The Atlanta Braves are set to begin the second half of the 2022 season with some huge storylines to follow down the stretch.
There are always storylines within the games themselves that are just as fun to track and follow throughout an Atlanta Braves season. Storylines give you an added reason to watch whether your team is contending or not.
Fortunately, the Braves are contending and they have plenty of compelling storylines to follow down the stretch.
At the beginning of the year, we gave our top five storylines for the season and some of those have already been answered. Austin Riley has shown 2021 wasn’t a fluke, Kyle Wright has stepped up in the rotation, and we continue to get the Matt Olson vs. Freddie Freeman comparisons.
But here are the five top storylines for the second half.
5. Can Dansby keep it up
Dansby Swanson is currently having the best season of his career, and just at the right time with him set to hit free agency this offseason.
But the key question for the Braves right now is whether or not he’s able to sustain that through the rest of the season, or we see the typical cold streaks we’ve grown accustomed to seeing most of his career.
4. What happens at the trade deadline
As I wrote yesterday, there isn’t much room for the Braves to do much at the trade deadline, and they really don’t need to do a ton.
But does Alex Anthopoulos shock us all and make a big splash for Andrew Benintendi?
It’s likely he makes some marginal moves to improve depth, but we saw how important that was to last year’s World Series run.
3. What’s the plan for Spencer Strider
He threw just over 96 innings last year and is already at 74.1 this season. He’s obviously become a big piece of the starting rotation, but do the Braves move him back to the bullpen to keep him fresh for the end of the season or ride it out?
That could also play into their trade deadline decision. AA could trade for a mid-rotation starter and move Strider back to the bullpen.
2. Key players returning from injury
The Braves could potentially add three former All-Stars to their roster in the second half with Ozzie Albies, Mike Soroka, and Kirby Yates.
Soroka and Yates haven’t pitched in a big league game in nearly two years, and Ozzie was having his worst season before getting injured.
What they look like when/if they return could play a huge role in how the Brave
1. Re-emergence of Ronald Acuna Jr.
And the biggest storyline of the second half is the re-emergence of Ronald Acuna Jr as he continues his return from an ACL injury.
We’ve seen sparks in the first half, but he’s had hiccups along the way.
He still continues to hit the ball at elite hard-hit rates, but his average launch angle is six degrees lower than his career norm, which is why his groundball rate is near 50 percent.
Hopefully we see Acuna continue to get healthier in the second half and get that launch angle back to where it should be, and then we’ll see him start to put up those MVP-type numbers.
What storyline are you following the most in the second half? Let me know in the comments below.