On a day when top Atlanta Braves prospect Hurston Waldrep impressed for three innings in his MLB debut against the Washington Nationals — he faced nine batters through three scoreless innings but didn’t make it out of the fourth when the Nats batted around against him in a seven-run inning — the bigger story for Atlanta continued to be its almost inexplicably anemic offense.
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The Nationals won 8-5 on Sunday for their second four-game series win against the Braves in two weeks, having taken three of four in Atlanta and now three of four in D.C. And only Jarred Kelenic’s three-run homer in the ninth inning off Jordan Weems prevented it from becoming the 15th game in which the Braves scored three or fewer runs in a dreadful 9-15 stretch. It’s dropped Atlanta to nine games behind NL East-leading Philadelphia and only six ahead of third-place Washington.
The #Braves lost 8-5 to the Nationals, who’ve beaten Atlanta six times in eight games over the past two weeks.
Braves are 9-15 since May 15 and scored 3 runs or fewer in 15 of those 24 games.
In the NL East, the Braves are 9 games behind Philly and 6 ahead of the Nats.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) June 9, 2024
Here are our three takeaways from another disappointing week for the Braves, who have a day off Monday in Baltimore before finishing their three-city trip with a series against the Orioles. They will start another top prospect, Spencer Schwellenbach, in the middle game of that series in his second MLB outing.
1. Stars aren’t playing like it
Want to know the primary reason the Braves have gone from being the most explosive offense in baseball in 2023 to a mediocre unit in 2024? Their six position-player All-Stars in 2023 — Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acuña Jr., Sean Murphy and Orlando Arcia — have slumped and/or been hurt for most of the first 63 games.
• Acuña, the 2023 NL MVP, hit .250 with four homers and a .716 OPS in 49 games before his season-ending torn ACL.
• Olson has hit .239 with nine homers, 34 RBIs and a .750 OPS, after leading MLB with 54 homers and 139 RBIs last season when he hit .283 with a .993 OPS. Although he’s been better lately, with an .834 OPS in the past 30 days, his slugging percentage still is 177 points below his NL-best .604 in 2023.
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• Riley has hit .230 with three homers, 20 RBIs and a .648 OPS in 50 games, after hitting .286 with an .878 OPS while averaging 36 homers and 99 RBIs during 2021-2023.
• Albies has hit .265 with four homers and a .725 OPS in 55 games after batting .280 with 33 homers and an .849 OPS in 148 games last season.
• Murphy, who missed two months with a strained oblique, has hit .147 with one homer and a .481 OPS in 10 games. He hit .306 with 17 homers and a .999 OPS in 67 games before the 2023 All-Star break.
• Arcia has followed a career-best season with a dud. He’s hit .230 with a .635 OPS in 63 games, and in his past 23, he’s hit .195 with 24 strikeouts and four walks.
The Braves’ other 2023 All-Stars were pitchers Spencer Strider, who had season-ending elbow surgery after two starts, and Bryce Elder, who has a 6.85 ERA in five MLB starts and is now at Triple A.
2. Nearly a lineup-wide malaise
After hitting .283 and slugging .467 while averaging six runs per game during an 18-6 start this season, the Braves have hit a paltry .219 since while averaging 3.5 runs and losing 21 of 38. Braves manager Brian Snitker keeps saying things will click soon, and Braves fans continue to wonder when.
Marcell Ozuna’s torrid hitting has gone unabated since May 2023, but he’s the only Braves hitter who’s equaled or come close to his 2023 performance. Ozuna, Olson and Kelenic (.738) are the only active Braves with an OPS as high as .640 in the past 30 days.
Arcia (.554), Albies (.633) and Harris (.637) have three of the 15 lowest OPS among NL qualifiers in the past 30 days.
3. Not a station-to-station team
Snitker always says the Braves are built to slug, that the approach has served them well for years. And he’s right, with the notable exceptions of the past two offseasons, when they didn’t hit nearly enough homers in NLDS losses to the Phillies.
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And now, with the Braves only 14th in MLB in homers per game (65 in 63 games), their dearth of “small ball” is glaring. For example, Atlanta has just three sacrifice bunts since the beginning of 2022, when the universal DL rule went into effect. No other team has fewer than 11 sac bunts in that span, and 20 teams have at least 25.
The Braves also aren’t particularly adept at moving runners over or getting them in from third with less than two outs. In high-leverage situations they rank 13th in MLB with a .319 weighted on-base average (wOBA), just behind the Mets (.323) and Nationals (.320) and a long, long way behind the MLB-leading Yankees (.382) and Guardians (.362).
With runners in scoring position, the Braves’ .748 OPS ranks 12th. Arcia is 7-for-48 (.146) with RISP and has a .346 OPS in those situations that’s not just the worst among all MLB qualifiers but is more than 100 points below Will Castro’s next-lowest .449 for Minnesota.
(Photo of Hurston Waldrep: Jess Rapfogel / Getty Images)
David O'Brien is a senior writer covering the Atlanta Braves for The Athletic. He previously covered the Braves for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and covered the Marlins for eight seasons, including the 1997 World Series championship. He is a two-time winner of the NSMA Georgia Sportswriter of the Year award. Follow David on Twitter @DOBrienATL
