ATLANTA — In a season that’s seen the Atlanta Braves lose their Cy Young Award favorite to elbow surgery after two starts, lose their reigning NL MVP to knee surgery in late May, lose their starting catcher, center fielder and second baseman for about two months apiece, and recently lose their mascot Blooper to a calf injury, the nadir might finally have been reached on the homestand that ended with a thud Thursday.
They can only hope it did.
And before we go any further, yes, the real Blooper has been sidelined in recent weeks by a calf injury. That’s a backup who’s worn the costume recently. Not that there’s been much to frolic about, particularly during a 2-5 homestand that ended with a five-game losing skid, capped by a 16-7 loss Thursday to the Milwaukee Brewers.
“We weren’t very good, obviously — that might be an understatement today,” said manager Brian Snitker, whose Braves were swept in the three-game series by the surging Brewers.
#Braves got humiliated, today in a 16-7 loss to the Brewers and in losing the last five games of this seven-game homestand against the Marlins and Brewers, who swept them after the Marlins split four. This was bad. Season is spiraling.
— David O’Brien (@DOBrienATL) August 8, 2024
Charlie Morton surrendered eight runs and nine hits in 2 2/3 innings, including four homers, the most ever allowed by the 40-year-old pitcher in 373 starts over 17 seasons.
Atlanta pitchers allowed a season-high 20 hits Thursday and at least 16 hits in all three games, the first time that’s happened to the Braves in 90 years, since the 1934 Boston Braves endured the ignominy.
Home runs by Austin Riley and Marcell Ozuna accounted for all the Braves’ runs until a three-run eighth inning. On the other side, Jackson Chourio hit two of the Brewers’ six home runs and former Braves catcher William Contreras had a two-run homer and double as he continued to haunt the team that traded him. Chourio, at 20 years and 150 days, became the youngest major leaguer to have a multi-homer game since Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in 2019.
It was that kind of day. An absolutely lousy ending to a terrible five games in six days for the Braves, who went from having a nice wild-card lead and being five games behind the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies to being in third place in the East, a half-game behind the New York Mets, and dropping from first to fourth in the wild-card standings behind San Diego, Arizona and now the Mets.
If the postseason started today, the Braves would not be in it, for the first time since 2017.
“I thought we had made up some ground,” Riley said, referring to a stretch of six wins in seven games including two wins against Miami to start the homestand. “Those first two games were really good offensively. We were swinging it, then just kind of hit a wall. You know, we get to play tomorrow. Try to have a short memory of this.”
The Braves start a three-city, 10-game trip Friday at Colorado. They have three-game series against the Rockies and Los Angeles Angels around a four-game series at San Francisco. What once looked like a fairly easy trip no longer does for the Braves, who are struggling against just about everyone.
“This was an ugly day, an ugly series,” Snitker said, sounding frustrated and exhausted after a game that took 3 hours and 22 minutes on a hot, humid afternoon. “So, maybe we can fly across the country and start something good.”
They’ll soon be running out of time if they don’t reverse this tumble. Other wild-card contenders are heating up, while the Braves are sputtering. After starting the season with a majors-best 19-7 record, they are 41-47 since and 2 1/2 games behind the Padres and two games behind Arizona pending the Diamondbacks’ late game Thursday against the Phillies.
“They did everything right and we couldn’t get anything going,” Riley said after the Brewers dominated for three days. “Just not a very good series.”
Riley agreed it was one of the Braves’ worst in recent memory.
“Yeah, I would definitely … I can’t … Yeah, it was pretty rough,” he said, racking his brain to remember a worse series and/or searching for words to convey the misery.
So, what exactly has happened to the six-time defending NL East champion Braves? Why is their season spiraling?
Start with injuries but also add an equal measure of underperformance from hitters who carried much of the load for their record-setting offense in 2023. Matt Olson, who led the majors in homers and RBIs last season, is hitting just .227 with a .720 OPS this season, with 18 homers and 54 RBIs. Shortstop Orlando Arcia, a 2023 All-Star, has been a well below-average hitter since midseason last year.
And while second baseman Ozzie Albies wasn’t having one of his better seasons before breaking his left wrist on July 21, his replacements have provided almost nothing at the plate. Albies is expected back in mid-September.
Even Riley, the Braves’ second-best hitter behind Ozuna, is hitting a modest .266 with 17 homers, 53 RBIs and an .806 OPS. He averaged 36 homers and 99 RBIs over the previous three seasons with a .286 average and .878 OPS.
