Following another terrible trip out to California, the Atlanta Braves are finally back at home and looking for any type of spark. Whether that comes from someone in the rotation not named Chris Sale or Martín Pérez delivering a standout performance or quite literally anybody in the lineup actually having a big day, it’s clear that the Braves are currently in desperate need of something going their way so that this slide can finally come to an end.
Atlanta will enter this week’s action with a much
better record and outlook than both of their opponents but again, it’s hard to feel confident when the Braves have been in such terrible form as of late. At least when you look at things on paper, it sure seems like this week could provide some opportunities for this team to collectively get their confidence back. The Cardinals haven’t been doing so hot as of late. The Mets usually play the Braves tough regardless but this is still a team that the Braves have the talent to beat. It’s just a question of whether or not the Braves can actually figure out a way to get back to the levels they were at earlier this season against seemingly favorable competition.
Let’s go ahead and figure out what lies ahead for the Braves this week, y’all.
June 30-July 2: St. Louis Cardinals
Current Record: 43-38 Projected Record (via FanGraphs): 82-80
It’s been an up-and-down season for the Cardinals and right now they’re in a bit of a valley after having gone 3-7 over their last 10 games and dropped a series against the Marlins heading into this series. With that being said, St. Louis has got some guys who can thump a baseball and that’s what Atlanta’s pitching staff will have to deal wiht outside of their own set of issues. Cardinals 2024 first-round pick JJ Wetherholt has arrived to the show and he’s been making his presence felt with a .265/.360/.411 slash line along with a .343 wOBA and 120 wRC+ over 77 games. Both he and Jordan Walker have paired up as an exciting 1-2 punch of young guns and they’ll very likely be the two biggest threats to the Braves this week.
Still, it’s a pretty well-rounded lineup as evidenced by their collective team wRC+ of 102 — good for a tie for 10th place in all of baseball with the Athletics when it comes to that particular metric. Alec Burleson figures to be a thread and Ivan Herrera can also do some real damage at the plate as well. Lars Nootbaar has also hit the ground running since getting his season started earlier this month. The easy outs against the Cardinals will be far-and-few inbetween for the Braves, so everybody on the staff will likely have to stay locked in if they’re going to hold the Redbirds at bay.
The pitching for St. Louis is less imposing but at this point with the way the Braves have been hitting, any progress from Atlanta on that front has to be seen before it’s believed. Therefore, probably not great to see that Atlanta’s going to have to deal with a couple of really good starters in the form of Dustin May and Michael McGreevy. May in particular has been pretty solid this season and while his ERA is somewhat high (4.30, ERA- of 106), his FIP (3.31, 81 FIP-) and his walk rate both indicate that as long as he can avoid the usual pratfalls, he’ll be tough to deal with. He’s also coming off of some back issues in recent days so we’ll have to see just how effective he is against the scuffling Braves.
Michael McGreevy has done a solid job of avoiding walks and he’s able to get plenty of ground balls as well so if the Braves fail to hit the ball hard against him, Atlanta could be in line for yet another long and quiet night at the plate. With all of that being said, the Braves could have an opportunity to do something against Matthew Liberatore, who has been struggling as of late. Ever since May 13, Liberatore has put up an ERA of 7.32 (180 ERA-) and a FIP of 5.17 (126 FIP-) and he’s given up thirteen runs (eleven earned) across his past two starts. He’s also given up at least one home run in six of his past eight starts Plain and simple, Tuesday’s game appears to be a golden opportunity for the Braves to potentially break out of their long and collective slump. If there’s no breakout here then this rotten run at the plate really might keep going into the weekend series.
Tuesday, June 30 at 7:15 p.m ET (BravesVision, Gray TV)
Wednesday, July 1 at 7:15 p.m ET (BravesVision)
Thursday, July 2 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
July 3-6: New York Mets
Current Record: 35-49 Projected Record: 76-86
Yeah, this is a weird one where the series is wrapping around the weekend and into Monday by design. I guess they did it because of the holiday weekend? I can’t tell you but either way, it’s a rare four-game weekend series against a new-look Mets team. The new look comes from the fact that Carlos Mendoza is out of the managerial seat and replaced him with Andy Green on an interim basis.
If New York was looking for a quick ‘new manager bump,’ it didn’t materialize after they dropped a home series against a team that has very much benefited from a ‘new manager bump.’ Maybe they’ll make something happen against the still-sputtering Blue Jays but for now, there’s still plenty of upheaval going on with this team at the moment.
One thing that remains the same is that no matter where these two teams may be in the standings relative to each other, it’s going to be a hard-fought series. The Mets proved that they aren’t going to roll over for the Braves after they were pretty clearly the better team over three-games played between these two back in New York. That may be more indicative of this current extended slump that the Braves are on than anything that the Mets have going on but it’s also clear that at this point, the Braves are going to have to fight and claw for any wins that come their way — divisional foes or not.
As a matter of fact, the Braves and the Mets have the same amount of victories (3) since these two parted ways earlier this month. If that number remains the same heading into this series (whether it’s up or down) then I’d say that this could potentially be the series where we really start to see some red flags popping up when it comes to the Braves.
Anyways, Bo Bichette is likely to be a factor in this series as it appears that the previous series against the Braves did, in fact, revive his season. A.J. Ewing has also been getting the job done for the Mets at the plate since these two teams last locked horns. Francisco Alvarez and Carson Benge have also been faring pretty well since then and Juan Soto is Juan Soto. New York’s hitting has actually been fine over the past couple of weeks — it’s the pitching that’s been the issue for the Mets lately.
Since these two clubs last played each other, New York’s pitching staff has had the highest ERA- in the National League (142) along with a bottom-10 FIP- of 104. With that being said, the Braves have had baseball’s worst wRC+ since their last meeting (51) so this matchup might be a case of the stoppable force meeting a movable object. Atlanta’s offense has got to get going at some point and if they can’t get it done against this Mets pitching staff then it’ll be tough to figure out when this skid will end for the Braves.
Friday, July 3 at 7:15 p.m ET (BravesVision)
Saturday, July 4 at 8:08 p.m. ET (FOX)
Sunday, July 5 at 12:30 p.m. ET (NBC)
Monday, July 6 at 7:15 p.m. ET (BravesVision)
