Baseball is a funny, weird and sometimes cruel sport. The fact that it’s funny, weird and sometimes cruel is one of many reasons why I’m drawn to the sport and why it’s my favorite sport. It’s one of the only
sports out there where you can do everything right and it still won’t be enough to win.
I’m saying that to say that there’s going to be a handful of losses as we go down this list of the most impactful starts from Atlanta Braves pitchers in 2025. Sometimes a guy will pitch a gem while his offense lets him down and sometimes that same guy will get absolutely dump trucked in the midst of a slugfest that his team comes out of as the winners. Still, no matter what the results are, these performances deserve to be singled out for praise. As usual, we’ll be using WPA as our guiding metric for this list. Let’s get into it!
No. 10 – Spencer Schwellenbach, April 4 vs. Marlins (8.0 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 1 HBP, 0 R, 0 ER, 10 SO, .353 WPA)
We’re off to a roaring start in this list because I’d honestly argue that this was one of the best starts of the season and if we were grading by FanGraphs’ Game Score V2 metric, this would be near the top. However, Schwellenbach’s early-season masterpiece got dinged a little bit by WPA since it occurred during one of Atlanta’s most dominant wins of the season. It wasn’t like they needed Schwellenbach to be this dominant in order to win but it was still an amazing outing from Schwelly and the fact that it made the list in a 10-0 blowout really goes to show just how good this performance was.
No. 9 – Grant Holmes, July 1 vs. Angels (6.0 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 1 HBP, 0 R, 0 ER, 10 SO, .356 WPA)
Welp, didn’t take us long to get to the first one of these starts that ended up turning into a loss for the Braves. Grant Holmes was certainly nowhere to be found in the blame game department for this one, as he pitched six strong shutout innings where he struck out 10 batters and barely gave the Angels a sniff of scoring a run while he was out there. Even when Los Angeles loaded up the bases in the fourth inning, Holmes simply fooled Logan O’Hoppe with a slider to get out of the bases-loaded, two-out jam and had little-to-no-issues for the rest of the time that he was out there. The Braves lost this one because Tyler Anderson was equally as dominant and the Angels bullpen held up their end of the bargain. Grant Holmes was unlucky but he certainly didn’t deserve to come away from this as a loser.
No. 8 – Spencer Schwellenbach, March 29 at Padres (6.0 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 1 HBP, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 SO, .357 WPA)
This really should’ve been the first sign that the season-opening road trip through California probably wasn’t going to end up going well. Spencer Schwellenbach wasn’t exactly dominant when it came to strikeouts and we’ve already discussed a start of his that was certainly better in individual quality. With that being said, Atlanta needed this performance more than they did his eventual follow-up to this performance and that’s because he was essentially the only thing keeping the Braves competitive in this one. Randy Vásquez was just as good for the Padres in this one and the difference in this game ended up being Aaron Bummer and Daysbel Hernández slipping up while San Diego’s bullpen held firm. Two examples back-to-back in this list of great starts going to waste.
No. 7 – Chris Sale, May 6 vs. Reds (6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 1 HBP, 0 R, 0 ER, 10 SO, .368 WPA)
You knew that Chris Sale was going to show up on this list at some point. While he certainly had better starts than this one (some of which we’ll get into later), it was certainly impactful due to the fact that this was a close game where Sale needed to be at his very best in order for the Braves to have a chance to eventually win this one. He spent most of this start dueling with Andrew Abbott, who perplexed Atlanta’s lineup to no end while he was on the mound. Sale did outlast Abbott and not a single Reds runner made it past second base while Sale was on the mound.
Pierce Johnson took care of business with a runner on second to end the seventh inning and preserve 6.2 shutout innings for Sale and eventually, Atlanta ended up winning this one in very dramatic fashion. Michael Harris II and Marcell Ozuna were eventually the two heroes in this one but they wouldn’t have had the opportunity if not for Sale keeping Cincinnati quiet while he was on the mound.
No. 6 – Hurston Waldrep, August 15 at Guardians (6.0 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 SO, .383 WPA)
Two weeks after being thrust into emergency duty on a Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway, I’d argue that this was the start that made it clear that Hurston Waldrep needed to stick around for the rest of the season. Waldrep pitched a gem in this one, as he only had to deal with one runner in scoring position for the entirety of his start. Granted, it’s not like he was dealing with a Murderer’s Row here as Cleveland’s lineup was certainly their main weakness in 2025. Still, this was incredibly impressive from the rookie Waldrep as he made sure that a slender one-run lead stuck for the Braves as they pulled off the win at Progressive Park.
No. 5 – Chris Sale, September 5 vs. Mariners (6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 HBP, 1 R, 1 ER, 9 SO, .419 WPA)
The 2025 Seattle Mariners finished the season with a team wRC+ of 113, which was tied for second place in baseball with the Dodgers and in second place in the American League only behind the Yankees, who recorded 119 wRC+ for the season. This was certainly an imposing lineup that Chris Sale had to deal with on a September night in Cobb County. It didn’t end up fazing him in the slightest, as Sale once again rose up to the challenge and put up one of his best starts of the season.
