Slogging Without an Injured MVP (Again), Atlanta Braves Face Alternate Path in October

WASHINGTON — They are by no means satisfied, certainly not satisfied with their position in the National League pantheon and conceding nothing in a division they have dominated for the past six seasons.

But the Atlanta Braves of that glory era got through it — the NLDS fisticuffs, the season-ending injuries, the happy miracle of 2021 after four mundane trades and a sprinkling of fall magic to reap the ultimate reward.

Why, then, should two devastating setbacks and a curious offensive funk dampen their hopes when they know they can be dashed while all is going relatively well?

“We’re playing a strange game,” third baseman Austin Riley told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s a beauty in itself. I think the most important thing I’ve learned over the last three, four, five years is that you have to take each day for what it’s worth, and you can’t look too hard. far.

“You never know what’s going to happen. Take 21 as an example, it wasn’t looking good for us at one point. Next thing you know, we’re on the hunt. Next thing you know, we’re winning. Last year and the year before, you win 100 games and you get knocked out in the first round.

“This game is crazy.”

It’s not even summer yet, and things are already crazy again for the Braves.

For the second time in four seasons, superstar right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. — the reigning NL MVP — suffered a torn knee ligament that knocked him out for the season. Dominant right-hander Spencer Strider — who struck out 281 batters a year ago — blew out his elbow in two starts this season.

And an offense featuring four Silver Slugger winners still in their prime — a group that led the majors with 947 runs scored in 2023 — faltered, ranking 18th.^th in races and producing a dismal WRC+ of 88 since May 1st.

Combine that with the torrid (and, it seems, potentially lasting) start for the Philadelphia Phillies, who have built a nine-game lead in the NL East, and there’s a good chance the six-year of the Braves’ run to the top of the division are. END.

Still, the boom-boom of identical four-game outings at the hands of the Phillies in 2022 and ’23, and the Acuña-less, mercenary-led 88-win 2021 title, is having an effect on a group. Impervious to the struggle, one might say.

“Someday we’re going to get out of this offensive slump that we’re in. I have no doubt that it’s going to happen,” Brian Snitker, their manager through it all, said Sunday after the club lost its third match in four days. against the Nationals. “Because we don’t play bad baseball. Things are not going the way we want them to. When you run where they run, that’s when you go for it.

“Keep grinding.” Keep fighting the fight. This is what we do.”

Goodbye goodbye ?

Adam Duvall still remembers the afternoon of July 30, 2021, with great clarity. He was relaxing in Miami baseball purgatory, preparing to head to the ballpark, when he received a call telling him that he had been traded to Atlanta – with a request to get there before game time.

The mid-afternoon flight, the painful Atlanta traffic, the arrival 30 minutes before the match, the 1 against 4 after quickly renewing the relationships from his previous visit – and then the crazy race that followed.

Duvall, Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler were all acquired by general manager Alex Anthopolous that afternoon, nine days after Acuña tore the ACL in his right knee. Joc Pederson had arrived two weeks earlier.

Acquisitions didn’t make headlines at the deadline, not when Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, Kris Bryant and other big names changed hands.

The results caused a lot of discussion.

Pederson, clad in pearls, hit two home runs and drove in five runs in the NLDS triumph over Milwaukee. Rosario was the NLCS MVP after going 14 for 25 with three homers against the powerful Dodgers.

Soler earned World Series MVP honors, hitting three home runs in six games against Houston.

And, a year before Major League Baseball’s expanded playoffs turned 30 teams into wild dreamers, the 88-win Braves showed that it’s not so much what you do as when you do it.

“It’s really about playing your best style of baseball at the end of the season and throughout the season,” says Duvall, returning to the Braves after spending 2023 with the Boston Red Sox. “There are a lot of teams that start off strong and you think ‘oh man, they’re going to win every game.’ But baseball is baseball; it will balance out.

“You get progressively better throughout the season and you have that end goal: Let’s get to the playoffs at the end of the season and see what happens. I’m improving every day. That’s what you’re trying to do. This way you can play your best in the end.

The Braves have been on the business side of this lesson over the past two seasons.

Their teams with 101 and 104 wins received a first-round bye, only to be posterized twice in Philadelphia. The eliminations were eerily similar.

Ranger Suarez started and earned no decisions in the first two games claimed by the Phillies. The dominant Strider was trucked both years to Citizens Bank Park, where bats were strengthened, legends created and fans excited.

This year, there will be no Strider, no Acuña and probably no first-round bye. No general surgeon would ever recommend this diet.

But when the alternative guarantees nothing, what’s the harm?

Be humble

In an offensive environment that remains toxic for hitters – with a league average at .240, the worst in 56 years, and an OPS at .699 – it is nevertheless strange to see the Braves struggle like this.

A year after Matt Olson hit 53 home runs, he has nine, with a .239 average and .750 OPS more than 200 points behind his 2023 mark.

Riley, 27, has just three home runs, hitting .234 with a .657 OPS. Second baseman Ozzie Albies, like two-time Silver Slugger winner Riley, is merely adequate (.265, .725 OPS). Receiver/DH Sean Murphy missed all but 10 games with an oblique injury.

The fights take place every night when the lights come on, but also much earlier, in movie theaters, in underground cages and in quiet moments of contemplation.

For Riley, that means cleaning things up mechanically to allow for a more adjustable swing trajectory, allowing for later movements to reach balls. Mentally, it’s about channeling former teammates like Nick Markakis, Freddie Freeman and Brian McCann, and contemporaries like Acuña, all masters of balance.

“My dad always instilled a very humble mindset,” Riley says of his father Mike, the original creator of this powerful swing. “Trust your preparation. That’s what I learned playing with some of the best. I try to take the little wins whenever they’re there, build on that and try to build momentum.

“In this game, the failures I’ve had, when I come out of it, it’s like I’m closer than I think. All it takes is a little swing, a little feeling, a little signal to get you started.

“The next thing you know, you’re gone for a month. »

For now, the only Brave who can make that claim is designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, whose 18 homers, 55 RBIs and .988 OPS have kept the 35-28 club afloat.

Struggling hitters have yet to test his patience.

“I always tell my teammates, ‘Don’t worry about it. As soon as you make good contact and establish yourself, it will come. The result comes when you need it most,” says Ozuna, on pace for 46 homers and 141 RBIs. “I’m here. I’m already here. I’m just waiting for my guys to support me. Riley will be there, and so will Oly.

“I’m not worried about them.”

And why should they? The NL is a strange place, with the Phillies and Dodgers on the run right now and a mass of mediocrity — nine teams below .500 but less than three games out of the wild card position.

The Braves are well in the middle, knowing that it is not the worst place to occupy even when fall arrives.

And the certainty that better days are to come.

“You have to deal with this,” Snitker said. “Because if you do, there’s always good on the other end.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Atlanta Braves battle through NL East standings on different path in October