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Hey, I’m right there with you. I’ve seen enough to conclude that the Braves are a bad team that is going nowhere. However, I’m always open to the possibility that I’m wrong. In this case, there is plenty of precedence for the Braves producing three-plus months of high-level baseball.

Not all that history is ancient like the 1914 Boston Braves, who were 26-40 before going on to finish 94-59 and win the World Series. The Braves have won at least 57 games during a 95-game span in 37 of the franchise’s 150 seasons, including 20 times since the start of the 1995 season.

The Braves last did it in 2023. Seven lineup regulars and two starting pitchers remain from that team. The closer from the 2023 team, Raisel Iglesias, is in the bullpen still.

That core group of players has been part of long runs of winning before. Why can’t they do it again?

Age-related decline usually is the answer. That might be the case for Iglesias, 35. But six of the seven holdover hitters from 2023 are all in their prime years, and the other, Marcell Ozuna, has been the team’s best hitter in age 34.

The Braves have the talent to turn this season around. I don’t blame anyone who’s tired of hearing that, but it’s true. They don’t need their players to do anything out of the ordinary to make the playoffs. The Braves just need more of their top players to produce at or near the level they have for their entire careers.

It wasn’t as if 2023 was a wild outlier for Braves hitters. Only Ozuna, Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies produced numbers significantly higher than their career norms that year. Ozuna and Olson are hitting well still. Ronald Acuña Jr. has raked since returning from injury. Sean Murphy is proving his strong offensive numbers from 2022 and 2023 weren’t flukes.

Olson, Ozuna, Acuña and Murphy just need to keep doing what they’re doing at the plate to be part of a winning run. The Braves will have something going if Albies, Michael Harris II and Austin Riley pick up the slack.

Albies has never been a great hitter. Now he’s a bad one. His park-adjusted on-base plus slugging (82 OPS+) ranks 24th among 29 second basemen with at least 200 plate appearances. Harris (69 OPS+) looks lost at the plate. At least he’s playing good defense, unlike Albies, but the Braves can’t win consistently with two very weak links among their top seven hitters.

Riley hasn’t been bad. His 118 OPS+ ranks 10th among third basemen with 200-plus PAs. More was expected from him after he produced a 135 OPS+ from 2021 through 2023. Riley is hitting plenty of pitches hard. He probably would benefit from being more selective about his swings.

The Braves ranked 21st in runs scored per game to begin Thursday. So far, the starting pitching has been good enough to prevent the bottom from falling out.

ExploreBraves have no coherent plan for bullpen

Chris Sale, the reigning NL Cy Young winner, broke out of his early season funk. Spencer Schwellenbach so far has avoided a second-year slump. Grant Holmes and Bryce Elder have been even more effective than the Braves could reasonably have expected. Spencer Strider needs more time to find his footing.

The bullpen is an issue that hasn’t been fixed by a series of half-hearted moves by President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos. He deserves some benefit of the doubt given his track record, which includes adding good relief pitchers before the trading deadline. Anthopoulos can do it again this summer.

That’s assuming the Braves will be buyers at the July 31 deadline. All it will take is another bad week or two to reduce their playoff odds from low (27% per FanGraphs) to next to nothing. That’s the way I see things going. But the Braves have the talent to turn things around and play good ball for three-plus months, as they’ve done many times before.