If experience has taught the Atlanta Braves anything, it is learning to manage without their stars. They were plagued with injuries to their top stars all of last season but still played in October. Heck, they actually seem to do better without them!
Take 2021. As of July 10 that year, the Braves were 44-44. Then Ronald Acuna Jr. blew out his right knee with an ACL tear. They still managed to go on and win the World Series.
Come 2024 and they again had to do without Acuna, after the defending NL MVP crocked his other knee. Electric starter Spencer Strider was also out for almost the entire season. Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II and Matt Olson also missed significant chunks of the 2024 season.
This time around, things promised to be different. Everyone looked healthy. Of course, losing standout pitcher Max Fried to the Yankees was a bitter blow. With a 2.81 ERA since 2020, Fried is top of the MLB table for pitchers with at least 500 innings. And then Strider was out with an elbow issue.
But they still have solid pitching strength left in Chris Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach. Who they didn’t have to start the season were Acuna and Strider. This was expected. What was not was their lack of wins.
How Bad is Bad?
A week into a schedule of 162 games. Despite how good they are, and the Braves are very good, history suggests they won’t make the post season.
One thing in their favour is the fact that we keep having more playoff teams, however, no team has ever started a season 0-7 and reached the playoffs. Only three 0-6 teams got there, the most recent being the 2011 Rays.
Bad To Worse
There’s no doubt that opening up on the road several time zones away didn’t help but to be greeted by the Padres and Dodgers for your first seven games was overkill.
Then came the two-pronged attack of losing outfielder Jurickson Profar to an 80-game PED suspension and starting pitcher Reynaldo Lopez to the injured list and the Braves have to be in stun mode.
So even after barely a week’s full of games, the Braves season is already perched precariously close to the edge of doom. They do have a general manager in Alex Anthopouulis who has taken his team through troubled waters before. But will that be enough? Or will Acuna and Strider’s eventual return prove too late?
Watch this space.
