I guess this point when you consider the nasty run of form that the Braves are currently in and the fact that these games took place in California, we should be thrilled that this wasn’t a sweep. Still, it certainly didn’t feel good to essentially watch this team just completely hit the wall for the final two games of this series. As exciting as things have been for this ballclub during the first half of the season, those final two games were honestly some of the most dull and miserable baseball
I’ve seen this team play all season and you could put it up against any of the many low points that we saw across 2024 and 2025.
You could chalk some of this up to “lol California” but at the same time, it’s not like this is a huge departure from what we’ve seen from Atlanta in recent weeks. The Giants just got done beating up on Atlanta in Cobb County not too long ago and now they’ve proven that they are just too much for the Braves to handle at this particular moment in time. I can’t say if that’s more of an indictment of the Braves than any sign that the Giants may actually have some hope going forward themselves but either way you slice it, it’s a bad sign for Atlanta when they can’t even break out of their funk against a team of this quality.
Friday, June 26
Braves 3, Giants 1
Hold on to this moment because this is as good as it got for the Braves not just in San Francisco but for the entire road trip as well. San Francisco actually took the lead in this one because Rafael Devers has made it his life’s mission to make the Braves miserable and he got started on that mission early with an RBI double off of the wall in deep right-center for an RBI double that brought in Casey Schmitt all the way from first base.
Fortunately, the California nightmare abated for the time being since the Braves took control of the game over the next two innings. Reynaldo López got three innings of work done and in those three innings, the Braves were able to eke out in front. They tied the game in the second after an Austin Riley single (and a subsequent balk that Riley did a great job of coaxing out of rookie hurler Trevor McDonald) got cashed in by Dominic Smith delivering a game-tying RBI single. Some more defensive issues from the Giants helped put Mauricio Dubón in scoring position and Ozzie Albies was able to plate him with an RBI single of his own that put the Braves out in front.
From that point forward, it was on the rest of Atlanta’s bullpen to make sure the lead held up and as they’ve done for many times so far this season, the relief corps held the opposition at bay. Dylan Dodd, Hurston Waldrep (who somehow got through two innings without giving up a run despite walking four batters and giving up two hits), Dylan Lee, Didier Fuentes and then eventually Raisel Iglesias passed the baton to and from each other in order to get Atlanta across the finish line.
A sacrifice fly from Ozzie Albies helped give the Braves some breathing room and the other shoe that usually drops in California for the Braves just never did. Was it exciting? Not particularly but when it comes to the Braves when they’re playing in this part of the country, you’ll take wins any way you can get ’em.
Saturday, June 27
Giants 5, Braves 0
Unfortunately, this looked more familiar for the Braves as far as California goes. Let’s start with the positives: Michael Harris II, Mike Yastrzemski and Ha-Seong Kim reached base in this game and Mauricio Dubón hit a double! That was the entire extent of Atlanta’s offense on this one, as Jacob Webb completely and totally dominated Atlanta in this one. Webb finished with seven innings pitched with six strikeouts to his name. Things didn’t get better at all once Webb left the game, as Ryan Walker and Sam Hentges went through Atlanta’s lineup like a hot knife through butter on their way to a shutout win.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter whether or not Bryce Elder was good because you could’ve given the Braves 30 innings on this day and they likely would not have scored but Elder had another terrible outing. He gave up five hits but three of them were of the extra-base variety and two of them were homers to Rafael Devers. While the second one (a three-run shot that essentially ended the game with the way the Braves were hitting) was just proof that Devers has an intense and passionate hatred of the Atlanta Braves and will do anything to hurt them, the first homer Devers sent out was a Bryce Elder special where it was a fastball in the low-90s that hung around the plate for far, far too long.
Over his past five starts, Elder has an ERA of 8.70 with a FIP of 5.51 and it appears that everything that was going right for him at the start of the season has come to a complete and total end. He’s right back to where he was during the 2024 and 2025 season and honestly, it’s very disappointing to see him backslide like he has over this run. Everybody has their peaks and valleys but Elder’s valleys are about as deep as the abyss.
Sunday, June 28
Giants 3, Braves 2
It was time for another Chris Sale start, which meant that it was also time for us fans to sit back and enjoy watching Sale continue to excel at what he does while his teammates responded by doing nearly nothing at the plate while he was on the mound. Sale went another six innings and struck out ten batters with just one walk. he did give up eight hits but a lot of them were of the soft variety and unfortunately, they were soft enough to where they caused problems for Atlanta’s usually solid defense.
San Francisco scored twice in the sixth inning and a lot of it was aided by some bad throws from Braves defenders. Even when he failed to hit anything out of the infield, Devers continued to provide problems for the Braves as his grounder to third with two men on and nobody caused problems for Austin Riley. Riley sent the throw awry and Luis Arraez ended up scoring to break the deadlock. Heliot Ramos ended up crossing home plate for the second run after Ozzie Albies failed to make an accurate throw on a spinning effort to make the play. It’s one thing for Sale to not get any run support — it’s another when stuff like this is going on behind him, to boot.
Anyways, Didier Fuentes came on for the seventh and immediately found himself in trouble by giving up a single, double and sacrifice fly which made it 3-0. He walked Heliot Ramos and that was enough for Walt Weiss to go get him and bring in Dylan Lee, instead. Lee cleaned up the mess but at that point, the damage was done. It was especially annoying since the Braves finally shook from their malaise and plated a couple of runs late. Now granted, each one of those outs cost the Braves a run (a sacrifice fly from Michael Harris II in the eighth) and a productive out from Austin Riley in the ninth) so the offense wasn’t exactly flowing but instead of potentially getting to extra innings, Atlanta fell one run short in the end and this truly dour road trip was finally over.
It really does feel like at the momnet that if there’s good pitching, the bats go quiet. If there’s bad pitching, the bats go quiet. That’s the biggest issue right now and I’m saying that while knowing that ultimately the biggest weakness is the lack of consistent starting pitching. Atlanta just can’t get consistent offense going at the moment and as long as that’s the case, it won’t matter if they’re down by 2 runs or 20 runs — it’s just not happening at the plate for the Braves at the moment.
There was a small glimmer of hope in this series that Drake Baldwin could be on the cusp of turning things around after he had some hard-hit balls during this series that inconveniently found gloves instead of grass and having one of the best-hitting catchers in all of baseball actually perform like it could very well be the spark that gets the rest of this lineup going. Other than that, there’s not a lot of encouraging stuff going on with the Braves right now and this series was truly a chore to get through.
If you believe in the California curse then the good news is that the Braves have no more regular season games left in The Golden State — and yes I’m referring to the regular season still because there’s still a good chance that the Braves are going to make the Postseason and that they could potentially end up having to win some games out West in order to make a deep run during the Postseason. It is important to remember that even with this disastrous run of form in recent days, Atlanta is still 16 games over .500 and holding on to a (tenuous) lead over the Phillies in the NL East. The overall situation isn’t bleak but I think it’s okay to admit when things aren’t lining up with expectations and right now, the Braves are playing well below expectations that they with their previous play in the first half of the season.
Maybe this off-day and a homestand against a Cardinals squad that’s been struggling lately and then the Mets after that could serve as a potential springboard or revival to what’s been a listless run for the Braves so far. Either way, they’ll surely be happy to get back home after playing through yet another miserable California road trip. Atlanta’s now 11-25 (11-27 if you count the 2024 NL Wild Card) in California since the 2024 season and a lot of those wins came against the Angels. Not great, Bob! Not great at all.
P.S.: I apologize to Scott Coleman. Those were five mostly nasty games to write about during this past week.)
