During a season that has already featured multiple crushing defeats, the Braves’ series finale against the Diamondbacks outdid them all.
They allowed seven runs in the ninth inning — the rally starting with one out and no runners on base — to lose 11-10 Thursday afternoon at Truist Park.
The defeat, Atlanta’s 11th in its past 14 games, begs the simple question: Is this rock bottom?
“Yeah,” Drake Baldwin said in a quiet postgame clubhouse. “I would say so.”
The Braves took a six-run lead into the ninth inning, but reliever Scott Blewett struggled after securing the first out. Four consecutive Diamondbacks reached base, and Arizona cut its deficit in half with a pair of home runs.
Atlanta called on Raisel Iglesias to secure the final two outs, but the usual closer was not much better. He allowed four hits, including a two-out, two-RBI double that gave the Diamondbacks their first lead of the game.
The Braves followed with a walk and three uncompetitive at-bats to suffer their first loss when leading by at least six runs through eight innings since July 17, 1973. It broke a streak of 766 games.
“It’s a horrible loss,” Brian Snitker said. “Now we get to sit on it for five hours on the airplane. We’re all going to be miserable, and we should.”
The loss was improbable — MLB.com gave the Diamondbacks a 0.1% chance of winning after Blewett secured the first out of the ninth inning — but just the latest in a season of woes for the Braves. They are now 9-16 in one-run games with seven-straight losses dating back to May 14.
“We’re a good team,” Snitker said. “We’re not a bad team. We’re a good team that’s playing bad right now. We can’t execute. We can’t finish a game, and we’ve gotta do better. I’ve gotta do better. The coaches have gotta do better. The players have gotta do better.”
Through the majority of the game, the Braves put on a performance that could have created positive momentum entering their six-game road trip. Atlanta scored six runs in the first three innings and later added three more on home runs from Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Drake Baldwin.
But instead, it was another woeful loss in a season filled with them.
“You’ve gotta keep moving forward,” Michael Harris II said. “Short-term memory is probably the best thing in this sport, forgetting what happened the day before and trying to improve the next day.”
The Braves are now 27-34 on the season, which is the same number of games below .500 as they were when they started the year 0-7. They will travel to San Francisco for a three-game series with the Giants beginning Friday.
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