Atlanta Braves amazing run to the NLDS ended quietly

Atlanta Braves bats snooze – Braves lose

Two weeks ago, I said on the Off Leo’s Rocker podcast that the lineup was deep enough to carry one or two bats slumping. The bottom of the lineup, in particular, gave the opposing pitcher nowhere to go to get an out. After the Mets series, the Braves suddenly had a lineup with only two or three bats hitting.

No lineup can cover that many holes, but Ronald Acuna Jr. (5-15 with a double), Travis d’Arnaud (6-16 with three doubles, two homers, and five RBI), and Matt Olson (4-12, two homers and five RBI) gave it their best shot.

Olson and d’Arnaud drove in all six runs in game one and accounted for 10 of the 13 Braves’ runs in the series. An Arcia homer, a Harris single, and a Riley excuse me swinging bunt produced the remaining three runs.

Olson’s ninth-inning homer in that game was the only one of the five homers hit by the Braves in the NLDS to account for more than one RBI.

Gruesome details of a limp lineup

Other than our three musketeers, the lineup batted .094/.144/.118/.262.  In a small sample size such as this, individual raw numbers paint a better picture than a traditional stat line.

The Table below shows how batters other than Acuna Jr., d’Arnaud, and Olson performed; it isn’t pretty.

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table  Generated 10/16/2022.

Ozuna and Rosario struggled all season, and Grossman was only effective until pitchers remembered, “oh yeah, that Grossman.”

Grissom’s bat disappeared long before the lineup stopped hitting when pitchers stopped throwing him fastballs. He was overmatched in his one start and quickly replaced with Arcia.

Arcia was his typical all-or-nothing self. I’m not sure what kind of dude Brian Snitker thinks he is, but a hitter dude, he isn’t. I understand why he played, but I don’t understand his two-year contract.

Really Riley?

Atlanta Braves fans touted Austin Riley as an MVP candidate, and until August 15, he had a puncher’s chance to get a few votes; then, he didn’t.

Riley’s season was more up and down than many realized. His year-end stats look great, mainly due to July, when his average and OBP were over .400.

Between August 1 and the end of the season, Statcast shows Riley making contact with 146 pitches; of those pitches he:

• Hit underneath 33,
• Topped 58,
• Hit 26 flares or burners (worm killers),
• Barreled or made solid contact 20 times, and
• Made weak contact eight times.

From August 16 forward, he got progressively less likely to do damage.

From September 1 through the end of the season, Riley posted a 51.3% GB rate and a 17.5% popup rate.

Riley wasn’t the only one to stumble as the schedule drew to a close, but Riley’s drop-off was the most significant, and I feel the most damaging long-term because he came up in high-leverage, run-producing situations so often.

William Contreras posted a 20% percent GB rate, and Michael Harris II posted a 55.6% rate. Despite that huge GB rate. MHII continued to hit the ball hard and have good at-bats as the season came to an end.

The NLDS was a different story, he managed only one hit in 14 AB in that series, and I believe he was just plain tired.

Mike played a lot of innings!

Since signing with the Atlanta Braves, MHII had never played more than the 787 innings he put in for Rome last year. Harris is young and fit, but he’s never played this much baseball nonstop, and major-league innings are much harder than minor-league innings.

Michael started this season with 371 innings for Mississippi, then played another 1021.1 with Atlanta, giving him a total of 1492.1 innings, 705 more than last year and just decimal points shy of a 90% increase.

I know everyone gets tired as the season drags on, but players like Swanson and Riley, who’ve been through the wringer in the past, are better able to prepare for it.

I put together a spreadsheet of June to September 30 and August 12 to October 3 splits for the players used most often for those interested. The second sheet is the month-by-month numbers from June forward.

Atlanta Braves bullpen didn’t fail.

Along with Acuna Jr, d’Arnaud, Olson, and Wright, the bullpen deserves recognition for its performance during the NLDS.

Ignore ERAs! ERA is an awful way to judge a relief pitcher to begin with, and in a short series where every inning they pitch is high leverage, ERA can look awful even though the reliever did the job well.

The Middlemen

Much maligned starter Jake Odorizzi entered game three with the Braves trailing 6-0 and threw three scoreless innings before leaving with two men on and no one out in the seventh.

If the game had been closer, Odorizzi wouldn’t have started the seventh inning. The two runs scored because Jesse Chavez was asked to face Realmuto, Harper, and Castellanos, a repeat of game one and a mismatch by anyone’s standard. Maybe it’s time for Jake to transition to middle relief?

Chavez gave up one run in each appearance, but facing the middle of the Phillies order twice in three days and holding them to one while striking out Realmuto, Harper, Bohm, and Marsh and enticing six ground ball outs of pretty good work.

Dylan Lee gave up a first-pitch homer to Harper in 2/3 of an inning during game three but also threw a scoreless inning in game one and another in game four.

Jackson Stephens threw a scoreless inning in the eighth and another in the ninth inning of game one to hold the enemy at bay and give the Braves a chance to come back. The comeback fell short, but Stephens made sure they had the chance.

The big arms

The big three at the back of the bullpen were asked to perform outside of their usual roles. A.J. Minter pitched a clean inning in game one, came into game four, threw a clean inning in the fourth, and had two out in the fifth when Raisel Iglesias replaced him and allowed the two runners on base to score. I’d have stayed with A.J., but the manager didn’t.

Iglesias had pitched a clean eighth in game two before surrendering A.J.’s runs and one of his own in game four.

Kenley Jansen earned the save in game two with a 1-2-3 ninth but entered game four in the eighth and gave up a run on a solo shot by Harper. Jansen looked as sharp as he’s ever been. Allowing a home run to Harper in that situation doesn’t change my view of his performance.

That’s a wrap

The Atlanta Braves kept a healthy rotation for most of the season, they two of their important pieces were unable to perform. The lineup hadn’t performed well since the series with the Mets.

The situations were exactly the opposite for the Phillies; their pitching silenced the Braves’ bats, and their lineup wore down a decimated Braves starting rotation.

The Braves had a great season, but the Phillies were healthy and hot at the right time and deserved their win. I expect the Padres to end the bell ringing and force the Phillies to watch the World Series from home.

The Atlanta Braves will be back next year to even the score with the Phillies.