Going 4-3 against the Marlins and Nationals last week wasn’t ideal, but that also speaks to just how high expectations have climbed for the Braves, who are in a nominal tie with the Rays for the best record in MLB. (The Braves have played four more games, so the Rays are ahead on percentage points.) After clobbering the opposition in the final three games in Miami, the Braves returned home, had an exciting walkoff win, but otherwise struggled to hit throughout a rain-soaked weekend. Since Drake Baldwin hit the shelf on May 19, the Braves are 13th in wOBA and just barely outside the bottom ten in xwOBA. No Braves player has an xwOBA at .340 or above in that six-game span, and as many are below .300 as above it.
But, six games is just that, and the Braves are enjoying an off day on Memorial Day in Boston on Monday, before they get back to the grind of a two-city, six-game road trip.
May 26-28: Boston Red Sox
Current Record: 22-30 Projected Record (via FanGraphs): 78-84
The Braves took two of three from the Red Sox in Atlanta a couple of weekends ago, and it potentially could’ve been three of three had not a ricochet off Aroldis Chapman failed to carom far enough to prevent a game-ending out. That series loss prolonged what’s been a season of unexpected misery in Boston so far, and things haven’t gone much better since: they swept the Royals in Kansas City, but then got swept by the Twins at home. The Red Sox started the season with playoff odds of about 60 percent, but now they’re down to about 1-in-4, as they’ve won back-to-back series just once all season, and that was back in mid-April.
Boston’s performance this season has been somewhat bizarre. Their 90th team wRC+ ranks third-worst in baseball; they have no wOBA-xwOBA gap and their .308 xwOBA is sixth-worst. They’re top five in both defense and baserunning, but the hitting simply hasn’t materialized, such that they’re dead last in runs scored in MLB at the moment. Willson Contreras has been raking and Wilyer Abreu’s been more than solid, but of their ten players that have 100-plus PAs so far, a whopping five have a sub-.300 xwOBA, with the same going for wOBA as well. Trevor Story was awful before going on the shelf, Andruw Monasterio has been awful in his stead, and whatever magic former Braves farmhand Caleb Durbin was availing himself of in Milwaukee has evaporated in Boston. Combine that with a lack of anything offensively from Jarren Duran and Marcelo Mayer, and there you go, recipe for a disaster season.
The pitching has been better, but homer-prone in a way that just makes everything kind of sad. The staff is ninth in xFIP- but 17th in FIP-; only four teams have suffered from a higher HR/FB, and three of those play in relatively homer-happy parks (the Nationals are the other… which makes the Braves going homerless against them in a series a maximum oof). A lot of that HR/FB issue can be laid at the feet of Brayan Bello, but it’s also been killing Garrett Crochet, who has a 148/104/88 line (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-) after putting up a 72/66/60 line over his prior two seasons in the rotation.
The Braves will likely send their “top three” of Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, and Chris Sale (listed in order of likely appearance, not in order of quality) in this series, but they’ll likely have to deal with Ranger Suarez (a very good 56/72/82 so far), Connelly Early (78/115/103), and Payton Tolle (58/69/86). The Braves popped two homers off Early in Atlanta, but Tolle ate them alive. It’s honestly not the most exciting set of pitching matchups to have on the road… except that the Red Sox are an unthinkable 8-17 at home, tied with the Angels for the worst home batting line in the game. They’ve pitched a lot better at home, but this has the makings of a weird series.
Tuesday, May 26 at 6:45 p.m. ET (BravesVision, TBS)Wednesday, May 27 at 6:45 p.m. ET (BravesVision)Thursday, May 28 at 4:10 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
May 29-31: Cincinnati Reds
The Reds have had a weird season to date. They started out 20-11, leading the NL Central through April. Their playoff odds started at around 18 percent, and had shot up to about 40 percent. The team wasn’t actually playing well (bottom five in position player fWAR, 17th in pitching fWAR), but they were also massively underhitting their xwOBA despite their home park, and it was at least a fun story to have a team be nine games over .500 and leading their division with a negative run differential.
Since then, though, things have just crashed down in Cincinnati. They lost eight straight to start May, including getting swept by two divisional foes (Pirates, Cubs). They did take series from the Astros at home and the Phillies on the road, but they’re 7-14 overall in May so far. The offense is non-horrible but still getting massively unlucky, but the real issue has been that the bottom has dropped out of pitching staff — in May so far, the Reds’ pitching fWAR is -1.8, while the next-worst team is at 0.0. Their pitching line in May is 140/143/124: second-worst, worst by a mile, and worst by a fair bit in baseball over the last three-plus weeks. Amazingly, this has happened despite Chase Burns being awesome and Marlins castoff Chris Paddack having two good starts in a new uniform. It’s just that nearly a dozen Reds hurlers in both the rotation and bullpen have been so awful, it’s just been a disaster. The Braves somehow paled against a season-long-disaster pitching staff though, so we’ll see what happens.
The Reds’ position player crew is basically a playing-like-stars-and-scrubs complement. Elly De La Cruz is having another monstrous year, while guys like Sal Stewart, JJ Bleday, Spencer Steer, Nathaniel Lowe, and Dane Myers are all killing the ball. On the flip side, almost everyone else is struggling massively. The pitching matchups in this one will probably see the Braves miss Chase Burns and Andrew Abbott, their better starters, so this could be another slugfest in Cincinnati, or maybe the Braves will coast if they manage to subdue De La Cruz and company.
Friday, May 29 at 6:40 p.m. ET (BravesVision)Saturday, May 30 at 7:15 p.m. ET (FOX)Sunday, May 31 at 1:40 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
