Braves don’t do anything particularly well in 7-3 loss to Nationals

There was a moment in this game where you could have pointed out all the crazy things that went against the Braves and in favor of the Nationals and let that be the summary. But, in the sixth, the Braves asked Dylan Lee to eat an inning, and he allowed a two-run homer, extending their deficit from three runs to five. This really changed the complexion of the game, going from a game where the Braves could have gone somewhere without a few tough breaks, to another complete loss. So it goes.

This one was truly a team effort as far as the loss goes, with no part of the roster performing particularly well. The pitching was probably the least bad – Charlie Morton again suffered a .360+ BABIP and managed just three strikeouts in five innings. Although he didn’t walk anyone, he struck out the first man he faced, CJ Abrams, with an 0-2 count. Overall, Braves pitchers posted a 3.51 FIP and 3.47 xFIP on the day, with what will likely be a much uglier xERA. These aren’t bad grades in this runtime environment, but they’re not particularly good either.

What made things worse was everything else. The big blow was asking Dylan Lee, whose career is truly run by dominant lefties, to face the switch-right-left in the sixth. Lee has been even worse against righties this year and had faced 70 righties but only 38 lefties before this game. After giving up a leadoff single, Nick Senzel hit a home run to put the game out of reach. Another unfortunate event occurred in the first – after Morton hit Abrams and allowed one-time old buddy Eddie Rosario to hit a routine fly ball to right center. This ball tends to be caught about 80 percent of the time, but the Braves weren’t playing Rosario to shoot, so he split the defense and went for a two-run double.

The defense also directly played its part in giving Washington another run in the fifth, as Austin Riley bobbled a routine throw from third, and the runner then moved to third on an errant throw. Of course, that happened when Rosario hit a grounder through the infield to score Washington’s fifth run. (The other two runs fell between those scored following two weak doubles from Senzel, which, that’s baseball in 2024, folks, especially when Morton only manages three strikeouts in five innings.)

And of course, there was the offense. After two strikeouts to start the game, the Braves put together a small rally with singles from Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson, then a very nice appearance at the plate that ended with a walk by Adam Duvall. That brought in Orlando Arcia, and… he hit a routine volley to the right. There was a Michael Harris II out in the second, Ozuna threw a double play in the third, a strikeout on a pitch clock violation by Murphy and Riley struck out with a man, a few seconds after hitting a ball just as a foul. the left field line, in the fifth. The Braves got their first run after Harris was hit by a MacKenzie Gore pitch in the fifth and scored on an Ozzie Albies double, but it wasn’t enough, given Riley’s aforementioned strikeout.

Even when the Braves chased Gore with two singles in the sixth, they were immediately stopped by Derek Law, who struck out Duvall, had Arcia hit him again to the right fielder, then also struck out Harris on sockets. A wild pitch from Law scored a point in this sequence, but again, it just wasn’t enough. Murphy also took Law deep for his first homer of the year in the seventh, but that came after Senzel’s homer off Lee, so it didn’t really move the needle. The Braves scored nine runs, nine runs after Murphy’s homer.

Ray Kerr and Daysbel Hernandez finished the game with goose eggs for the Braves, with Kerr benefiting from a strange sequence where Rosario threw a 3-6-3 double play with runners on the corners and no outs that didn’t did not score a point. because Rosario thought the ball was fake, but even that isn’t very positive. The Braves invested substantial resources in their bullpen back-end under the assumption that they would be used to hold leads more often than not, but instead they threw mop after mop after mop at their opponents these days. Kerr, in particular, was supposed to be, in theory, a left-side shutdown guy with options, but was instead converted into a “why don’t you throw a bunch of pitches so no one no one else has to do it,” which seems weird to me, especially when AJ Minter is on the injured list. Ah, but I digress…

Either way, the Braves now fall to 35-27 and can, at best, split this series behind Hurston Waldrep’s major league debut on Sunday. On the one hand, the Braves aren’t consistently winning games right now… but on the other hand, the feeling that this isn’t a problem is palpable. So far in 2024, there are only four teams in the National League with a winning record, and the Braves appear firmly entrenched in something like the top ten teams in MLB, given that only those ten teams are currently above .500. With teams like the Astros, Rays, and Blue Jays struggling, and most MLB players embracing mediocrity, there just doesn’t seem to be a need for any sense of urgency except in research of interesting baseball to watch…which again, no one seems to care.

Stay tuned for Waldrep’s MLB debut, I guess!