The Braves...vex me. Typically, for a team to vex me, they need to build a hatred in me. The 2010s Blue Jays vexed me. The Cardinals have vexed me since 2011. The Astros have vexed me since 2019. And now the Braves are vexing me. All these teams have committed the cardinal sin of deciding to be good, and surging, long after it'd make more sense for them to be mediocre. If they could have done that all along, they should have. But they have to do this pretending thing and be terrible for a bit and the suddenly spring to life. The difference between an underdog team like last years Tigers or the 2022 Phillies doing this is that those teams weren't great in April, and had to build into great teams by September. The Braves had all the necessary pieces to be great in April, weren't, and tried to course-correct and go 'no we were just kidding' and try and be a good team.
What's nice is that now this strategy is biting the Braves in the ass, because things are going south again and it's making that May come-up look downright absurd.
On May 18th, the Braves were 24-23, and were at the peak of their comeback stretch. Since then, they have won three games. and are looking at a fourth as I write this. And man has this stretch been filled with such ridiculous cosmic irony. First of all, they regained Spencer Strider from the IL, and he immediately injures Bryce Harper, making himself a villain of the NL East. Then the whole Craig Kimbrel thing happened, where Kimbrel seemed to be the only good reliever in Atlanta and got DFA'd after an inning, but Scott Blewett got way more chances and lost more games for them. Then there was that notorious D-Backs game where they were winning 10-4 going into the ninth and the bullpen allowed 7 runs and spoiled the game. And of course you should factor in that during all of this they gave up Orlando Arcia in favor of Nick Allen and lost A.J. Smith Shawver to Tommy John.
The biggest tragedy is that during this stretch Ronald Acuna Jr. has been back, and hitting exceptionally well, with 4 homers and 7 RBIs in 15 games. Yet the team is still suffering. The idea was that Acuna returning would bring this team back, and arguably the team's gotten worse since his return. The problems are piling up, the calls for Snitker's firing have risen [especially after hiring Fredi Gonzalez as a coach], and the other shoe has dropped.
Let's not ignore, though, that Matt Olson is having his best season since the HR parade of 2023, with 13 homers and 37 RBIs in addition to a 2.7 WAR. It's really just him that's fully excelling, because even the usual suspects, like Ozuna, Sale and Riley, are a couple steps down from the norm. And the Acuna thing is nice and all but the mystique is gone. The 'ooh, they could be good after all thing' isn't fooling anyone anymore, even as they're matching up well against Milwaukee.
They're certainly not dead yet, but this truly isn't a great look for the Braves. Not at all.
Coming Tomorrow- A rookie, one of many, trying to flip the narrative on a recent bust of a team.
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