The 2025 Braves don’t make much sense offensively — they’ve sometimes had an extremely slappy approach, sometimes they’ve seemingly gone back to what they’ve done for the past half-decade, and sometimes they appear discombobulated or stuck in between. I’m not going to guess at what exactly was going on tonight, but it also doesn’t matter, as it was more of the same — a 2-0 loss in which the team didn’t get a single barrel and in fact hit just a single ball further than 300 feet (an easy flyout). You don’t get a re-do when your problems are self-inflicted, and again, the Braves have talent on their side, but not much else at this point other than the fact that it’s still May.
The other story in this game was Spencer Strider and he was… okay. He’s clearly not all the way back, and he finished with a 7/4 K/BB ratio (and a hit-by-pitch) in 4 2⁄3 innings. He actually could’ve had a nicer line, but issued two walks to the 19th and 20th batters he faced before being removed from the game. He struggled with command at times, but outguessed the Phillies hitters for the most part all the same, even if he wasn’t throwing harder than 95 much of the time and couldn’t just blow it by them. The lone run he gave up came in the second — a leadoff walk, and then a one-out double by Max Kepler on a fastball right down the middle that meandered around the right-center wall and allowed the runner to score. Other than that, there wasn’t much of specific note in his outing… except that in the first, he hit Bryce Harper with a pitch right above the elbow, prompting Harper to leave the game. (The Phillies later indicated that Harper has an elbow contusion; x-rays were negative. Cheer up, x-rays, he’s fine.)
Fortunately for Strider, Enyel De Los Santos came in after his two walks and retired Edmundo Sosa, who came on for Harper, to end that threat. After that, the Atlanta bullpen was pretty clean — at least until Daysbel Hernandez had two guys single off him and then walked two straight to plate the second Philadelphia run. Not like it mattered.
No, this was a game about the Braves doing whatever it is they’re trying to do, and not succeeding at it while also not succeeding at any of the stuff they’re not trying to do. Ranger Suarez struck out both Ronald Acuña Jr. and Austin Riley looking to start the game, meaning that the Braves had more strikeouts looking in the first inning than balls hit over 300 feet in this one. Yay. There was another strikeout looking in the second (Eli White), though Suarez’ next three strikeouts over the next couple of frames were all swinging. Still, the Braves did nothing. They wasted a two-out single in the first, a leadoff walk in the second, a two-out bloop single in the third, and a one-out reach-on-error in the fourth. In the fifth, the Braves loaded the bases on a leadoff bloop single and two walks — however, in between those was a bunt (which predictably led to Suarez walking Acuña) and a groundout, and then Suarez struck out Matt Olson on an up-and-in fastball. Then there was another leadoff single wasted in the sixth, and a one-out single in the seventh, and a two-out walk in the eighth. The only inning in which the Braves didn’t actually have a baserunner was the ninth, where they went down in order.
Suarez finished with a stellar 8/3 K/BB ratio. The Braves had the same number of hits as the Phillies, but no extra-base hits, and gave out eight free passes (including the Harper plunking) while collecting just four. They’re just not very good at whatever OBP thing they’re trying to do.
The recap’s not really the place for this, but fundamentally, you can either build your team to get guaranteed runs via homers with some frequency, or chain plate appearances into runs because your batters have a relatively high chance of avoiding an out. The Braves are now 16th in MLB in homers, 17th in ISO, and 14th in OBP. If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both; the Braves apparently never researched hunting in Civilization IV, but if they had, maybe things would’ve been a little different tonight.
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