Braves Report: Slim odds and veto power

The Braves are off today (and mercifully so, perhaps).

But the Braves Report never sleeps.

THE SERIES AHEAD

Let’s go ahead and take a quick look-see at the forthcoming Rangers series, shall we?

📺 How to watch: The three-game road set gets going at 8:05 p.m. Friday. Saturday’s first pitch arrives at 7:05 p.m., and Sunday is a 2:35 p.m. start.

All on FanDuel Sports.

⚾ The pitching matchups: In chronological order …

• Joey Wentz (2-1, 5.71) vs. Nathan Eovaldi (7-3, 1.58)
• Grant Holmes (4-9, 3.81) vs. Kumar Rocker (4-4, 5.66)
• Bryce Elder (4-6, 5.63) vs. Jack Leiter (6-6, 4.27)

📝 The scouting report: The Rangers are sitting at 53-50 and 1½ games out of the American League’s final wild card spot. They’ve won eight of their past 10, including a recently completed sweep of the Athletics.

We’ll discuss more tomorrow, but Eovaldi has been tremendous.

THE BIG NUMBER: 1.4%

Credit: Colin Hubbard/AP

Yes, Ronald. It's a real stat.

Those are the Braves’ current odds of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs.

Only seven teams are staring down slimmer chances — and the Athletics, Marlins, Nationals, Orioles, Pirates, Rockies and White Sox aren’t the type of company Atlanta’s used to keeping.

Seems that reality is finally setting in for the Braves clubhouse, too.

Starter pitcher Spencer Strider never minces words. But even by that standard, the thoughts he offered after Wednesday’s loss to the Giants were … stark.

🗣️ “It’s embarrassing. At some point, you can’t keep thinking that you’re better than you’re playing. I think at this point, we’ve got to be brutally honest with ourselves.”

🗣️ “There are consequences for our failure. It’s something that we’ve talked about as a group for the last couple months, is just the direction that we’re headed, that we might be saying goodbye to some friends if we don’t turn things around. And unfortunately, we might be in that boat now.”

Is it good that we’ve reached the point where statements like this are true?

Nope.

But the bargaining stage was getting a tad tedious. Depression and acceptance have been waiting.

THE OZUNA SITUATION

Credit: Mike Stewart/AP

Braves designated hitter Marcell Ozuna takes a swing (and a miss) against the Giants.

To be clear, the Braves are unlikely to move on from anyone under contract beyond this season. That includes struggling players like Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II.

But Marcell Ozuna — who’s been largely banished to the bench since before the All-Star break — seems more likely to depart every day.

To where? Hard to say.

The ~experts~ keep pointing to the Padres, who lack a regular designated hitter and could use help to 1) chase down the Dodgers in the NL West or 2) shore up their position in the wild card race.

• One report with anonymous sourcing suggested talks between the Padres and Braves were “intensifying,” but the veracity of that is debatable.

As you know, general manager Alex Anthopoulos tends to operate under the radar. So I’d put my money on Ozuna ending up elsewhere.

🤔 Either way, one thing to keep in mind: Although Ozuna’s recent comments suggest he won’t be combative for the sake of it, he can veto any proposed trade. Any player who has spent five seasons with their current team and has 10 years of MLB service earns that right.

DOWN ON THE FARM

Feels like a good day to check in on the Braves minor league system, no? A few quick notes:

1️⃣ Top prospect Cam Caminiti pitched four shutout innings for the Single-A Augusta GreenJackets yesterday. The 18-year-old now has a 2.73 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 29⅓ innings with Augusta.

2️⃣ At Double-A Columbus, 25-year-old third baseman Dave McCabe is hitting a robust .397 in July.

3️⃣ In his first Triple-A start after the end of his experiment in Atlanta, Didier Fuentes allowed four runs in two innings. His second? Three runs in 4⅔.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Credit: AP

Every single joint in my body hurts just looking at this.