When the 2024 baseball season began, the Atlanta Braves anticipated smooth sailing to their seventh straight division title – and perhaps a repeat of the world championship campaign they enjoyed three years earlier.
But that was before they lost their best pitcher, their best position player, and their ability to hit.
Say what?
After leading the major leagues with 104 wins, a record .501 slugging percentage, and a record-tying 307 home runs in 2023, the only thing the Braves could hit was the skids.
Even before Ronald Acuña, Jr. went down with a season-ending torn ACL on May 26, his bat was as silent as those of his teammates.
Austin Riley, a notorious streak hitter, never warmed with the weather. Ozzie Albies, another of the club-record eight All-Stars Atlanta sent to the 2023 All-Star Game, also appeared over-anxious at the plate.
So did Matt Olson, who led both leagues last year with 54 home runs and 139 runs batted in, both career peaks.
Except for veteran designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, who picked up Olson’s fallen mantle, not a single hitter wearing Braves livery has produced as expected – or even close to it.
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Everyone from 2022 Rookie of the Year Michael Harris II to newly-acquired Jarred Kelenic succumbed to the pressure and tried harder, compounding the felony.
Star catcher Sean Murphy hurt his oblique Opening Day, missed two months, and turned into an automatic out when he returned. And Adam Duvall, pressed into service as a regular after Acuña went down, had trouble staying above the notorious Mendoza Line.
The June swoon actually began months earlier – when the 2023 juggernaut suddenly morphed into an anemic version of its former self.
Losing Spencer Strider early was a reality check. Injuries happen everywhere but losing the man who led both leagues in wins (20) and strikeouts (281) – especially after he had unveiled a new off-speed pitch that stymied spring training opponents – severely ravaged a rotation with only three remaining reliable starters.
Even without Acuña and Strider, however, manager Brian Snitker remained confident, predicting a turnaround was right around the corner.
But that was before his strikeout-prone horses turned up lame, losing five of their first seven to the lowly Washington Nationals and showing no hint of repeating their 21-4 June rampage of 2023.
“We’re having a tough time scoring runs,” the always-stoic Snitker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You can’t shoot yourself in the foot when you’re not going good and things aren’t happening.”
Since the start of play April 19, the Bad-News Braves went 16-20. Before losing in Washington Saturday, the Atlanta lineup owned a composite .220 batting average, worst of any National League team and 29th out of 30 teams in the majors, topping only the Chicago White Sox.
Their 122 runs scored also ranked next-to-last, again topping the Chisox. In addition, their OPS (on-base plus slugging) of .644 stood ahead of only the Sox and the Nationals.
For a team that went into the season with no regular above age 30, that’s not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable for a team that ranks sixth in payroll, according to Spotrac, at $231,403,512 [virtually all position players are signed to long-term contracts].
It’s the opposite of last year, when the Braves tied records with three 40-homer men (Acuña, Ozuna, and Olson) and five above 30 home runs (counting Albies and Riley).
Just as hitting is contagious – with each member of the lineup trying to keep the line moving – so is slumping. And when players press, a bad situation becomes worse: too many strikeouts, not enough walks, and poor production with runners in scoring position.
Snitker and his bench coach, former major-league manager Walt Weiss, keep predicting that the malaise will end, citing the constant barrage of hard-hit balls that turn into outs. But velocity is no guarantee of success, especially in a game where offensive production has declined across the board.
With the notable exceptions of the young-and-hungry Baltimore Orioles, the Yankees’ dynamic duo of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, and the three MVP candidates atop the lineup of the Los Angeles Dodgers (Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman), runs per game are on the decline.
Comparing the first 742 team games of this season with the first 744 of last year, Jack Sommers reported in Sports Illustrated that teams had a composite batting average of .240 and on-base percentage of .315. Both were down five points from the preceding season.
He also found OPS had declined 24 points – from .722 in 2023 to .698 this year – and slugging percentage had shrunk from .402 to .383. A possible reason for the decline, he wrote, was increased reliance on sliders, cutters, and other hard-breaking pitches as opposed to traditional fastballs and curves.
New rules, including introduction of a pitch clock and a ban on infield shifts, were supposed to boost the offense rather than stifle it.
“Not everyone can be Betts, Ohtani, or Freeman,” lamented Toronto lead-off man George Springer, one of several stars struggling to find his former form, in a USA TODAY interview.
If the overall trend lingers much longer, the majors could post their worst full-season batting average since 1968, remembered as “The Year of the Pitcher,” and worst OPS since 1989, when it was .695.
For the Atlanta Braves, whose 35-27 record Sunday morning left them nine games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East, both time and patience may be running out.
“I’ll say something when I feel like something needs to be said,” said Snitker, an organization man originally hired by Hank Aaron in 1977.
The last thing the manager wants is a bad year that coincides with the 50th anniversary — and year-long celebration — of Aaron becoming the home run king.
