How this Atlanta Braves offense has fared against top pitchers

We take a look at how the Atlanta Braves offense has stacked up this year against some of the best pitchers in the league.

As the season has gone on, something I think I’ve noticed with this Atlanta Braves lineup is that they really struggle against the top pitching in the game.

No duh — of course a team is going to struggle against the best pitching in the game. But at the same time, this is the type of pitching the Atlanta Braves are going to have to face in the postseason.

There is no doubt that the Atlanta Braves offense — at full strength — is a top 10 offense in all of baseball. But is it good enough to compete against the power pitching they’ll face in the postseason?

I’ve gone back and looked at every top pitcher the Atlanta Braves have faced this season and looked at that pitcher’s line in the game.

I tried to only look at starters who currently rank in the top 40 in all of baseball in ERA. There were a couple of pitchers I didn’t include because I don’t really think they are top 40 pitchers.

From best I can tell, the Atlanta Braves have faced 22 of the top 40 pitchers in all of baseball. And, of course, two of those pitchers (Mike Soroka and Julio Teheran), are impossible for the Braves to face.

They’ve also faced 10 pitchers on that list multiple times. Playing in the NL East, you are almost guaranteed to run up against a top arm every night.

Let’s take a look at each those performances from the top pitchers against the Braves lineup to see how they faired. And then we’ll see what all of this means.

The hope is that the Braves offense is built to put up a good fight against these pitchers in the postseason to give ourselves a chance.

Our starting pitching — at least at the top — and bullpen is now good enough to keep us in games. But we’ll still need our offense to score 4-plus runs on a nightly basis to win in the postseason.