Braves on the edge of must-win territory with Mets series

The Braves begin the week 13 games back of New York. Series wins against Milwaukee and Colorado last week have given rise to higher levels of hope for a club still believing the best is yet to come. But the reality of the situation includes what looks to be an insurmountable hole to climb out of in trying to win a division crown.

The Braves also are eight games back of a wild-card spot and eight games under .500, its record punished by two seven-game losing streaks through the season’s first 70 games. They also haven’t been able to reel off more than four wins in a row and failed to sweep the Rockies on Sunday; they have swept a series once in 2025.

“This is why this is such a tough game to play,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said Sunday after a 10-1 loss to Colorado, his team’s worst defeat of the season. “It’s not easy. These guys make it look easy. They really do. They’re the best in the world at what they do and anything can happen on any given day.

“They work hard, they care, they do everything right. This is a tough game. Really hard game. It’s why we just keep grinding and working because they have faith that some point in time — believe me — we’re gonna get on that roll and that thing’s gonna start clicking and it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

There are signs for optimism in regard to Snitker’s assessment.

The Braves’ rotation has begun to round into solid form with the recent performances of Spencer Schwellenbach (Tuesday’s starter against New York), Chris Sale (Wednesday’s starter), Spencer Strider (Thursday’s starter) and Grant Holmes. That quartet has a combined ERA of 3.45 and 84 strikeouts over the past two weeks.

Getting Bryce Elder to pitch at an All Star level, which he has done before, will be pivotal in the absence of injured starter AJ Smith-Shawver.

No matter how good the Braves’ rotation has been, however, the bullpen continues to be a mixed bag of results. Braves relievers had allowed just one earned run over 12⅓ innings in five games before giving up eight runs (seven earned) to the Rockies on Sunday. Enyel De Los Santos, whom Snitker said may have had a chance to close Sunday’s game had the scenario arisen, didn’t record an out and allowed four earned runs on three hits and a walk.

“I felt really good about us holding that game there and coming back and winning. Had a hot guy (De Los Santos) coming out of the ‘pen and just didn’t happen,” Snitker said. “The streak we had last week of the one-run losses (at San Francisco), it wasn’t the pitching. Our pitching is plenty good. Just fighting to get the offensive click going. If I knew how to do that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you guys, I’d be a billionaire somewhere, quite honestly. That’s the beauty and the hard part of this game. You can’t figure those kinds of things out.”

At the plate, Ronald Acuña Jr. looks poised to have a dominant summer and may be doing enough already to be selected as an All Star in his home city July 15. He went 6-for-10 against the Rockies and went 13-for-21 with six RBIs, three homers and eight runs scored over his past six games.

But the former MVP’s consistency hasn’t translated down the rest of the lineup as both of the Braves’ losses last week saw the team held to a single run. The inconsistency has been perplexing, Snitker admitted.

“I don’t know what the answer is. Just keep waiting for it to happen. These guys have done it before,” he said. “I sound like a broken record, they’ve done it before, and they’re capable, and we all know that, and we have to do it. And we’re not being able to do that right now.”

New York (45-27) owns the National League’s best record and trails only Detroit for the best mark in all of MLB. The Mets come to Truist Park after getting swept by Tampa Bay in Flushing, New York.