Atlanta Braves Should Be in First Place, except for…
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez (33) takes starting pitcher Julio Teheran (49) out of the game. He’s made way too many of these trips. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
It’s the Pitching. The very last thing you’d think would be a problem for an Atlanta Braves club.
- On Saturday, Atlanta was down 3-0 and 6-1 and came back to tie the game… only to be beaten when Bryce Harper got his arms extended again.
- On Sunday, the Braves were behind 3-0, tied the game, and then took a 4-3 lead into the 8th inning… but Cody Martin – who probably should not have been out there – gave up the winning runs.
The Numbers
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The Braves’ bullpen now ranks 4th worst in baseball in ERA (4.88) with a 3-7 record. They are 6th worst in Left-on-base %age, 3rd worst in walk rate and 29th in HR/FB ratio. You can’t even argue for any “unlucky” factor, for their collective BABIP is .273 – tied for 12th overall.
Walks seem to be the biggest culprit, though: the rate of free passes is 3rd worst in the majors while their batting average against is .233 – actually tied for 11th lowest. Thus the base-runners are getting on for free and cannot be kept from coming home.
Regardless, it’s been pretty bad.
Yesterday, we learned that closer Jason Grilli was unavailable due to back spasms. That is likely to have put Cody Martin into the 8th inning – though Jim Johnson was never seen despite having no game appearances since May 6th.
The Starting rotation hasn’t fared much better, owing to the struggles of Julio Teheran and Alex Wood. Right now, all starters rank 19th in ERA, which is certainly not a position Braves’ fans are either used to seeing, nor one that was expected as the season got underway.
Not Quite Ready for Prime Time
This has been a cascading problem: starters not going deep into games mean more use of relievers. More use of relievers makes for more outings, tired arms, and situations that some may not be ready to handle.
The Braves have tried to manage the innings via “streaming” pitchers back to Gwinnett. That has helped, but Cody Martin is now the team leader with 18.2 relief innings in 16 appearances (Luis Avilan also has 16 appearances; Jim Johnson 15). Brandon Cunniff had a 10-day ‘vacation’ to AAA, so he’s seen “only” 13 games.
All of that has forced some pitchers into roles they haven’t quite been acclimated to: Trevor Cahill wasn’t very good as a starter, but has been worse as a reliever thus far: 10.38 ERA (4.1 innings, 4 games). Donnie Veal, Sugar Ray Marimon, and Williams Perez all looked great in AAA, but when pressed into major league service, they’ve been pounded.
I have long been an advocate of a theory that goes like this: when you insert an ‘ace’ pitcher into the front of your rotation, it makes everyone in that rotation ‘better’ because you slot everyone else back to an easier slot, dropping out the weakest link. However, the reverse is true as well, and we’ve seen that by the removal of the likes of Craig Kimbrel and David Carpenter.
Yes, we had hoped that Grilli and Johnson would have plugged those gaps, but now as Grilli is hurting and Johnson seemingly getting a few days of rest, that has put the bullpen in the position of having to step up significantly… and that’s clearly difficult to sustain, even if you aren’t running into the kind of saw blade that Harper’s bat is right now.
So How Do You Fix This?
The answer is that there isn’t a good solution. Yes, you could pursue a trade, and that might be necessary. It would cost quite a bit at this time of the year, though. Additionally, I don’t know that you can say that any one guy will stabilize the entire pen. It might really take a couple of arms… leading to a the cost/benefit analysis on whether the future should be mortgaged for such a solution.
As a result, I do expect the AAA revolving door to keep swinging for the time being.
If there’s hope to be had, then it’s the fact that Alex Wood kicked himself in the rear and gutted out nearly 7 innings after it looked like he might not get through 2 or 3. That could have been a disaster.
Now we need the rest to do likewise or it could be a long slog through the next 5 weeks or so: lots of road games, several strong opponents.
I can’t prove that Atlanta would be in first place with a better bullpen, but having an offense that is generating runs (6th in NL) while leads are being lost seems to point in that direction. Certainly the combination of better starting pitching from the top in combination with a better pen would give ample reason to believe so – particularly given how several games have been lost against the Mets and Nationals.
There is time to fix this, but in the short term, it is most likely going to have to be done through the will of the players involved to get it done.