Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Road Trip Review

California is seldom kind to the Braves, but they come home now after a 3-4 road trip while we search for the silver linings.

The bad news is fairly obvious:  Atlanta is struggling to limit the damage of a big inning and (b) limit opposition run-scoring all together.  In those 7 games:  13, 1, 7, 1, 10, 4, and 9 runs were allowed.  Not surprisingly, the Braves won the 3 lowest-runs-allowed games.

The optimistic parts were there, though:

• Atlanta actually has an offense.  8 times in the past 16 games, the run-scoring has qualified for the half-price pizza promotion.  When the season started, that happened only 8 times in all of April and May.
• There are signs of pitching renewal.  Namely via Mike Foltynewciz and Matt Wisler.  Julio Teheran is still coming around again after his DL stint, but there’s 3 rotation members that appear to be the leadership going into next season.

That said. we still sense some signs of … trying to figure out how players fit:

• Sure, Dansby Swanson is your Opening Day shortstop for 2017.  Chase d’Arnaud keeps getting run out there, though.  I can give a pass there, as Swanson has now logged more games and innings than he’s ever played in one season (115).
• Maybe Sunday was the routine day off for Jace Peterson, but Gordon Beckham is still getting a lot of playing time:  10 games, 25 PA… and that .174 average and a .588 OPS over the past 2 weeks.
• We’ll be starting to discuss the off-season shortly – starting with the 4-man roster and who might be protected from the Rule 5 draft.  That topic is going to be very sticky – the Braves may have to trade away or almost give away some players.

But for now, it’s back to Atlanta – all too briefly – as San Diego comes in for a scant three game series before trips to Philly and New York.

Next: Around the Horn