Our Braves’ offense struggled yet again on Tuesday night.  Once more, they managed to make a nondescript starter look like Pedro Martinez.  For six innings, they drew blanks against Jake Irvin, managing only two hits while striking out ten times.  Other than Marcell Ozuna, no lineup regular has an OPS higher than .744.  Man, this offense stinks.

Despite the fact that they suck, our guys did manage to win the game 2-0.  The Braves finally got on the board in the seventh, with the Big Bear’s league-leading 16th homer, and another run driven in on a sac fly by Kelenic.  Max Fried was outstanding, tossing eight shutout innings.  Varsity surrendered seven hits, but induced four double plays and picked another runner off first. Iglesias pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for the team’s MLB-leading ninth shutout on the season. 

Since his first two anomalous starts of the season, Max has been brilliant, averaging over seven innings per start with an ERA  of 1.75.  Chris Sale and Reynaldo Lopez also have sub-2.00 ERAs since the first week of the season.  The Braves’ top three starters have been the best in baseball, and the bullpen ERA is second only to the Dodgers in the NL.

They are ten games over .500, on a pace to win 96 games.  And they’ve closed the gap with the Phillies to five games.  The Phightins have lost three in a row, and are showing signs of falling back to earth after their historically great first six weeks.

You know what, perhaps the Braves don’t suck.  Maybe they are a pretty good team after all, with a chance to compete all year and into October, despite the loss of Acuña and Strider and the general offensive ineptitude.

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I’ll admit that these offensive doldrums are frustrating.  But I still believe the bats will come around.  I’ve been writing that every week for many weeks now; one of these weeks I’ll be right, won’t I?  Won’t I?  Really, they will come around, won’t they?

Or maybe they won’t.  Perhaps the 2024 team will repeat the pattern of the 1974 team. 

As I prepare recaps, I sometimes look at what happened on this day in baseball history.  Fifty years ago, on May 28, 1974, the Braves hosted the Phillies, and defeated them 2-1 in ten innings, on a walkoff solo home run by Henry Aaron in the bottom of the 10th.  Buzz Capra pitched nine strong innings, surrendering just one run.  Davey Johnson tied the game with a solo shot in the seventh, leading to the Hammer’s heroics in the tenth.  (I’m pretty sure I was at that game, although I wouldn’t swear to it.  I attended a lot of Braves games in the mid-seventies.)

What’s most memorable about the Braves’ 1974 season was exemplified in that May 28 game.  The pitching was outstanding, the offense not so much.  But the year before, the 1973 Braves, like the 2023 Braves, were an offensive juggernaut.  They led the league in runs scored by a large margin; indeed, they scored more runs than any Atlanta Braves team until the late nineties.  They were the first team in history with three players to hit 40 home runs (Aaron, Johnson, and Darrell Evans).  In addition to those three, Dusty Baker and Mike Lum turned in very strong seasons.

Then in 1974, that historically great offense disappeared.  Their runs scored fell to the bottom third of the league, and their OPS+ was just 87.  Each of the top five hitters from the year before fell off from the 1973 pace, some dramatically.  (Only Ralph Garr had a better year in 74 than in 73.)  But the team’s record improved by twelve games from 1973 to 1974, thanks to an outstanding pitching staff.  The aforementioned Capra led the league in ERA, and Phil Niekro was second third in ERA and won twenty games.  Carl Morton was a solid third starter, and Tom House was an excellent closer.  Indeed, the pitching staff led the league in ERA plus by a wide margin.  This, by the way, was the only pre-1991 Atlanta Braves team that had a league-leading pitching staff. 

Although the team record improved substantially over 1973, the Dodgers won over 100 games, and the Braves still finished 14 games out.  All year long in 1974, I was convinced that if the bats would just approach 1973 levels, the team would be dominant.  But the bats never really came around. 

Maybe the bats will come around in 2024.  For the record, I am convinced that Olson, Riley, and Harris will finish with much stronger stats by the end of this season.  But maybe they won’t.  It’s pretty clear that the season offensive totals won’t approach 2023.  But as long as the pitching keeps this up, we’re in for a fun ride.

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Tonight, Spencer Schwellenbach makes his big league debut.  I always enjoy these “meet the parents” nights.  He’ll have a lot of family present, and we’ll all be pulling for him.  As good as the top three starters have been, it would be good to get some solid performances from the number five spot. And it would help the kid if the offense scores 8 or 9 rather than 1 or 2.  Get it done, guys.