Here’s a fun stat: The Atlanta Braves have played 20 games; they’ve trailed after nine innings only four times. They’re 12-8, half their losses coming in bonus cantos.
Here’s another: The Braves have played seven series; they’ve lost one.
And another: Of the Braves’ first 20 games, 14 were against teams that hold a winning record; the other six were against the Nationals, who have won the National League East four of the past six years and are expected to do so again.
When this schedule was released, there seemed a chance these Braves could be buried after 20 games. Instead they’re comfortably above .500, and they’ve been a bit unlucky. Of their four losses in regulation, one was the gone-with-the-wind nine-run lead at Wrigley Field. As of Monday morning, they led the National League in run differential. If we go by Pythagorean wins and losses, they should be 14-6. Were they 14-6, they’d be tied with the Mets atop what is shaping up as a strong division.
There are some bad teams in baseball. At this moment, the Braves are no longer among them. Even better, they’ve gotten to 12-8 without seeing one of those bottom-feeders. That’s set to end Monday with the beginning of a four-game series at Cincinnati, which is 3-18 and has fired its manager, but the safety net that is Miami has yet to be used; of the Braves’ 19 games against the sell-’em-all Marlins, the first won’t come until May 11.
The Braves’ hitting has continued apace. They lead the National League in runs, batting average and OPS. (They’ve also stuck out the fewest times.) What changed over the past fortnight was the starting pitching going from acceptable to outstanding. Not since April 10 against Steven Strasburg in D.C. has a Braves starter exited with his team trailing. Over the past 15 games, this rotation has an ERA of 2.38. Over the six-game homestand that ended with Sunday’s rainout, the Braves worked five quality starts (six innings with three or fewer earned runs).
Julio Teheran’s first two starts this season were lousy; his past three have been good-to-excellent. He has shrunk his ERA to 4.00. The other three regular starters – Mike Foltynewicz, Brandon McCarthy and Sean Newcomb – have even lower ERAs. Anibal Sanchez was solid in his two turns before hurting himself while running in the outfield. This prompted the return of Matt Wisler, on whom most among us had soured; he worked seven innings with one earned run against the division-leading Mets.
It never changes: If you can pitch, you can win. The belief here was that the Braves’ rotation would get a mid-year boost from Mike Soroka/Kolby Allard/Kyle Wright, which still could happen. As of now, none of these four starters have done anything to merit a demotion. They’re working deep – or what passes for deep into games in an era where the standard keeps diminishing – into games. They’re giving their team a chance to win. If there’s a place on this team that needs upgrading, it’s with the pitchers who take over from there.
A curiosity of this season is that 12 Braves’ wins have yielded but one save. (They’ve had only three save chances.) The starters’ ERA is third-best among 15 NL teams; their relievers’ ERA is 12th-best. In the past week, the Braves shed/demoted Luke Jackson, Lucas Sims and Josh Ravin and stashed Jose Ramirez on the disabled list. The issue has been walks. This shifting cast of relievers has issued 57, which is the most in the majors; second-most is Miami, with 44.
It’s not as if hitters have battered this bullpen. The Braves’ relievers lead MLB with a .197 batting-average against, but when you’ve walked the bases loaded, one crummy single can do exponential late-inning damage. Even A.J. Minter and Arodys Vizcaino, the best of this lot, have fallen into line. Between them, they’ve walked 14 – against only nine hits – in 20 innings.
I don’t know exactly what Alex Anthopoulos’ offseason thinking was, but his Braves made no real move – unless you count the re-signing of Peter Moylan– to bolster their bullpen. My semi-educated guess would be that the new general manager didn’t want to invest heavily in anything before assessing what he had. With the rotation and the everyday eight, such watchful waiting has worked, at least to date Indeed, low-budget acquisitions Ryan Flaherty, Preston Tucker and Sanchez have been excellent; so has the higher-priced McCarthy, landed in the Matt Kemp salary dump.
Another bit of surmise: If you don’t figure to be a serious contender, you don’t have a crying need for Aroldis Chapman or Andrew Miller. Twenty games in, this team has shown signs of being much better than expected. The good news is that relief help is usually easy to find. (Even terrible teams have a big arm.) The bad is that it’s too early for much of a market to have formed. If this bullpen doesn’t stop walking the ballpark, Anthopoulos can’t wait until July. To be fair to the team he has, he’ll have to try to make it better – and not many teams in sell mode will want Nick Markakis.
Credit Anthopoulos for an outside-the-box move in signing Jose Bautista to play, of all places, third base. Manager Brian Snitker said Monday that the former Blue Jay will displace Flaherty, who’s hitting .362. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems a reach. Bautista, who’s 37, is coming off a bad season and has barely played the position in six years. On the other hand: Is there any chance Joey Bats could pitch the seventh inning?
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