When the Atlanta Braves continue their seven-game road trip to Ohio Tuesday by visiting Cincinnati, they’ll do so with a barely winning record (11-10) and a modest two-game win streak that’s come on the heels of a four-game losing skid.
On the surface, it is not the stuff to ignite high hopes for an eventual playoff appearance come October. But should that current unlikelihood become a reality, this past Saturday night in Cleveland could well become the moment the Braves players and coaches point to as the turning point.
Maybe you missed this unlikely triumph after Atlanta lost 8-4 to the Indians on Saturday afternoon. At that point, the losing streak having reached four, it would be understandable for anyone to believe the Bravos were headed for a losing season and much-deserved criticism for a front office that seems more than a little reluctant to fix its broken bullpen.
And both of those scenarios may yet prove true.
But on Saturday night, the Braves in a seemingly disastrous 7-0 hole early, with that brittle bullpen asked to close the floodgates opened by starter Touki Toussaint’s ineptness, something of a miracle arrived. That bullpen – deservedly viewed as one of the worst in baseball after surrendering 10 walks, 14 hits and 11 runs (nine earned) in 10 innings and three straight losses to Arizona – shut out the Indians the remainder of the night.
Not only that, the offense struck for five runs in the top of the ninth, much-criticized closer A.J. Minter faced the minimum in the bottom of the inning and the Braves not only secured their biggest comeback win since 2012 but also prevailed again Sunday to win the three-game series.
“That’s the definition of Atlanta Braves baseball,” Minter told MLB.com late Saturday night. “Chop on.”
It has been a consistently choppy April thanks not only to the bullpen’s three blown saves and wretched walk total (the worst in baseball), but also seven blown leads total.
Nearly every ninth inning has become an adventure, especially since expected closer Arodys Vizcaíno was lost for the year with shoulder issues.
While Braves skipper Brian Snitker has every right to say of Vizcaino, “When he’s right, he’s one of the best there is,” the fact is that he hasn’t been right all that often the last two or three seasons and his arm troubles now have the organization clearly on the wrong side of this bullpen thing, which is where most playoff berths are won or lost these days.
Snitker, who some might view as Bobby Cox 2.0 when it comes to protecting his players, recently said of one of those recent late-inning collapses and the relievers who created them: “It’s not a matter of stuff. All three of them that went out there in that seventh inning have the stuff to pitch the seventh, eighth or, (heck), the ninth. It’s not about that. I don’t know if that’s the answer to bring young guys up (from the minors), because we have guys with stuff.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe Saturday night in Cleveland was the wake-up call both the bullpen and the offense needed to more permanently return the Braves to the team that had won nine of its last 12 before that wretched three-game performance last week against Arizona.
As the $100 million man Ronald Acuna noted to the media through an interpreter late Saturday after smacking the two-run double that completed the comeback against the Indians: “Never give up, never surrender. And we’re going to continue to work hard until that 27th out is made.”
This has often been the Braves’ strength, and it certainly was a year ago in reaching the playoffs under Snitker after being projected to win no more than 75 games before the 2018 season began. Thanks to Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Nick Markakis and the all-around excellence and reliability of Freddie Freeman, the Braves not only made the postseason but threw a brief scare into the Los Angeles Dodgers once they got there.
But last season’s success won’t guarantee the another postseason appearance this time around. While the offense seems built for such a repeat, the bullpen seems just as likely to thwart another opportunity for October baseball.
Still, it’s only April.
As Snitker noted last week, those three losses to Arizona freshly endured: “This business and this game can change with the wind. You could be going so good and then you look up and you’re playing like we are right now. We were playing so good. Then when you hit a rough spell, you’ve just got to come out tomorrow and right the ship.”
On Saturday night, a 7-0 hole erased, they righted the ship. On Sunday they kept it there. If that ship doesn’t dock for good until after the playoffs begin, that April comeback win over the Indians may go down as the most important of the season.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.