WASHINGTON — It’s been one of the most moribund periods of Braves baseball in recent memory, as the team entered Thursday’s series opener against the Nationals riding an an eight-game losing streak, a skid made worse by the fact that it came in the last eight games of their nine-game homestand that ended Wednesday.
And also by the fact that the Braves were swept by the Marlins, who climbed above Atlanta into third place in the National League East standings entering Thursday.
The Braves were 1-15 with a 7.16 ERA and only 43 runs scored in their past 16 games, including 0-8 with a 7.63 ERA and 19 runs scored in the past eight games before Thursday. They scored one or no runs in half of those eight.
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez was asked Thursday afternoon if he thought this team was still playing with energy and enthusiasm.
“Yeah, just watch them play,” he said. “And if we’re losing, you sit down and have meetings, you talk to the coaches. We’re losing games when we don’t drive in runs when we have the bases loaded, or somebody hits a line drive double play in the field… that kind of stuff.”
Gonzalez said any fielding mistakes and missed scoring opportunities weighed especially heavy on this team as currently comprised, because of so many young pitchers who haven’t learned to deal with adversity.
“We’ve got a lot of young pitchers that sometimes they make mistakes, or we make a mistake behind them — we don’t catch a ball or get to that ball, or we don’t get to a ball, we don’t get that extra out or that third out. And they’re not at the stage right now to cover it up. They’re not doing it now, and you can’t ask them to.”
