So, we\u2019re just over 10 games into the season for the Atlanta Braves and the on-paper results have been encouraging \u2014 even if the on-field results have the Braves just one game over .500 as they look to avoid dipping below that mark as they deal with the seemingly impossible task of winning baseball games in the state of California.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the good, which is that the pitching has been outstanding so far. Through 11 games, Atlanta\u2019s pitching staff has an ERA of 2.23 (57 ERA-) and a FIP of 3.29 (82 FIP-). If I had to predict it, I\u2019d imagine that the ERA will move closer to the FIP as the season progresses but as long as both the ERA- and FIP- stay well below 100, Atlanta is on track to be much improved in the pitching department. There\u2019s plenty of room to improve on last season, which is when they finished with an ERA of 4.36 (103 ERA-) and a FIP of 4.20 (103 FIP-) and assuming that what we\u2019re currently seeing from Bryce Elder and Reynaldo L\u00f3pez is real, that improvement should be on its way.<\/p>\n
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In fact, I\u2019d say that the best early story so far has been Bryce Elder\u2019s apparent improvement. Of course he\u2019s not going to carry a 0.00 ERA over the course of this entire season and he\u2019s going to have a rough day eventually (everybody has rough days \u2014 just look at what happened to Chris Sale last night. Yikes!) but the fact that he\u2019s carried his strong end-of-season form from 2025 over into 2026 is certainly encouraging to see. Maybe there\u2019s something to getting advice from Greg Maddux, himself.<\/p>\n
The bullpen (outside of Joel Payamps) has been chugging along just fine as well and they\u2019ve been helped by performances from Osvaldo Bido and Mart\u00edn P\u00e9rez being able to go out there and eat plenty of innings when called upon. Having long relief like that could go a long way towards preserving the rest of the bullpen and helping to ensure that we don\u2019t see such a revolving door for this staff like we did in 2025 when the Braves set records for the sheer number of guys they were sending out there to pitch.<\/p>\n
Can things get better? Of course. Chris Sale still hasn\u2019t really gotten it going just yet, the fifth spot of the rotation is still in a bit of flux and I already mentioned Joel Payamps and his tough start to the season right now (a 20.16 xERA is jarring to see, early or not). Still, it\u2019s encouraging and also lends a tiny bit of credence to my personal theory that good health alone would give this pitching staff a huge boost. As long as guys continue going out there, tis pitching staff should be fine.<\/p>\n
The staff has also benefited from getting some great defense behind them as well, which is always encouraging to see. Being tough to score on (whether it\u2019s via lockdown pitching or lights-out defense) can go a long way towards making this team a serious candidate to play some important baseball games once we get into September and October.<\/p>\n
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Now we get into the offense, which is doing \u201cfine\u201d on paper but as we all know, \u201cfine\u201d has never ben the standard for the bats around here. Through 11 games so far, the Braves are hitting .249\/.319\/.414 as a unit with a .732 OPS, a .165 Isolated Power number and 106 wRC+. That number has them tied for 10th in all of baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates \u2014 and it\u2019s honestly a testament to how well the rest of the Pirates are hitting that they\u2019ve gotten that high considering that former Braves DH Marcell Ozuna has started this season looking like one of the worst hitters in baseball.<\/p>\n
Still, as evidenced by the fact that the Braves have been scoring their runs in fits and starts, it\u2019s something that could definitely do with improvement. They have a walk rate of 9.2 percent along with a strikeout rate of 19 percent. It\u2019s interesting because the Dodgers have a similar BB\/K split but the Dodgers are making up for it by absolutely crushing the ball to the tune of a .299\/.366\/.523 team slash line with .224 in Isolated Power and 149 team wRC+. If you\u2019re going to have that type of split, you better be mashing the ball every night and that hasn\u2019t quite been the case for the Braves so far outside of a couple of really big games.<\/p>\n
Drake Baldwin has gotten off to an excellent start and we\u2019ve also seen some unexpected contributions from guys like Marucio Dub\u00f3n and Dominic Smith. One of those two guys was seemingly a glove-first guy and the other is a guy who came on as a non-roster invitee and made the team, so getting stuff from them has been bonus. You\u2019d also expect that the reigning NL Rookie of the Year would be crushing it as well, as Baldwin is now taking strides to being recognized as one of the best-hitting catchers in the game right now.<\/p>\n
The issue is that the rest of Atlanta\u2019s stars have been scuffling right out of the gate. Matt Olson has been doing fine and Ozzie Albies has been faring okay, himself. The problem right now is that Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr., Michael Harris II and Austin Riley have been wandering in the wilderness to begin the season. Acu\u00f1a is currently sitting on 51 wRC+ so far and that\u2019s the high mark for this trio, which tells you just how rough it\u2019s been for these three guys so far.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019d imagine that we\u2019re going to see Acu\u00f1a and Riley get going at some point but I think we\u2019re at the point now where seeing Harris struggle like this is concerning. Sure it\u2019s early but we\u2019ve also seen this before from Harris when it comes to starting the season off in poor fashion. He\u2019s certainly got just as much potential to bounce back but the question is whether or not he\u2019ll do it as quickly as Acu\u00f1a or Riley should bounce back. I don\u2019t think that anybody around here has the appetite for seeing another 70 or 80 games of Harris trying to figure it out at the plate while serving as a void of offense in the lineup. I hope he can get it together soon but if I had to say I was worried about anybody in the lineup right now, it\u2019s Money Mike.<\/p>\n
Now granted, we\u2019re still only talking about 11 games \u2014 a drop in the bucket when it comes to this long, winding river of a regular season. However, there\u2019s already been some stuff that\u2019s worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses. Can Bryce Elder, Reynaldo L\u00f3pez Mauricio Dub\u00f3n and Dominic Smith keep this up? When will the star players on this team wake up? When will we see Didier Fuentes again? Will getting their injured players back be a boon for this squad? Will the Braves win more than one (1) game in California this season? Do the new City Connects have an option for powder blue pants? Okay, maybe the last question isn\u2019t as pressing as the rest but it\u2019ll certainly be intriguing to see if and when we\u2019ll get answers to these early questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So, we\u2019re just over 10 games into the season for the Atlanta Braves and the on-paper results have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[146,22,46,662,5,2317,4720,919,25196,39,18701,5931,9098,78,370,541,3617,4,1954,1132,1511,64,5171,921],"class_list":{"0":"post-668784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-atlanta-braves","11":"tag-austin-riley","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-baseball-games","14":"tag-bryce-elder","15":"tag-chris-sale","16":"tag-didier-fuentes","17":"tag-dodgers","18":"tag-dominic-smith","19":"tag-drake-baldwin","20":"tag-joel-payamps","21":"tag-marcell-ozuna","22":"tag-martin-perez","23":"tag-matt-olson","24":"tag-mauricio-dubon","25":"tag-mlb","26":"tag-osvaldo-bido","27":"tag-ozzie-albies","28":"tag-pitching-staff","29":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","30":"tag-reynaldo-lopez","31":"tag-ronald-acuna-jr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116364600242322275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}