Cold Bats, Bad Luck, and Close Losses: A Braves June Autopsy

Atlanta’s month was defined by close calls, a brutal blow to the rotation—and a lineup that cratered when it mattered most.

The Atlanta Braves went 11-15 in the month of June. Having a losing month isn’t that memorable this season - they went just 13-14 in May - but it’s how they did it that it notable.

Let’s dive into the big takeaways from their summer swoon.

A streak of close losses

The Atlanta Braves have not been good in one-run games this year, with Sunday’s 2-1 defeat by Philadelphia putting them at 11-20 on the season.

But even amid that context, June was a nightmare stretch for Atlanta.

Atlanta went 2-6 in one-run games in the month, opening with five consecutive losses from June 4th through 8th, including two walkoffs.

Diving into the specifics of those five consecutive losses, three of them were due to the back-end of the bullpen and two were on the offense (despite a 9th inning run allowed by Raisel Iglesias). The clear bullpen losses were on either Pierce Johnson (both walkoffs against San Francisco) or the combo of Raisel Iglesias and Scott Blewett (the historic collapse against Arizona). The two offensive losses saw four runs scored in games where the pitching staff allowed just six.

Have the Braves fixed the back end of the bullpen? No, but it’s better.

I’d argue that moving Dylan Lee to the 9th inning role has gone a long way towards stabilizing things. Lee has not allowed an earned run in the entire month with just five hits, three walks, and fifteen strikeouts.

On a similar note, Raisel Iglesias has allowed no runs with just five hits and one walk opposite eight strikeouts in his 6.2 innings of mostly eighth-inning work.¹

With Daysbel Hernández having just begun a rehab stint in Gwinnett, which kicked off with a scoreless inning with one strikeout and three pitches of 100 miles per hour, it feels like this is on the way towards being less of a problem in July than it was in June.

Generally underwhelming offense

While several other teams have one more game to play in the month, Atlanta’s current standing as of Sunday evening is as one of the least productive offenses in the calendar month.

Atlanta’s offense produced a .234/.313/.357 line in June, ranking 25th in batting average, 20th in on-base percentage, and a stunning 28th in slugging. The OPS of .670 is currently 28th in baseball, ahead of just the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians. Their 228 strikeouts for the month are 23rd in MLB, while their 104 runs are 26th.

Surprisingly, Atlanta’s 23 homers are tied for 6th in the entire sport this month, but that slash line absolutely explains a lot; of the 23 homers, just one was a grand slam while thirteen of them came with no one on base.

(Interestingly, four of Ronald Acuña Jr’s six homers came with no one base, while the other two scored Ronald and Nick Allen.)

Home runs were the lone bright spot among extra-base hits in the month, with their 311 total bases and 34 doubles both being just 27th in baseball. And Atlanta wasn’t able to get those baserunners who hit singles into scoring position a lot - they had just one sacrifice bunt and their eight June steals were 29th in baseball. That stolen base figure is just one ahead of the Dodgers, with both teams attempting just ten.

The Braves have taken some steps to improve the lineup, most notably by benching Michael Harris II (.148/.165/.261 in June) and Alex Verdugo (.203/.242/.220) for most of the weekend when lefty starters were on the mound. They’ve also seen a slight uptick in several lineup stalwarts, with Nick Allen hitting .240 for the month.

Jurickson Profar, who hit .326/.44/.587 with three homers across his twelve-game ‘rehab’ stint, will also provide a bit of a lift when he returns on Tuesday. But it’s not the biggest problem for the offense.

Several ‘aircraft carriers’ are taking on water

It’s one thing to get terrible offense from the bottom of your lineup - that happens to lots of teams, even those that make the postseason, win their division, or win the World Series. LA’s #8 and #9 hitters produced .220 and .228 batting averages, respectively, and they won the World Series handily over the New York Yankees.

But when you have the heart of your order underperforming, that’s another problem.

In the month of June, here’s the respective lines from Atlanta’s commonly designated ‘stars’:

Ronald Acuña Jr: .360/.491/.596
Matt Olson: .313/.427/.510
Austin Riley: .255/.292/.368
Marcell Ozuna: .188/.263/.287
Ozzie Albies: .198/.278/.250

Acuña and Olson are starring, but that’s about it.

Ozuna and Albies have just two homers and 50 strikeouts between them. They’ve driven in just eleven batters combined, despite commonly batting 4th and 5th in the lineup.

Austin Riley’s not been as bad, but definitely not as good as he needs to be. He has just two homers and nine RBI himself while leading the team in strikeouts for the month with 33.

And while there has been no public acknowledgement of incoming moves on this front by Brian Snitker, there are some steps that can be taken to alleviate the situation somewhat. Whether that’s giving Ozuna some time on the injured list and playing both catchers every day or utilizing Luke Williams (or even Eli White) at second base for a bit, there are things that can be done.

But will Atlanta make those larger moves? It’s one thing to bench Harris when he’s batting below his weight for the month (.148 average, listed weight on MLB.com of 195). It’s another thing to do it to your veteran DH that’s been your only reliable offensive performer for the last two seasons or your longest-tenured fan favorite infielder who you have no clear backup. We’ll break down all of the possible moves later this week with the likelihood of them happening at some point - I’m expecting that tomorrow, if everything works right on the off day.

Rotation issues

The most notable thing here is seeing Chris Sale go down with broken ribs. He’s traveling with the team and getting treatment, but there’s still no clear timetable of when he’ll be able to return and a lot of the whispers are that it’ll be August.

But outside of losing their ace, Atlanta’s also dealing with a lot of instability in the rotation.

Bryce Elder finishes the month with a 8.25 ERA and 0-3 record after getting blasted in his last few outings. (Saturday’s news roundup has some more context on Elder’s struggles.)

Didier Fuentes has made two starts as the de facto replacement for Chris Sale and has a 10.80 ERA and 0-2 record. As we’ve discussed, there are not a lot of other options at the moment, and so he’s making his third career start on Tuesday to open Atlanta’s home series against the Angels. The hope here has to be that he can figure it out quickly, similar to how Spencer Schwellenbach did last year. As a reminder, Schwellenbach had a 5.68 ERA through his first six starts, going 1-4, and a 2.54 ERA after.

Speaking of Schwellenbach, the Braves need to hope that both he and Grant Holmes can give length in their starts, to take pressure off of a bullpen that’s still very much in flux. Schwellenbach has done his part, throwing a complete game and averaging 7+ innings per start in the month. Holmes has barely broken five innings a start in June, although we’ve seen him go deeper in games earlier this year and Spencer Strider’s picked up the slack a bit with almost six innings a start.

Final thoughts

The Braves are still technically in the NL playoff race, but June felt like a flashing warning light on the dashboard. Between the vanishing offense, a rotation stretched thin, and a farm system offering little immediate help, Atlanta can’t bank on patience to fix this. If the front office wants to keep the championship window cracked open, July must be about bold decisions, not just treading water. Standing still, as this month showed, is starting to feel dangerously close to falling behind.

1. He pitched the 9th inning of Sunday’s loss with Atlanta trailing 2-1.