FanPost

Survival was Their Only Hope

This time a month ago, the Braves were coming off the All-Star break and in the midst of one of their most dominant stretches of baseball this year. Fast forward a couple weeks, the Braves made a significant splash at the trade deadline and showed that they were all, investing in hopes of a deep playoff run. Now this team simply has one goal, just survive.

Since the trade deadline nothing has gone the Braves way, absolutely nothing. The bullpen arms they traded for have been lack-luster. The offense has gone from one of the league’s best to one of the thinner lineups amongst playoff contenders. The division lead has been slowly dwindled from a strong 7 game lead to hovering around the 4 or 5 game spread. Lastly, the injury bug has attacked the Braves with reckless abandon and there’s seemingly nothing that can stop it.

Let’s start with the bullpen. The bullpen has been a glaring need for the Braves since early last season. This recent stretch has just added to the confusion of Braves fans. What began as frustration at the lack of money spent on the bullpen has turned into confusion and madness that none of the moves have seemed to work. At the trade deadline the Braves added Martin, Melancon, and Greene in an attempt to stop the bleeding from the open wound that is the Atlanta Braves bullpen. For the most part Martin has been as advertised and I would say is performing as well as the Braves could have expected him to. Melancon is sitting in roughly the same position, he was the victim of one of the worst bullpen meltdowns of the season but has thrown strikes and has had good outings. The real frustration has been with Shane Greene, Greene was brought in to solidify the closer role. While most baseball followers have been predicting a Greene regression, his complete inability to get outs has been maddening to watch.

While I personally believe the bullpen will end up being fine and the Braves will return to their dominant brand of baseball, desperate times call for desperate measures. Unfortunately, I don’t think the coaching staff is willing to make the moves that need to be made. Night after night the same bullpen arms are brought into the same situations and it always yields the same result. I understand baseball is a complicated game but the more I watch, the more I genuinely feel like the solution is pretty obvious and management refuses to accept it. I believe Luke Jackson is the only viable closer in this bullpen, plain and simple. He’s the only pitcher that throws hard enough to have any kind of mound presence in the ninth inning. The solution also lies in AAA Gwinnett, with arms like Wilson and Wright sitting in Gwinnett the Braves would be crazy not to explore their use in the bullpen in September. In a dream world one of those guys would replace Foltynewicz in the starting rotation so he can go to the bullpen, where he belongs. Maybe this will be the magical spark that will ignite the worst bullpen in baseball.

Offensively, the Braves have been plagued by injuries. Dansby, Markakis, Riley, Inciarte all have found themselves on the shelf for significant chunks of time and there is no real hope for a return any time soon. While the Braves still have the offensive fire power to win games and score a healthy dose of runs, this lineup just lacks the depth that made them so dangerous early. Thankfully the solution to the offensive issues are MUCH more straight forward than the bullpen issues, just get healthy. The Braves should be able to hang on and win the division and I see almost no possibility where they don’t at least make the Wild Card game. When October comes around the Braves will have returned Austin Riley from his knee injury and hopefully with a better approach and a renewed confidence. Dansby Swanson will be back and providing the combination of offense and defense that the Braves are DESPERATE for. Nick Markakis will have gotten a significant amount of rest and should be able to return fresh to add another silver slugger to the lineup. Finally, Ender Inciarte will have rehabbed his hamstring and will hopefully continue his second half surge while allowing the Braves to deploy one of the most complete defenses in baseball.

While the Braves seem to be spiraling into the abyss right now, they are still leading the division. The bullpen will hopefully figure itself out with time, and the offense will be able to out-slug anyone once it is able to return to full strength. This team still can make a very deep playoff run, and if they get healthy, I think they can very well challenge the Dodgers for the NL pennant. For now, all they can do is survive.

This FanPost does not express the views or opinions of Battery Power.