Braves See Season-Long Streak Meet Its End

The Atlanta Braves dropped the series finale to the Seattle Mariners, 3-1, Wednesday afternoon. The loss hands them their first series loss of the season.

After allowing a run in the bottom of the third and then the bottom of the sixth to fall behind 2-0, the Braves were able to cut the lead in half in the top of the eighth on a sac-fly by Dominic Smith.

However, they saw the rally cut short after Jorge Mateo was picked off of first base, followed by Drake Baldwin getting stranded at first base. The Mariners tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth to reach the final score.

They won 10 of the first 11 series of the year, splitting the one they didn’t with the Arizona Diamondbacks in early April. It was the first time in franchise history that they went this deep into the season, in respect to the number of series played, without losing a series.

"It's gonna happen," Martin Pérez said. "This is baseball. Sometimes, the opponent is going to play better and they win."

After the series loss, they're also only 26-12 on the season. Clearly, this is a losing team that is going nowhere. Whatever shall they do to recover?

Even if you change two series they have won this year into having been swept, this team would still be 22-16 and would lead the division by five games. Plug in their current winning percentage into a 162 games, and they would have 110 wins.

Dropping a series was inevitable. The fact that it took until the 12th series of the year speaks volumes to how this team has looked early on.

The Braves are the only team in baseball with at least 200 runs scored (213). They're second behind the New York Yankees for home runs hit (55), and their .792 OPS as a team is the third-best overall.

On the pitching side, they have third-lowest ERA (3.22) and the fifth-lowest WHIP (1.18). This has been done despite having to shuffle arms in the bullpen and try out an arm or two in the rotation to see who will stick. They could have lost another series or two, and the credit still would have been due.

Up next provides them a chance to make a statement bounce-back. They head to Los Angeles to take on the reigning back-to-back World Series champions, the Dodgers. First is set for 10:10 p.m. EDT, and Chris Sale will go up against Emmet Sheehan.

Sign up for our free newsletter for the latest Atlanta Braves news

Add us as a preferred source on Google