On April 21, 2024, the Braves began the day with a six-game winning streak. It ended in fairly routine fashion: the Braves took an early 3-0 lead over the Rangers, but Darius Vines couldn’t prop it up, and they lost, 6-4. That was the last time (before now) the Braves had a winning streak of six games or more when the wins actually mattered. On April 21, 2026, the Braves also began the day with a six-game winning streak. This one ended in far more ignominious fashion, as the pitching (and defense)
had a horrific day en route to an 11-4 walloping at the hands of the Washington Nationals.
Though many Braves arms struggled in this one, Reynaldo Lopez set the tone, or whatever the correct idiom is for being horrendous out of the gate. When Bryce Elder struggled early in the series opener on Monday night, it was attributed to a mechanics deficiency associated with the cold weather, and, perhaps, the dreaded “road pitcher first inning penalty” associated with a starter warming up and then having to sit before going back out and pitching. I don’t know if either of those two reasons applied to Lopez tonight, but either way, it was just terrible.
Lopez’ first pitch of the night was a sub-89 mph “fastball,” and that was only the beginning of his issues. For the entirety of that inning, his pitches were either nowhere near the zone, or basically right down the middle. Walk-single-single plated the first run, then there was another walk, then a run-scoring walk on five pitches that all missed the zone, and then a bloop hit to make it 3-0. Lopez managed to get out of the inning with some pitches that were in the middle of the zone but taken or mishit, but it wasn’t a very good start.
And then got it far worse, when he once again could barely flirt with the strike zone against James Wood to start the second, only to throw a 93 mph fastball on a full count that caught enough of the zone to be absolutely obliterated into left field. I’ve seen fielders stop and watch (or not watch) on pulled homers before, but on an opposite field shot on a cold day? Yowza. A single by the next batter chased Lopez, who had one of the worst outings of his career in this one — a 1/3 K/BB ratio and a homer allowed while getting just three outs.
The procession of Braves’ pitchers that followed Lopez wasn’t much better. Jose Suarez actually pitched three scoreless frames with four strikeouts… but he also walked four, including three in his final inning of work before escaping with a weak flyout. Dylan Dodd got two strikeouts and a pop out (great), but was victimized by a couple of bloops that led to the fifth Washington run. After Aaron Bummer mercifully worked a 1-2-3 frame with a strikeout, the Braves gave Ian Hamilton a shot to do something… and it went terribly. A couple of walks and a single loaded the bases, and then Luis Garcia Jr. hit a mediocre line drive into the right-center gap that should’ve been caught, except Ronald Acuña Jr. basically flubbed the catch, leading to two more runs. A groundout scored another. So, then, the Braves went with Joel Payamps, who issued two walks ahead of a three-run homer by Curtis Mead, who entered the game in the middle innings as a pinch-hitter.
Basically, in this game, the Braves’ arms walked twelve Nats, only struck out ten, and gave up two homers. Gross. Both Lopez and Grant Holmes feel like they’re going to be bullpen-bound eventually. Before the season, I surmised that they’d be deficient in availability and not performance, but instead, it’s been the opposite: no injury troubles yet, but other than whatever results they’re scrounging up from pitching in front of a defense that’s played well, they’ve been disappointing.
Offensively, the Braves did some stuff, but they couldn’t really keep up with the 11-run drubbing that their soft underbelly arms (and Lopez) handed to the Nationals on a gilded platter. The first inning had a bizarre sequence where, with Laz Diaz behind the plate, both Acuña and Nationals catcher Drew Millas challenged consecutive pitches, with neither challenge succeeding and Acuña striking out. Back-to-back doubles by Mauricio Dubon and Michael Harris II plated a run against Foster Griffin in the second, and Drake Baldwin took him deep in the third. Eli White then collected his first homer on the year with a hard shot into the right-field corner, which pulled the Braves within one, until the Other Relievers gave it all back and then some. The Braves scored their fourth and final run on a bizarre play that went 3-6-3 but wasn’t a double play, as the throw from the first baseman was not anywhere near the second base bag but ended up being corralled and returned to first for an out anyway. Braves batters ran a fine 6/3 K/BB ratio and hit two bombs to go with three doubles. The problem was that a bunch of their grounders didn’t get through (seven different grounders off Braves’ bats went 100+ mph but turned into outs)… and also that the pitching was really bad.
Well, tomorrow is a new day and a chance to start another, and hopefully longer, streak. Thankfully, whatever the Mets are doing right now is not baseball but rather some kind of abstract performance art trying to communicate the flavor of despair, and the Phillies currently resemble the zombies in a cerca-1988 straight-to-TV zombie movie, so the Braves can afford a pitching stinker like this one. But it’s more fun when they don’t do that and just hit a bunch of dingers and win.
