Today's Three Things: Braves continue trend of anemic offense in sweep-clinching loss to Orioles
The Atlanta Braves are 1-9 in their last ten games and have scored one or no runs in six of those losses
The Atlanta Braves dropped their series finale to the last-place Baltimore Orioles 2-1 in Truist Park on Sunday afternoon, securing a Baltimore sweep of the series.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The bottom of the 7th inning.
Catcher Sean Murphy, sharing the lineup with rookie Drake Baldwin (who was the designated hitter) for just the third time this season, was desperately trying to get some offense going against cruising Baltimore starter Trevor Rogers.
He got a center-cut 1-0 changeup and launched it to right field at 106.1 off the bat, where it hit off of the absolute top of the wall - the horizontal cap, not the flat facade of the wall - and bounced back into play.
Here’s the video:
Thankfully, Murphy was running the entire time and ended up on second base with a double, which was upheld on review.
But Atlanta, as they’ve been wont to do often, was unable to cash in the leadoff double. Ozziae Albies flew out to right, which advanced Murphy to third base, but then Drake Baldwin popped out on a slider down and Michael Harris, checking in as a pinch-hitter against reliever Yennier Cano, grounded out to short.
Murphy almost had this exact same situation happen again in the 9th, except this time his flyball off the bat of Seranthony Domínguez bounced up and out of centerfield to get Atlanta on the board.
Today’s Player of the Game
Give me Sean Murphy.
On a day when the team collected only seven hits, Murphy had two and as I alluded to above, was half an inch away from both of them being homers. He also had a fantastic strike-them-out-throw-them-out double play in the 1st inning to get Jackson Holliday trying to steal second.
Fun stats here, courtesy of my newly granted access to MLB’s internal Research Tool: Murphy’s pop time of 1.89 seconds was better than 90th percentile and his arm strength of 83 mph on the throw down to second base was above 95th percentile. Despite being a bit high, requiring Short King Ozzie Albies to leap for it, it still got there in time for him to come down and tag Holliday for the out.
As I’ve said a few times recently, the Braves have one of the best and most enviable catching situations in the league. More coming this week on how the Braves should handle that going forward.
What You’ll Be Talking About
The offense, but I don’t know how much more there is to say about how terrible they’ve been during this losing streak.
Atlanta’s scored either one or no runs in six of their last nine losses. They went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position today, leaving them just 3-for-23 across the series. (All three hits came on Saturday, although they had twelve tries to get it done.) Of the nine runs they scored, only three came via something other than a home run.
It’s the entire offense, at this point. Even Ronald Acuña Jr., who got his first off day since returning, is hitting just .240 across his last 15 games.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s today’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the loss.
What’s Next for the Braves?
Atlanta’s flying out to Sacramento tonight to enjoy the off day before a three-game set against the Athletics. Both teams have already announced their rotations for the series: 10:05 x2, 9:05
Tuesday: Didier Fuentes (0-2, 9.00) vs LHP Jeffrey Springs (6-6, 4.07)
Wednesday: Bryce Elder (2-6, 5.92) vs RHP Mitch Spence (2-4, 4.06)
Thursday: Spencer Strider (3-7, 3.93) vs LHP JP Sears (7-7, 4.76)