The Braves did eventually pull away to win this one but Chris Sale was the main reason why they were able to stay in this game (and lead for the most part) with just a sacrifice fly from Ha-Seong Kim being their only source of a run for the first seven innings of this game. Atlanta ended up scoring three in the bottom of the eighth to take the win and I’d imagine that someone should’ve bought Sale a lovely steak dinner for keeping Atlanta alive long enough to eventually do some damage in this one. So
No. 4 – Joey Wentz, July 30 at Royals (6.2 IP, 1 H, 3 BB, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 SO, .420 WPA)
We’ve got another hard luck loss (which is easy to imagine considering how much of a downer this past season was) and this time, Joey Wentz was the one who was on the wrong end of the baseball gods deciding to punish the Atlanta Braves. Wentz was perhaps motivated to show out in front of a bunch of his hometown fans who made the short trip from his old stomping grounds in nearby Lawrence, KS and he certainly delivered in that regard.
FanGraphs has this rated as his best start of the season (you could argue that he was just as good on August 27 against the Marlins) and it was certainly one where he deserved to come out of it on the winning side. Instead, Atlanta’s lineup got dominated by Kansas City’s relievers in a bullpen game and all Wentz could do was watch helplessly as Salvador Perez cashed in KC’s Manfred Man to lead off their half of the tenth.
No. 3 – Bryce Elder, June 7 at Giants (8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 12 SO, .450 WPA)
This was quite easily Bryce Elder’s best start since throwing a complete game shutout all the way back in 2022 against the Nationals. In typical Bryce Elder fashion, the result didn’t go his way because as usual, Atlanta’s offense zigged and was unable to make much of anything happen while Elder zagged and was pretty dominant while he was on the mound. The only real mistake that Elder made in this one was his routine hanging slider that Wilmer Flores got all of for a solo shot but other than that, Elder was brilliant. He left this game with a lead and it was truly a crying shame that this one ended with Pierce Johnson getting walked off for a second day in a row.
No. 2 – Hurston Waldrep, August 20 vs. White Sox (7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 0 ER, 7 SO, .459 WPA)
The other two games in this White Sox series will be mentioned later (with one in particular being talked about in a bit more detail) but this one was hilarious just because of how much it was the polar opposite of the two games that proceeded it. The Braves desperately needed a good start from anybody in the rotation at this point and Hurston Waldrep delivered, big time. Atlanta desperately needed this type of performance in this game specifically as well, since he had to make sure that the single run that the Braves scored against Martín Perez in the fourth inning was enough to hold up. Waldrep never looked likely to give up anything in this one and it ended up making all the difference in a game that didn’t even last a full two hours.
No. 1 – Chris Sale, September 16 at Nationals (8.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 9 SO, .545 WPA)
Plain and simple, this was just another example of brilliance from Atlanta’s head of the rotation. Chris Sale was absolutely fantastic in this one for the Braves as the Nationals were completely mystified by what Sale was throwing on this night in particular. This was the fourth in a streak of four-straight starts from Sale with at least nine strikeouts and also just 11 days after the No. 5 entry on this list (which also came from Sale), so this tells you that he was in some type of zone in the final month of the season.
What makes this the top start on this list according to WPA is the fact that the Braves needed every last one of those 106 pitches that Sale tossed on the night. Despite the dominance that Sale displayed, the Braves were unable to figure out MacKenzie Gore and the rest of Washington’s bullpen until extra innings. Sale was excellent but he came up big when his team needed him the most in this one, which is very likely why this ended up being the most impactful start by an Atlanta Braves pitcher in 2025.
BONUS: Worst start in a Braves win in 2025: Bryce Elder, August 19 vs. White Sox (4.2 IP, 9 H, 2 BB, 8 R, 8 ER, 3 SO, -.669 WPA)
Welp! When you end up with a season where Bryce Elder ended up leading the team in innings pitched, this variance of results was bound to happen. Not only did he have one of the most impactful starts of the 2025 season, he also had the most detrimental start that any Braves starter had in 2025 — whether it turned into a win or a loss. Yes, Spencer Strider’s debacle in New York against the Mets was somehow rated higher than this calamity from Elder. This was also a perfect storm of the Braves needing Elder to stop the bleeding from Atlanta’s rotation after Strider had gotten blasted the night before by this same White Sox team.
Instead of coming up big, the White Sox essentially picked up where they left off the night before and completely bombed Elder while he was out there. Atlanta somehow ending up winning this one is a testament to the team’s determination (even in what was clearly a lost season for the Braves by this point) and also another example of how you never really know what to expect from a Bryce Elder start — other than a hanger at some point, of course, but still!
That’ll do it for this list. As usual, I’d like to hear which mound performances that you had in mind once you saw this headline and which ones you figured would be on this list. Which one shocked you? Which start got snubbed? Let us know what you think!
