The Atlanta Braves have continued to be one of baseball's best offenses this season. It seems like no matter who is at the plate, they're having an impact on the team. Ozzie Albies has always been an important part of that when he's healthy and on the field. He has not played in back-to-back full seasons since 2018 and 2019. Injury has cut into his playing time, and his offensive production over the last couple of years hasn't been much to write home about.
Albies started the season hot and was one of Atlanta's best hitters over the first month. Unfortunately, he's been struggling at the plate the last couple of weeks. It's not something the Braves need to see from him right now.
Ozzie Albies' sudden struggles are concerning, but there is still hope
Atlanta's second baseman has slashed .123/.215/.123 over his last 15 games. He has just seven hits during that stretch, with four RBI, five walks, eight strikeouts, and a wimpy .338 OPS.
That is not an encouraging pattern to see develop. There are going to be ups and downs throughout a full season, but with the struggles with injury over the last month, the Braves need Albies to get things back on track soon. A look at his metrics shows just how much he is struggling in some key areas. Albies continues to have an excellent strikeout rate (12.3%) and squared-up rate (28.4%).
Unfortunately, that's kind of where the excellence ends. His whiff rate is average this season, but he is below average in a few key stats, such as walk rate (7.3%), barrel rate (4.0%), hard-hit rate (26.6%), chase rate (36.0%), and bat speed (68.9 mph).
Even when Albies has been at his best, he's struggled with these metrics. However, he usually excels in the whiff rate category when he's firing on all cylinders. The key could be to work on improving this, along with his chase rate, to get things back on track.
There's still plenty of season left for Atlanta's lovable second baseman to get things back on track. Luckily, the rest of the offense has covered up his poor performance, and it hasn't affected things very much.
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