SAN DIEGO – For a stretch from last season to this season, the Braves went 182 games without being shut out.
Now, they have been blanked in five of their last 36 games.
On Saturday, Atlanta lost to the Padres, 4-0, at Petco Park. In the first-half finale on Sunday, the Braves and Padres will play for the series.
Five observations:
1. The Braves put the leadoff man on in each of the first two innings against Dylan Cease. In the fourth, they had two men on base with one out. In the seventh, against the bullpen, the leadoff man reached base. In the eighth, they had a man on second with one out. In the ninth, they put two men on against the closer.
None of those situations led to a run.
Cease shut down the Braves, then his bullpen followed.
“They’re tough,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said of terrific starters like Cease. “You hope you can keep the game close and get to the bullpen, pretty much. Maybe he’ll hang one and you score some runs.
“You know what, we did (keep the game close). We didn’t do anything with the bullpen, either. All the guys we faced today were really top-shelf guys.”
The Braves have been shut out five times in 94 games after suffering only two shutout losses a year ago. In 2022, the Braves were blanked five times. In 2021, when they went on to win the World Series, they were shut out six times.
Down four runs in the ninth inning, the Braves had runners on second and third with two outs against closer Robert Suarez before Sean Murphy grounded out to end the game.
“We put together some good at-bats there,” said Adam Duvall, who had one of the two-out hits off Suarez. “We at least gave ourselves a chance. And yeah, against a guy like that trying to close out the game, any time you can get runners on and give yourself a chance to put multiple runners on the board, that’s what you gotta try and do against a guy like that.”
2. In May, Cease, a Milton High alum, gave up five runs, including two home runs, over four innings in the first game of a doubleheader at Truist Park. The Braves jumped on Cease that day.
On Saturday?
“I don’t know that we were gonna knock him around today,” Snitker said. “That was different than what we saw in Atlanta. That was something else, quite honestly.”
The Braves only managed one hit off Cease over six innings. The right-hander fanned 11 Braves.
“A lot of his pitches looked the same coming out of the hand,” Duvall said. “He was hitting 100 (miles per hour) there in the sixth inning, I think. He had his best stuff. I faced him before, and I think that’s probably the best that I’ve seen him. You just gotta keep grinding when a guy’s got his best stuff. We had a chance to put a crooked number up there at the end.”
When a pitcher like Cease brings his best stuff to the ballpark, the offense likely will have a rough day. The hope, then, is that you can punish a mistake here or there and score runs in bunches with a homer or two.
“Speaking of which, I got a good one to hit my second at-bat and I popped it up,” Duvall said. “You gotta take advantage of those ones that he misses over the middle. But he didn’t do that too much today. He had some good stuff today.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
3. No one saw Reynaldo López going into the All-Star break leading the majors with a 1.88 ERA as an All-Star.
Not even López.
“All I knew was that I was gonna come in and I was gonna fight and compete, and just continue to readjust to a starting role again,” López said through interpreter Franco García. “Thankfully, (the Braves) had these plans for me (to start) and here we are.”
In his final start before the break, López gave up a season-high 11 hits. He allowed three earned runs for only the second time in 17 starts.
He also went at least six innings for the 10th time. He kept Atlanta in the game.
In the fifth inning, though, López made a costly mistake. With two outs, Tyler Wade, batting ninth for the Padres, hit a ball down the first-base line. Matt Olson went to his left and stopped it, then turned to toss it to López – who wasn’t there.
He didn’t cover first base.
So Olson ran to the bag and tried to dive for the out. Wade was safe. He stole second and then scored on Luis Arraez’s double.
López could’ve been through five having allowed only a run. But the Padres added a second run.
“I saw it hit and so I thought it was gonna go foul, and so I stopped, but that is an error that can’t happen,” López said. “I have to cover first, regardless of whatever happens, and then let the umpire call what he’s gonna call. But that’s on me to cover first regardless of what’s happening. To me, that’s unacceptable.
“If you look at this way, it cost me the game today, but if that’s a postseason game, then we lose that game and there’s nothing we can do about that. That’s completely on me and that’s something that can’t happen. I need to cover first in that situation.”
López is the first Braves pitcher to post a 1.88 ERA or better over at least 95 2/3 innings before the break since Jair Jurrjens in 2011 (1.87 ERA). Before that, no Brave had done it since Greg Maddux in 1998 (1.54 ERA).
4. Recently, Snitker asked López if he’d like to pitch in the All-Star Game. López said yes.
It happened to line up perfectly. Tuesday, when the game is played, would be López’s day for his between-starts bullpen session. So he’s available to pitch in the game.
“I think for my family and I, it’s just going to be a really nice moment,” he said.
5. The Braves were shut out after a great offensive night on Friday. They lost two in Arizona after winning the first two – one in dramatic fashion. They took two of three from the Phillies, but lost two of three to the Giants before that.
They have had a few small winning streaks here and there, but haven’t been able to sustain momentum for a long period of time.
“It seemed like we had some momentum at the beginning of Arizona, and then we didn’t finish that series like we wanted to,” Duvall said. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what it is, I can’t pinpoint it. It seems like we’re there some games and other games we struggle to score runs. The good thing is our pitching has really kept us in ballgames and given us a chance to win a lot of them. We just gotta keep fighting. It’ll eventually break – I don’t know when, but it’s going to.”
Stat to know
14 - The Braves struck out 14 times in this loss. They’ve punched out at least 14 times in four games this season – all losses. In May, they struck out a season-high 18 times against the Padres. In 2023, they had five games in which they fanned 14 or more times.
Quotable
“Yeah, just the way I’ve been going about my work and pitching this season. You have highs and lows, you have good moments, bad moments, so it’s just important to sort of take a second and appreciate and celebrate the high moments and the good moments and the highs. I’m very proud, also, of the fact that I’m going to the All-Star Game, so I’m really happy about that and just all the work that’s led up to this.” - López on what he’s most proud of from his first half
Up next
On Sunday, the Braves will close the first half with Chris Sale on the mound versus right-hander Randy Vásquez and the Padres. First pitch is at 4:10 p.m.
