Braves persevere through tough 13-game stretch; Red Sox and Reds are up next

The Braves survived and, at times, thrived, during their recent 13-games-in-13-days stretch that tested their pitching and position depth.

Despite losing the final two games of a three-game series to the Nationals over the weekend, the Braves (36-18) were 8-5 in that span. They have the most wins (36) in baseball and trail only the Rays (34-16) in winning percentage (.680-.667) for the best record in baseball.

Arriving at the last week of May with that gaudy record is undoubtedly impressive, but even more so considering catchers Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy are on the shelf, and right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. played in less than half those 13 games.

Pitching, as it has been all season, has been the main catalyst for the team’s success.

The Braves lead MLB in ERA (3.04) and batting average against (.207) and are second in WHIP (1.13). The starting rotation has finally settled, for now, on a five-man group that includes Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Bryce Edler, Grant Holmes and Martín Pérez.

For a bit, the Braves incorporated rookie JR Ritchie into the mix and made Pérez and Holmes available in the bullpen. That strategy has gone by the wayside for now thanks to the solid work of the team’s starting pitchers.

“Some of that was because of the 13-game stretch, trying to pop into the six-man rotation for a little bit. You can only do that for so long, because it hurts your pen. You just don’t have enough bodies out there,” manager Walt Weiss said of how the rotation has solidified. “But I like where our rotation is at.”

Offensively, the Braves went through a rough patch against the Nationals, scoring just six runs in three games. They were shut out for 17 straight innings before scratching across a single run in the ninth Sunday.

A blip on the radar? A foretelling of what’s to come? Weiss didn’t seem concerned about the team’s sudden lack of production.

“I mean, the offense has been really good. It’s been really good this year,” he said Sunday. “This tends to happen, right? I talk about the ebbs and flows of the offense over the course of a season. It’s part of it. It’s just difficult to go out and score six or seven runs every single night in this league.

“There’s going to be times you have a handful of guys that are searching for it at the same time. I think that’s kind of what we’re going through right now. No reason to panic about it because our offense been really good.”

Playing in the hitter-friendly ballparks in Boston and Cincinnati this week might help get the offense get back on track, too. But there should be some level of concern as well.