complete disaster, but it wasn’t great.

The intangibles

And don’t discount the varying level of emotions in the dugouts for those four games.

Miami was absolutely embarrassed by Atlanta leading into that series – the Braves were 8-1 with a plus-43 run differential this season against the Marlins entering Friday. Miami wanted vengeance, and they’re fighting as hard as possible to make the postseason, to boot.

And Philly has strong emotions towards Atlanta, too. They’ve been fighting and going on runs all season just to see their divisional deficit…stay exactly the same. And then to top it off, they watched Atlanta celebrate winning the division on their field. That’ll stick with a player; a few Phillies said as much to reporters after the game.

So what does this mean for the postseason?

When it comes to Atlanta in October, none of this matters. Not a single thing.

NOTHING.

Atlanta’s performance in September has no bearing on its performance in October.

It all comes down to how you perform THEN. THEN, not now.

We like to think the worst because we’re Atlanta sports fans and we’ve been through it. We’re damaged people, whether it’s an infield fly that drops halfway to the wall in left field, the largest blown lead in Super Bowl history, or winning thirteen consecutive division titles but just one World Series. I understand.