The month of June was not kind to the Atlanta Braves. They had the absolute worst offense in all of baseball with a 65 wRC+ (that is impressively bad), and their pitching staff was middling at their best as a whole. It is honestly impressive that the Braves have managed to scratch together a 9-13 this month, although the back half of the month was particularly terrible to make things feel worse. However, it appears as though experts are not punishing the Braves too much...yet.
As is customary for the beginning of the week, a number of power rankings have come out already that try (and often fail) to provide an accurate snapshot of the pecking order around the league. If you look at MLB's most recent power rankings, you will see that the Braves have only fallen to third. However, once you read the blurb about them, you understand just how tenuous that ranking is.
Braves come in third in MLB power rankings, but they may not stay there for long at all
MLB's Will Leitch made a salient point that Atlanta was probably playing better than they actually were during that hot start, and that is fair. The Braves are talented, but expecting them to win EVERY series this season was probably asking a bit much.
However, where things get less awesome are when he starts talking about their performance in the back half of the month. According to Leitch, the Braves offense has averaged 2.73 runs a game since June 10, which is the worst in baseball by a wide margin. That is what happens when Drake Baldwin, Austin Riley, Ha-Seong Kim, and...well, most of the lineup seemingly takes June off. As a cherry on top, there was also a reminder that even with the offense being such a black hole, the Braves' biggest need at the trade deadline is still starting pitching.
One can appreciate the MLB.com staff not letting one rough stretch lead them to completely writing the Braves off. That said, the Braves can only sleepwalk through their schedule for so long before it will cost them even more in the standings and in the minds of fans and experts alike. With a particularly tough stretch of their schedule coming up leading into the All-Star break, things could still easily get much worse.
Add us as a preferred source on Google