Atlanta Braves at Rangers series recap: Nadir

There’s a series that sticks in my mind whenever I think about the season that directly led into the most recent Atlanta Braves rebuild that led to this current era that they’re in. I’ll never forget it because it happened during my first season of writing here at this lovely blog. It was September 2014 and it was clear that the Braves were scuffling and needed to figure something out if they wanted to have even a glimmer of a hope of making the Postseason that year. They ended up taking a road trip to Arlington to take on a Texas Rangers team that appeared to be dead in the water.

As it turns out, it was the Braves who were the walking dead. Texas swept them, the Braves limped through the rest of September and by the time Opening Day 2015 rolled around, a new era was underway. The good news for the Braves is I don’t think that they’re going to completely tear it down once the offseason rolls around. Things will certainly be different (they must be different) around here once Opening Day 2026 rolls around and there’s still a bit of hope that this team’s core can eventually return to form as a unit. The bad news is that buddy, this is rough to watch. At least that awful sweep from 2014 took place in September — we’ve still got just over two months left of this, y’all. There are some positives to get to later but for now, let’s take the medicine and look back at how this series went.

Friday, July 25Rangers 8, Braves 3

Joey Wentz went to the mound for the first five innings of this one and he gave up at least one run in four of those innings with three of them being earned. Meanwhile, Nathan Eovaldi had little-to-no trouble dealing with the Braves while he was out there as this was yet another one of those patented six-to-seven inning stretches of completely nothing going on at the plate for the Braves. Eovaldi pitched five shutout innings and then Jacob Webb made it six scoreless innings for the Braves.

Michael Harris II hit a dinger to break the drought in the seventh and then he scored one of two runs for the Braves in the ninth inning. By then, the game was well in hand for Texas after they smacked Rafael Montero for four runs in the eighth inning. Blah.

Saturday, July 26Rangers 6, Braves 5

The Braves had a lead in this one! It only lasted one inning, it was at the beginning of the game and in typical Braves fashion, they should’ve scored more runs but they had a lead! Ozzie Albies drove in Jurickson Profar and Matt Olson inexplicably got a “Send” call to go home on the play and was thrown out by a mile after the umpire initially ruled that Olson got under the tag. That was as good as it got for the Braves in this one, as the Rangers soon took control by scoring four runs over four innings against Grant Holmes.

Unfortunately, this will probably be the last time we see Holmes on the mound for a good long while. Before he got hit with a line drive, Holmes was already complaining of elbow pain and as of this evening, he’s on the 60-day IL with elbow inflammation. It’s another tough blow for a rotation that has been absolutely ravaged by injury.

However, the Braves stuck around and competed in this one. Eventually, Michael Harris II hit his second homer of the series to tie the game at four runs apiece. Money Mike went off in this game, as he collected four hits on the night — a homer, two doubles and a triple!

The game remained 4-4 heading into extra innings and despite Olson making it to third with one out, the Braves were unable to cash him in. Two batters into Texas’ half of the tenth, Marcus Semien (who stayed in the game despite getting hit in the head with a pitch by Grant Holmes earlier on in the contest) delivered the walk-off hit that doomed the Braves to another series loss in a long line of them.

Sunday, July 27Rangers 8, Braves 1

This one was over after three innings. Bryce Elder got the ball for this one and this was an absolutely horrific start from him. He walked four batters, he gave up six hits and surrendered eight runs — all in 2.2 innings of work! This was an absolutely dreadful performance, with the only bright spot being Sean Murphy’s RBI ground-rule double all the way back in the second inning and then the bullpen kept the rangers off of the scoreboard while they were out there. That was it, though. The Braves suffered a sweep in a series where they never really gained a serious foothold. Yikes!

Well, the good news is that Michael Harris II is currently in the midst of what is quite easily his best run of form so far this season. I’ll let DJourn tell you more about it in his post detailing how Money Mike took home our extremely prestigious and world-renowned Battery Power Atlanta Braves Player of the Week award.

I’m probably going to get cooked for this (especially after this incident from Friday involving Spencer Strider) but Tim Hyers deserves a lot of credit for eventually helping Mike figure it out. It’s clear that they’ve been working hard on figuring out how to fix his swing and it sure looks like they’ve found a solution. If this does end up working out then maybe we’ll see Harris end this season on a strong note and give everybody hope for 2026 and beyond.

Outside of that, what else is there to say? It’s yet another bummer of a series in a season that’s been full of them for the Braves. As ABSinceWayBack mentioned yesterday, it’s getting to the point now where Atlanta bottoming out this season might end up being a blessing in disguise if they finish bad enough qualify for the Draft Lottery. As you’ll see during this upcoming week, Atlanta’s farm system is in a bad, bad way and while simply having a high draft position won’t guarantee an organizational turnaround, it would certainly give the Braves a prime opportunity to give their farm system a nice little boost.

That is one paragraph that I never anticipated typing out at any point this season but here we are! The Braves are bad enough to where the Draft Lottery is a real possibility for them, they are now down to zero (0) starting pitchers remaining from Opening Day, the offense is consistently inconsistent and the frustration amongst the club is starting to become extremely palpable. Just 58 games left to go, y’all.