Why are the Atlanta Braves winning?
How?? It’s a strange question to ask of the 9-5 Atlanta Braves, but there’s a satisfying answer.
Before this 2020 season began, we were extolling the virtues of this Atlanta Braves‘ lineup – that it had both breadth and depth with hitters that opposing pitching could not easily hide from. If nothing else, this array of bats could out-slug their way to victory.
A funny thing has happened.
Ronald Acuna isn’t really hitting (.226 with one lone homer and 4 RBI). Freddie Freeman has been languishing at the plate (.217, though somehow with 9 RBI). At least each of these players have been handed 10 walks.
- Ozzie Albies? The NL hits leader in 2019 was batting just .159 when he was shut down.
- Camargo? .212.
- Riley? An ugly .129.
Thus far, the team has been offensively carried by Marcell Ozuna and Dansby Swanson.
Overall, here’s how the offense of the Atlanta Braves ranks…
- Hitting: a league-average BA of .232 (team rank 17th)
- Strikeouts: 30th overall with 152
- 29th worst PA/K ratio; Detroit is the worst
- Walks: 11th best rate
- HR: 13th best rate
- OPS: 20th (.733)
- OPS+: League average (100; rank 16th)
- Runs/Gm: 6th (5.33)
If you don’t notice that last number, you’d have to wonder why Atlanta isn’t a .500 ballclub right now. As it is, they have been able to cash in a lot of these walks – and that largely thanks to timely hitting from Freeman and Swanson.
But that still doesn’t explain how they have forged a strong 9-5 record through 2 weeks.
The answer is pretty simple: Alex Anthopoulos was right.
It’s about the Bullpen
The problems that the Atlanta Braves have suffered with their starting pitching are well-documented — we won’t re-hash that here (while noting that Newcomb and Toussaint have both survived (Newk) and thrived (Touki) in their most recent starts).
After the past couple of seasons, Anthopoulos did not want to see his team blowing saves or causing chaotic situations at games’ end with myriad baserunners littering the field.
He wanted a shutdown bullpen. That has finally happened.
Check out these bullpen ranks:
- ERA: 6th
- Walks per 9IP: 4th
- K/9: 10th
- FIP: 6th (if you subscribe to FIP)
- LOB%: 4th
- WAR: 4th by fangraphs; #1 on baseball-reference.
All that despite (a) the absence of Will Smith; (b) the 3rd highest number of relief innings pitched thus far (number of games notwithstanding), and (c) a two-week stretch with no days off.
Josh Tomlin, Tyler Matzek, Shane Greene, A.J. Minter, and Luke Jackson have been doing outstanding work. Even Grant Dayton has been contributing: 13.5 K-per-9 with no walks.
In fact, that group named above has combined for 45 strikeouts and 3 walks in 38.2 innings. That will get it done.
This no-breaks schedule will continue for one more week until the Braves finally start getting some rest — but from there we’ll see ample breaks through September, which should allow the bullpen plenty of rest during the stretch run.
In other words: things might even get better from here for them… which is good, given the fact that the starting rotation is still unsettled.
One more factor
It’s also the defense. Atlanta has permitted just 2 unearned runs so far. One of these came during the early extra-inning affair vs. the Mets.
When you look through the errors, nearly all of them have been inconsequential — meaning that the Braves have been very good at taking care of business in the field and keeping up their concentration (something difficult to do under these very different field conditions).
As a direct result: they aren’t hurting themselves. The preventable problems are being prevented.
Next. Walk-Off Magic. dark
So why are these Atlanta Braves winning? It’s the bullpen and the defense. So now imagine what happens when the bats catch up and perhaps a starter emerges? Good luck, NL East.