WASHINGTON – One of the baffling points in a weird Braves season: Atlanta has been unable to consistently beat the rebuilding Nationals.
The Braves on Wednesday lost, 5-1, at Nationals Park. They split the two games here.
The Braves went 5-8 in the games against Washington this season. Yes, the Braves are depleted. But will they end up regretting their performance against a bad team?
We’ll see. Atlanta is one game behind the Mets for the National League’s third wild-card spot.
Five observations:
1. In the bottom of the fifth inning, Max Fried rolled a double-play ball, but a run scored. Under “ER” in his pitching line, it read “4.”
This is something we haven’t seen in a Braves starting pitcher’s line in over a month.
Fried’s start on Wednesday was the first time a Braves starting pitcher had allowed four earned runs since Aug. 10 in Colorado. Braves starters had strung together 29 straight starts of three or fewer earned runs.
Think about that. That’s a month of stellar starting pitching. A month of starters keeping the Braves in games.
The issue: This depleted lineup has often given its pitching staff no room for error. The Braves only went 18-11 over that 29-game stretch. This doesn’t factor in the bullpen or other factors that could lead to losses, but you get the point.
“Yeah, but we’ve just been having a hard time scoring runs,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “You still have to score. I mean, you gotta really, really pitch good – which we have – but the offense has gotta be more consistent if you’re gonna support the pitching. It’s nobody’s fault or anything, it’s just the way it is.”
On Wednesday, the Nationals scored four runs to jump out to a four-run lead – which hasn’t been an easy climb for these Braves. They scored 12 runs on Tuesday, but they haven’t had many great offensive performances lately.
Once again, the Braves failed to keep the momentum after a big win.
“It’s hard to gain some momentum in this game,” Michael Harris II said. “There’s a lot of good pitchers and I know when we face guys that we’re gonna get their best, and guys are gonna game plan a little bit more than usual, maybe. Yeah, I mean, obviously you want to win every game, but it’s not realistic in this world. I guess just trying to get as many as you can, and I guess the ones you do lose, you just know you went out fighting hard and you have a good amount of positives in it as well.”
2. In a four-run loss, the Braves had multiple opportunities to swing the game. But they went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left six men on base.
This hurt.
It’s been stunning to see how poorly the Braves have hit with runners in scoring position compared to previous seasons.
“Well, yeah,” Snitker said. “We’ve had a different cast of characters in the past. But still. That being said, it’s not an excuse or anything. We have to be better. It still hurts when you get guys on and you can’t get them in. It’s kind of been up and down, and good and bad, and the whole thing for a while.”
Snitker is correct. In one such situation, Cavan Biggio failed to come through. This is not to put it on him, but to illustrate that the guys taking these at-bats were never expected to be doing so.
Nationals starter Jake Irvin threw six innings of one-run ball. Irvin in four starts against the Braves this season: Three earned runs in 23 1/3 innings.
“We just couldn’t solve him all year, pretty much,” Snitker said. “After last night, though, you hope that maybe that’s the start of something really good, and keep building on that. But, didn’t happen.”
3. Fried gave up 11 hits, which tied a career high. He had only allowed that many in two other games in his career. He wasn’t sharp.
The context will infuriate Braves fans.
In the third inning, the Nationals scored two runs and only one ball left the infield. There was a roller to the side of the mound that Fried couldn’t snag and throw to first. Biggio, starting at second base for his first game with the Braves, didn’t make another play. In that inning, three of Washington’s four hits left the bat at under 83 mph.
Fried dealt with multiple baserunners in three of his six innings. It could’ve been worse than four runs.
“You can’t control a lot, but at the same time, it’s frustrating because we’re trying to win games and it doesn’t matter if a ball’s hit 40 miles per hour or 120 miles per hour. I’d much rather be getting an out,” Fried said. “It’s frustrating. You feel like you make some pitches, and tonight, felt like my off-speed stuff was working really well, and they had a really good plan of attack of being on the fastball and fighting it off.”
4. One weird part of Fried’s season: Entering Wednesday’s start, left-handers had hit .314 with an .827 OPS against him. This is much more success than lefties usually have against Fried, who might be the game’s best left-handed starter when he’s at his best.
For context: Before this start, lefties had hit .240 with a .674 OPS against Fried since he debuted in 2017.
In the fourth inning, the left-handed hitting CJ Abrams homered off Fried.
Asked about lefties’ numbers against him, Fried said: “It’s definitely been something that I’ve been aware of and it’s frustrating because I’ve done a good job over my career. For lefties to have a really good approach against me and being on it – they seem to be going the other way really well and finding holes, and I haven’t been able to kind of put away or strike guys out, probably, as much as I need to be able to counter that. And when I do try to go in to be able to attack them, I’m cutting a sinker and leaving it over the middle of the plate and guys are putting good swings (on it) and hitting it hard. I feel like as of late, I’ve been better at it. Again, it just hasn’t been ideal.”
5. In early May, the Dodgers swept the Braves at Dodger Stadium. That Braves lineup looked different: It featured Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies in addition to the others.
This time, none of those three will play. Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ lineup is fully healthy, led by stars Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and, yes, Freddie Freeman.
The Braves and Dodgers have played some great games in the past. This weekend, the Braves must have a good showing over the four games.
The starters are as follows: Spencer Schwellenbach (Friday), Chris Sale (Saturday), Charlie Morton (Sunday) and Fried (Monday).
“I know me personally, I want to get back out there as soon as possible,” Fried said. “It should be a really good series and I know that we’ll be ready to go on Friday.”
Stat to know
14 - On Wednesday, the Braves once again failed to get to 14 games over .500, which would be a season-best mark. Atlanta has been 13 over six different times this season. The team is 0-7 when trying to get to 14 games over .500.
Quotable
“At this point, we just care about winning games. It doesn’t matter who comes in. If they’re brought into this clubhouse, then there’s a good chance that they have the tools and they’re the type of player that’s gonna help us win games. It doesn’t really matter. We’re gonna go take the field and when we’re between those lines, we leave it all out there and just try to win the game that day.” - Fried on having so many new pieces due to the injuries
Up next
Friday’s series opener against the Dodgers begins at 7:20 p.m. It’ll be broadcast on Apple TV+.