Pitching has been the Braves’ saving grace. But two of their three All-Star starters, Max Fried and Reynaldo López, had recent injured-list stints. The Braves are trying to piece together the back of the rotation while providing extra rest for all of their starters.
Braves starters have lasted fewer than five innings in all five games during the losing skid, tied for the longest such streak in the majors this season.
Rookie starter Spencer Schwellenbach has been a revelation and one of the few bright spots this season. However, the Braves need to be careful with him since he’s already pitched 109 2/3 innings between the minor leagues and majors, after totaling 65 innings in 2023 in his first year of pro ball. He was the last Atlanta pitcher to work at least five innings — he went seven in Friday’s win against Miami — and is getting a few extra days of rest before his next start.
Morton seems finally to be showing signs of age with his erratic performance. He’s alternated good starts with bad ones, and his season-worst performance Thursday left him with a 6-7 record and 4.47 ERA in 20 starts, after going 14-12 with a 3.64 ERA in 30 starts in 2023 and missing the postseason with a finger-ligament injury.
Opponents just .189 against Morton’s curveballs and changeups before Thursday, compared to .304 against his four-seam fastball, sinker and cutter. But three of the four homers he allowed against the Brewers came on curveballs, after Contreras’ first-inning homer on a 94.2 mph fastball at the top of the strike zone.
Morton gave up a two-out, two-run homer in each of the first two innings to Contreras and Chourio, whose second-inning homer on an 0-1 curveball was followed immediately by a Garrett Mitchell homer on a 3-1 curveball. Those back-to-back jacks stretched the Brewers’ lead to 6-0.
“The way my ball’s spinning, the way it’s moving, I think it’s no better or worse than normal,” said Morton, who needed 83 pitches (53 strikes) to get eight outs. “I just think that they’re a really good team, and I think the windows there for me today weren’t big at all. There was barely any chase.”
Willy Adames led off the third inning with a homer on a 1-2 curveball, and four batters (and two singles) later, Morton was replaced by 28-year-old rookie Parker Dunshee, making his major-league debut after seven seasons in the minors. Dunshee had three consecutive strikeouts after hitting the leadoff man in the fourth inning but ended up allowing four runs and five hits including two homers in 2 1/3 innings.
The Braves opened a 40-man roster spot for him by designating outfielder Eddie Rosario for assignment. Rosario was a fan favorite in his first stint with the Braves after coming from Cleveland at the 2021 trade deadline and helping the Braves march to the World Series championship that year, winning NLCS MVP honors along the way.
But Rosario, 32, hit .154 with three homers, three walks, 23 strikeouts and a .463 OPS in 84 plate appearances during this stint with Atlanta. Overall, in 91 games this season with the Nationals and Braves, he hit .175 with a .531 OPS that’s the majors’ lowest among hitters with at least 300 PAs.
It says plenty about the Braves’ season that another of their outfielders, Adam Duvall, had a .575 OPS before Thursday that ranks third-worst among players with 300 or more PAs. Arcia’s .638 OPS before Thursday was 20th-worst, meaning the Braves had three of the bottom 20.
The #Braves DFA’d outfielder Eddie Rosario, who just hasn’t hit at all since they acquired him for a second time, and they recalled OF Eli White.
Also, RHP Parker Dunshee was brought from Triple A after LHP Dylan Dodd was optioned following Wednesday’s game.
— David O’Brien (@DOBrienATL) August 8, 2024
Until the Braves traded for Jorge Soler last week, Duvall had become the regular in right field and Rosario in left most games, with Jarred Kelenic in center in place of injured Michael Harris II. When the season began, the Braves had Acuña Jr. in right, Harris in center and Kelenic and Duvall platooning in left.
Harris, who’s missed nearly two months with a Grade 2 hamstring strain, began a Triple-A rehab assignment Tuesday and is expected to rejoin the Braves during the trip, on or soon after the Aug. 14 date (Wednesday) when he’s eligible to come off the 60-day IL.
The Braves boarded a bus for a police-escorted trip to the airport Wednesday afternoon during rush hour in Atlanta, and chances are it was quieter than usual. But Morton said the clubhouse, which he’s called the best he’s ever been a part of, remains solid despite the team’s continued struggles.
“There’s a lot of even-keeled people in that room, he said. “There are a lot of good people, good human beings in there that are professionals and take responsibility for themselves. The average person, I think, would start to blame other people, and start to be critical of other people. And I just don’t see a lot of that. That’s when the room becomes toxic, when you start getting upset at other people, getting upset at the situation.
“That’s when things take a turn for the worse. I don’t see that in that room. I just don’t.
(Photo of Charlie Morton: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
