Braves Briefing: Atlanta's lead in the NL East is a lot smaller

The Atlanta Braves are riding a small losing streak - the last game of the San Diego Padres series and the first two of the homestand versus the Houston Astros.

Atlanta looks to get back in the winning track on Sunday. We discuss the losing streak, some notable Braves stats, and more on today's Braves Briefing.

Atlanta's league-leading offensive performances, both good and bad

The Atlanta Braves are pacing all of MLB in several categories, and they're not all good ones.

Ronald Acuña Jr., the most dangerous leadoff hitter in baseball, is pressuring opposing pitchers from the first pitch. On the season, Acuña leads all of MLB in hits (33) and steals (11), and is first in the National League in runs (19).

(Fun fact, Acuña is on pace to steal his 40th base by game 84 and would finish the season with over 80 stolen bases.)

As we mentioned above, he's a dangerous leadoff hitter: To open games in 2023, Acuña is 13-20 with four doubles, one homerun, and one walk. It's immediate pressure on opposing pitchers and results in Atlanta having some of best early-game run production in baseball.

Conversely, Matt Olson also leads MLB in an offensive category: strikeouts. His 35 strikeouts is 1st in all of MLB, and after finishing last season with 170 in 162 games, he's on pace for over 270 at his current rate. Obviously this is going to stabilize - no hitter finished last season with more than 200 (Philadelphia's Kyle Schwarber), but it's not a great trend.

The bullpen has been nails

Atlanta's bullpen has a 3.15 ERA in their 80 innings, with almost everyone providing above-average stats as compared to MLB. Only Kirby Yates (98) and Lucas Lutege (57) have an ERA+ under 100, and Lutege is currently on the IL. For an "armbarn" that's been missing closer Raisel Iglesias and has had to work extra to cover short and/or injury-abbreviated outings by starters, they've done yeoman's work.

NL East Standings

The three-game losing streak has caused Atlanta's NL East lead to narrow, sitting just half a game above the Mets entering Sunday's action:

Team	Record	GB	Action Today
Atlanta	14-7	--	vs Astros
New York	14-8	0.5	@ Giants
Miami	12-9	2.0	@ Guardians
Philadelphia	10-12	4.5	vs Rockies
Washington	7-13	6.5	@ Twins

We Wrote It

Braves Today writer Dan Strickland noted in last night's takeaways the bad luck that Kyle Wright had in one particular inning last night:

Kyle Wright had some runners on base through the first five innings but got out of trouble in each of those innings. However, the sixth inning was not as forgiving. The first five batters in the inning reached, and four of those runners scored. Alex Bregman opened the inning with a single. Yordan Alverez came up next and hit his second home run of the series to give the Astros a 2-0 lead. Jose Abreu reached on an error by Vaughn Grissom, followed by a two-run home run by Kyle Tucker to give the Astros a 4-1 lead. This was Wright’s third start of the season after beginning the season on the IL. He is now 0-1 on the season with a 5.93 ERA.

Read the whole thing HERE.

What's next?

Today's series finale is scheduled for 1:35 ET and is being broadcast by Bally Sports South. The radio call, with Ben Ingram, is available locally on 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan or outside the Atlanta market on the Atlanta Braves Radio Network or MLB.com.

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