We’re still in April, but it feels like there are plenty of reasons to panic about the start this Atlanta Braves team has gotten off to in the 2021 season.
Let’s start with the usual caveats for those level-headed people out there on the Atlanta Braves.
They have 141 games left to play.
Currently, they’re only two games back of first place in the NL East.
And they’re pretty banged up, especially at the top of the starting rotation.
If you look at it from a series perspective, they’ve gone 3-3 with a split in their seven series this year.
All of that is very true, but that doesn’t make us feel any better about the way the month of April has gone for the Braves.
However, two of those series losses came against the Marlins and Diamondbacks — teams they should handle rather easily. And the Marlins series loss was a four-game series, and their other series loss was a sweep by the Phillies.
But it’s not just that the Braves are losing, and losing to teams they should be beating, but how they’re losing.
Sunday had to be one of the most embarrassing days in a long time for Atlanta as they managed just 1 hit in 14 innings against the Diamondbacks.
Madison Bumgarner came into Sunday’s game with an 8.68 ERA and didn’t allow a single hit over 7 innings. He left the game with an ERA of 6.31.
And you can blame the pitching all you want, but this offense is supposed to be one of the best in baseball, and they’re hard to watch right now.
They’ve squandered a hot start from Roanld Acuna Jr. by not backing him up.
They’re hitting just .215 as a team with a .309 OBP. And if you take Acuna out of the equation these numbers are even more horrendous.
Freddie Freeman is hitting .205, Marcell Ozuna is at .184, Ozzie Albies .164, TDA, and Swanson are under .200 as well.
It’s crazy to think how much worse the record would be without big contributions from Pablo Sandoval, Ehire Adrianza, and Guillermo Heredia.
Austin Riley had a moment or two and has hit better lately, but he’s still not making enough hard contact consistently.
The players concerning me the most are Ozuna and Swanson.
I’ve never like Ozuna’s swing and thought he capitalized on a really good small sample size last year. And he got to play DH so he didn’t have to worry about the field.
He’s typically a pretty slow starter, so it won’t surprise me if he has a huge month of May and his numbers end up about where they were in St. Louis (.800 OPS and 25-30 home runs).
Swanson just looks completely lost at the plate right now and is striking out entirely too much. As is always the case with Swanson for some reason, he runs into a lot of bad luck when he does square a baseball up.
Still, he has to cut down on the strikeouts.
There is certainly hope that this offense will rebound.
These expected stats (xwOBA) give hope for Freeman, Albies and Swanson. But they also create more reason for the Braves to be concerned about Ozuna. pic.twitter.com/iOxIRGrRvM
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) April 26, 2021
As for the starting pitching, there really isn’t much they can do until at least Max Fried comes back. They’re missing that top of the rotation arm, and even before the injury, Max wasn’t providing that for the Braves.
Hopefully some time off will allow him to gather himself and be the ace of this staff.
It sounds like it could be a while for Mike Soroka, so I’m not even counting on him at this point.
Charlie Morton, Ian Anderson, and Huascar Ynoa have all been good and can hold down the rotation.
Once Sean Newcomb and Chris Martin come back that will help stabilize the bullpen as well where A.J. Minter, Tyler Matzek, and Will Smith have been scary at times but mostly solid.
Most of you are mildly worried, and that’s probably where I am too.
What is your worry level with the #Braves right now?
— TomahawkTake (@TomahawkTakeFS) April 26, 2021
The offense is the biggest concern for me right now as they should be good enough to carry even a mediocre pitching staff. Right now they’re just flat-out terrible.
Once they get going this team will start to take off, but I’m concerned as to when/if they might get going and will it be too late. You know more injuries are going to come — and we already had a scare with Acuna.
Depth was a major concern for this team coming in. There really isn’t anywhere else to go if these players don’t perform the way we thought they would. We just have to hope they figure it out soon, because right now the ‘best’ part of this team is hard to watch.