Sean Murphy: tweaked an oblique in the season’s third plate appearance; remains on the injured list.
Spencer Strider: felt a twinge in his elbow in his second start; won’t pitch again until 2025.
Ozzie Albies: fouled a pitch off his foot; on the IL with a broken big toe.
Max Fried: of 245 MLB pitchers who have worked at least 10 innings, ranks 231st in ERA (7.71).
Ronald Acuna: has one home run in 93 plate appearances.
Matt Olson: coming off a week in which he went 1-for-20 with 10 strikeouts.
The 2024 Braves: lead the NL East; no MLB team has lost fewer games.
Remember the Braves’ eight All-Stars from last season? Three – Murphy, Strider, Albies – are on the IL. A fourth – Bryce Elder – was pitching for Gwinnett and will debut tonight. A fifth – Acuna – has seen his strikeout percentage (23.7) more than double from last season (11.4). A sixth – Olson – has gone two weeks without a home run. Fried, a 2022 All-Star, has made it beyond five innings once in four starts.
And yet: The Braves had won six in a row and led the reigning World Series champs 3-0 Sunday night before being shut down by David Robertson and former teammate Kirby Yates. The Phillies and Mets have recovered from tepid starts – each has a better record than the Dodgers, the greatest team ever assembled – but the Braves hold first place, same as they have every day since April 2, 2023.
A year ago today, Marcell Ozuna was hitting .078 with an OPS of .405. He had two home runs, those accounting for both his RBIs. He had four hits against 15 strikeouts. He had, these fallible fingers typed, nothing left.
One year later, Ozuna leads the majors in homers, RBIs and OPS. He appears to have something left.
Ozuna has nine homers. Only one other Brave has more than three, and that Brave had none until the second inning of Friday’s game. Then Travis d’Arnaud hit three in less time than it takes to remember which “d” in his last name is capitalized. (Answer: neither.) Just for fun, he hit another Saturday.
On the morning of Opening Day, had you said that April 22 would arrive with Ozuna having more homers than Acuna, Olson, Albies and Austin Riley combined, you’d have been laughed out of court. But here this team is, leading MLB in batting average and OPS. The biggest bats aren’t fully engaged, but only Arizona, which has played three more games, has scored more runs.
That’s the good news, not that “the Braves can really hit” constitutes news. Alex Anthopoulos’ batting average, if you will, is rather good. In April 2021, the GM plucked reserve infielder Orlando Arcia from Milwaukee for Chad Sobotka and Patrick Weigel. Arcia became the Braves’ shortstop last spring. He was an All-Star last summer. He’s hitting .329 with an OPS of .842 today. Neither Sobotka nor Weigel has graced an MLB roster lately.
In December, the Braves acquired Jarred Kelenic from Seattle for Cole Phillips and Jackson Kowar. Over three seasons as a Mariner, the heralded Kelenic hit .204 with an OPS of .656. In his first month as a Brave, he’s batting .326 with an OPS of .783. Phillips is in rookie ball. Kowar just had Tommy John surgery.
Those are the Little Moves that Anthopoulos has made his stock in trade. Put together, two or three Little Moves can become a Big Deal. Another example: In November, Anthopoulos signed Reynaldo Lopez for $30 million over three seasons. (Call that a mid-major move.) He’d started one game since 2021. Over 20 games, these Braves have had six quality starts. Lopez has half of them.
As encouraging as Lopez has been, the state of the Braves’ rotation cannot be described as stout. Their starters’ ERA is 4.85, sixth-worst among MLB teams. (The Phillies’ is 2.25, second-best.) Yes, it’s early, but it’s never too early to fret about pitching.
There’s not much doubt the Braves will hit better than they have, and it’s not as if they haven’t hit. But if Memorial Day comes and goes and this rotation hasn’t begun to rotate, it might be time for another mid-major move.
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