Lineup issues, catcher deficiencies hurt Atlanta Braves on Monday
By James Kunkle
The Atlanta Braves dropped the first game of the series to the Washington Nationals Monday night with some shaky bullpen work.
Let’s get right to the three takeaway’s from the game and see what went wrong for the Atlanta Braves.
3. The bottom of the lineup is lacking due to injuries.
With both Nick Markakis and Dansby Swanson on the shelf at the moment, the lineup has obviously had to be reshuffled. What was once one of the biggest strengths for the Atlanta Braves is now a deficiency at the moment.
If Adam Duvall is more like his Cincinnati days, then its not as bad as it could be. If he is like his late 2018 season, it’s downright bad.
Ozzie Albies having to move to the 2 hole didn’t help as well, but it is all out of necessity at this point.
We will touch on all this a little bit more here later, but when the Braves elect to play Tyler Flowers over Brian McCann and Austin Riley over Ender Inciarte, it’s going to continue to be a problem.
Opposing pitchers know they can go to the 6, 7, and 8 spot of the Braves lineup right now and more than likely get a couple of outs and kill any rally or momentum the Braves might have.
In short, while we all know Nick Markakis might not be back at all the rest of this season, let’s hope we can get Dansby back as soon as he is eligible to return off the IL.
We need Ozzie Albies and Brian McCann to produce in the 6 and 7 spots in the lineup where they will bat most likely unless another bat is acquired before the trade deadline Wednesday.
It’s just a bad break that these injuries came at the same time and right before we started this big series versus the Washington Nationals.