Braves Get In Early Hole, Drop Game One Versus Padres

The Atlanta Braves need to find the offense quickly or the season's over tomorrow night

The Atlanta Braves couldn’t get the offense going against dominant San Diego Padres starter Michael King, dropping game one of their NL Wild Card series 4-0 in San Diego’s Petco Park on Tuesday night.

Here’s what you need to know about from the contest.

Smith-Shawver didn’t have it 

The Braves were in an unenviable position going into game one - with Chris Sale (back) unavailable due to injury and not on the Wild Card roster, the game one start would go to one of the group of Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder, and AJ Smith-Shawver.

Atlanta went with the youngster Smith-Shawver over the two veterans, with manager Brian Snitker explaining that it was the “stuff” of Smith-Shawver that forced the decision over Elder.

Smith-Shawver didn’t have that stuff tonight.

The youngster made it through the order just once, allowing as many hard-hit balls as outs recorded (four). Smith-Shawver gave up a leadoff single to Luis Arraez and was promptly punished for throwing a 93.5 mph middle-middle fastball to Fernando Tatis Jr. when the outfielder launched it to left field’s second deck.

The Padres picked up a third run on a sacrifice fly in the 2nd, coming after a HBP and a single to open the inning, and that ended the day for Smith-Shawver.

It was a nightmare start for Atlanta - after throwing nine pitchers in Monday’s doubleheader, including starter Reynaldo López for an inning and using both Joe Jiménez and Raisel Iglesias in both games - the Braves had to go to the pen early and ask them to cover almost eight full innings.

The Braves offense still hasn’t recovered from the rainouts

I had this in a previous edition of takeaways, but the Braves offense was red hot when the Mets series started - across the seven-game span from the start of the Cincinnati Reds series through Miami and the Mets series opener, Atlanta hit .322 with 46 runs and 20 homers. Their team OPS was .968 across that span.

But the rainouts broke something. When the Braves came back for the weekend against the Royals and wrapped with the Mets doubleheader on Monday, they closed the season by stranding 38 on base and hitting just 1-for-37 with runners in scoring position.

That’s the offense that showed up tonight.

Padres starter Michael King was amazing, don’t get it wrong - five hits opposite twelve strikeouts in seven innings, sequencing five different pitches out of perfect tunnels (and with none of them flying straight).

But Atlanta’s hitters didn’t put up much of a fight. The Braves didn’t get many opportunities to drive runners in, getting only five on against King, but he stranded all five with Atlanta going 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position off of the righty.

For the game, Atlanta picked up seven hits but struggled to finish the drill against the dominant trio of King, setup man Jason Adam and closer Robert Suarez. Most frustratingly, the Braves struck out fifteen times and didn’t draw a single walk off of San Diego.

Credit to the bullpen

When AJ Smith-Shawver exited the game after only one out recorded in the 2nd inning, it looked to be a long night for the Braves. All of the usual suspects were unavailable, with five of the team’s most reliable pitchers all holding three-day pitch counts over 30 pitches and already having worked on Monday (twice in the case of Iglesias and Jiménez).

The Braves went into this one looking like the trio of Aaron Bummer, Jesse Chavez, and Luke Jackson were the primary relievers available tonight. Lefty Dylan Lee, who worked on both the previous two days (but threw only two pitches on Monday) was presumably being held in reserve as the “break glass in case of emergency” guy for the 9th in a save situation.

The trio kept Atlanta in it.

San Diego didn’t get another hit until the 8th inning, where catcher Kyle Higashioka got a hanging Luke Jackson slider and launched it into the seats to extend the Padres lead to 4-0.

The “Third Shift” relievers pitched 6.2 innings with just the one run on one hit and one walk, striking out four. It was a lot more than anyone could have reasonably expected, and given the pitching plan entering the game, you’d have signed up for that in a heartbeat.

So what’s the fix?

It wouldn’t have mattered if Chris Sale started this game - even one run would have been enough for San Diego to win.

Time and again this season, we’ve seen the offense be the problem for this iteration of the Atlanta Braves.

But with the season on the line, are there reasonably any changes that you could make?

Tonight was the 10th consecutive game with the same starting nine (with the exception of the usual rotation at catcher between Travis d’Arnaud and Sean Murphy). And there’s a reason for that: There’s not a lot of options on the roster if you want to do something different - maybe the Braves sit Orlando Arcia for Gio Urshela at shortstop, sticking Whit Merrifield in at third base? That was the defensive configuration on Monday after the pinch-hitting was complete in game one.

No, this is the roster that you have, and the hitters have to perform better.

If they do, you live to fight again on Thursday. If not, the season’s over tomorrow. It’s that simple.

What’s next for the Atlanta Braves?

The Braves are guaranteed only one more game in the postseason and it’s win-or-go-home: Max Fried gets the ball, looking to stay on the West Coast for one more night. He’ll be opposed by righthander Joe Musgrove at 8:38 PM ET on Wednesday.