The Atlanta Braves opened the season with a cobbled-together rotation compiling an astonishing ERA of 1.50 through 21 games. Back then, we lauded these pitchers for their stellar work and general manager Frank Wren for moving with such dispatch to compensate for the spring losses of Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy. We also wondered what would happen if the starting pitching returned to something approaching reality.
We’re seeing now. The Braves’ starters still have the lowest ERA in baseball, but 2.88 isn’t quite 1.50. When you’re awful offensively, another run per start can be the difference between leading the National League East by 3 ½ games, which the Braves did on April 27, and falling into a three-way tie for first, which is where they found themselves when they awoke Monday.
To its credit, the rotation hasn’t come close to crumbling. The Braves lead the majors in quality starts (six innings with three or fewer earned runs), but the bullpen has begun to wobble and the hitters haven’t yet hit. Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, Ervin Santana and Aaron Harang just worked consecutive quality starts; the Braves won one of the four games.
Even as we praise Wren for building this rotation on the fly and mostly on the cheap, we must fault him for assembling a batting order that didn’t hit anything but homers last season and hasn’t hit at all in 2014. As of Monday, the Braves were next-to-last in baseball in runs and last in hitting with runners in scoring position. The wonder wasn’t that they no longer had first place to themselves but that it took so long for the Washington Nationals to grab a piece.
Because a 162-game season offers so many false clues, it’s perilous to base too much on what we just saw. These Braves could become a good-hit, bad-pitch team overnight. (Stranger things have happened, though not many.) A better guess would be that the pitching will get a bit worse, if only because it has been almost too good to be true, and the hitting a bit better, if only because it can’t get worse, and then the question becomes: Will that be enough to make the playoffs?
Some of that depends on outside forces. If the Brewers falter, which seems probable, and the Dodgers fail to ignite, which would be hard to believe, the Braves could remain one of the league’s five best teams. But they’re 15-22 since April 27, which suggests that water is seeking its level.
Fredi Gonzalez has already taken the what-the-heck tack of batting his pitcher eighth. He has benched Dan Uggla, although when Uggla does appear it reminds us that Gonzalez’s 25-man roster includes only 24 big-league players. Beyond that, it’s hard to imagine what else this manager can do. As ineffective as the everyday lineup has been, the reserves are worse.
If there’s a fix to be made, Wren will have to make it. He’s terrible at buying big-ticket free agents, but he has a knack for finding useful players at lesser prices. (He got Harang after the pitcher was cut by Cleveland. He got Chris Johnson, who hit .321 last season, as a ride-along in the Justin Upton trade.) But this underperforming lineup, as strange as it sounds, appears almost set. Johnson just agreed to a three-year extension at $23.5 million; B.J. Upton is on the payroll — shudder — through 2017.
The Braves could deal a young pitcher – Alex Wood, David Hale or the minor-leaguer Lucas Sims – for a bat, but there’s a catch there, too. Three of these five starting pitchers aren’t under contract for 2015. Some of those young arms will be needed in next year’s rotation. We can count on Wren, who’s not a patient man, making some sort of move. Alas, there wouldn’t seem many moves to make. (Unless the Braves want to consider trading Jason Heyward, which they shouldn’t.)
This being baseball, the Braves could win their next 10 and make us feel silly for doubting them. But a team that can’t score isn’t apt to win 10 in a row or even five. I try not to overreact during a season that spans six months, but this team looks to be in real trouble.
