What Could Go Wrong is Going Wrong During Braves Offensive Woes

The Atlanta Braves were shutout for the sixth time this season, when they lost 1-0 to the San Diego Padres on Monday night.

Going 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and leaving eight total runners on base contributed to losing a winnable game against one of the weakest lineups in baseball.

Now, if you look to just Monday night's offensive struggles, it wasn't just them. That night featured the smallest combined run differential on a single day with at least 12 games since Aug. 6, 1989.

In Monday's case, something was in the air for everyone. Outside of that, the Braves' offense has looked out of character lately.

Over their last 10 games, they've been held to two runs or fewer four times. The team's OPS is down almost 100 points compared to May (.634 vs .732). By month, their walk-rate is down from 8.18% to 6.42%. In turn, the strikeout rate has sticked up from 21.7% to 23%.

Those numbers seem small at first glance, but in baseball, that's significant. If you moved the decimal over one to the left and treated the strikeout rate like a batting averate, you'd see it go from .217 to .230.

When the Braves have pulled out some wins, it's taken some very timely hits.

Injuries haven't helped. They're without Ronald Acuña Jr. again due to a hamstring injury. Michael Harris II's availability has been hindered at times by back tightness. Even those who have recently gotten healthy haven't looked quite the same yet.

Since Drake Baldwin hit a laser to center field in his first at-bat back in the lineup, he's had one hit. He's 2-for-26 since his return with no walks and 15 strikeouts. He wore the sombrero in San Diego on Monday night with four strikeouts.

It hasn't helped that Ha-Seong Kim has been a liability, and other bats have come down to earth, including Jorge Mateo and Dominic Smith.

Let's not forget that this is a team that has been plagued by weather across multiple states and time zones. It's not the culprit, but it doesn't help. What could go wrong is starting to go wrong.

In June, they've posted an 8-9 record. Things could be worse than hovering around .500 for a few weeks, but the first losing month of the season is a possibility they'd like to avoid. They'd like to not let teams they've pulled far ahead of back into the race.

This is a team that emphasized that at some point, they were going to hit a rut. Better now when they can make adjustments and look for help at the deadline instead of in September or October. Timing likely doesn't make it any less frustrating in the moment.

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