Atlanta Braves Face Uphill Climb after 'Surprising' Start to Season

The Atlanta Braves 1-8 start had been one of the biggest surprises this season, and potential answers requiring more time put them in a bind

The Braves might already be out of time to fix this | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

This isn’t the first time you’ve read in a story that the Atlanta Braves season is off to a bad start. It’s not going to be the last, either. That being said, their brutal start has managed to be given its latest hyperbolic label. 

In Bleacher Report’s Zachary D Rymer’s piece on plot twists for this season, he labeled the Braves as not just bad but as “already doomed.”  

“Of all the shockers in the first two weeks of the 2025 campaign, this is the cake-taker,” Rymer said. “The Braves haven't missed the playoffs since 2017, and FanGraphs had them as a 64.2 percent favorite to win the NL East and 15.8 percent favorite to win the World Series at the outset.”

To add insult to injury, no team has started the season after starting 0-7, forcing the Braves to make history if they want to see October baseball. 

Rymer hasn’t completely written off the Braves, but he sees their hopes of winning the division as good as gone. 

“Not exactly hopeless, as situations go. But even now, the Braves have already ceded NL East favoritism to the Phillies, with the Mets also lurking to leapfrog them,” Rymer said. 

For the Braves turn it around, Rymer pointed to incoming reinforcements as a glimmer of hope. He pointed to Alex Verdugo for help in the outfield. He’s still building up to regular season ready in Triple-A, but would likely be available in the coming weeks. 

He then pointed to Ronald Acuña Jr., Spencer Strider, Sean Murphy and Reynaldo López coming back and performing well. Murphy is already back, but the rest of the team might not be back fast enough. 

Strider isn’t expected to be back until the end of the month, and Acuña isn’t expected to be back until at least May. López just went on the 60-day Injured List. His services can’t be counted on for a while. 

The currently available players, plus Murphy, will need to win some ballgames without them for their impact to matter this season.

It might be best if we circle back to this after the Phillies series this week. The next few days will determine if this discussion is still worth having.