ATLANTA — If the Braves are to keep their position atop the National League East standings, let alone maintain the best record in majors, they probably are going to need one or more of their slumping stars at the top of the order — Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, Matt Olson — to start performing at their accustomed levels.
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Because, sure, Marcell Ozuna, the major-league RBIs leader and NL home run leader, might cool off at some point, and Braves starting pitchers can’t be expected to continue the dominance they showed for most of a 7-2 homestand that ended Sunday with a 4-3 win in 10 innings against the Cleveland Guardians.
The Braves need Olson, Riley and Acuña to start hitting balls out of the park again, and for Acuña to be the leadoff menace who strikes fear in opposing pitchers from the moment he steps to the on-deck circle, as he was during his 2023 NL MVP season.
There were encouraging signs with Riley and Olson, who scorched loud outs over the weekend before each had a key hit Sunday including Riley’s walk-off single.
Austin Riley does it — walk-off single scores Acuña, #Braves win 4-3 to complete a 7-2 homestand with a series win over the Guardians. Third career walk-off RBI for Riley.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) April 28, 2024
Acuña yet to soar
Acuña missed much of spring training with a knee injury and is healthy now, so it’s not time to panic regarding the Braves’ biggest star, who’s batting .255 with one homer and a .715 OPS.
That said, his slow start is especially notable for the precipitous decline in key analytics where he made huge year-over-year improvement in 2023, when he hit .337 with 41 homers, 73 stolen bases and a 1.012 OPS.
After his stunning reduction in strikeout rate to a career-low 11.4 percent last season, Acuña had struck out 22.9 percent of the time this season before three more Ks Sunday, which left him inching toward his 2022 rate (23.6). Meanwhile, his hard-hit rate and barrel percentages would be career lows.
He cost Ozzie Albies an umpire-assessed strike when Acuña failed to make it to second base promptly to serve as a ghost runner to begin the 10th inning, after striking out to end the ninth with a runner on. Down 0-1 to start his count, Albies struck out before Riley’s game-ending hit.
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To comprehend Acuña’s analytics decline, consider: His whiff rate is up 10.8 percent this season to 29.5, the highest increase among MLB qualifiers. That’s after his rate declined from 24.9 percent in 2022 to 18.7 in 2023, the largest decrease.
And while Ozuna’s expected slugging percentage (xSLG) was up .169 year-over-year before Sunday, the third-highest increase among MLB qualifiers, Acuña’s xSLG was down .272, the steepest drop in MLB. This after Acuña had a .176 increase from 2022 to 2023, the largest increase among MLB qualifiers.
That means in whiff rate and xSLG, Acuña has gone from first to worst in terms of year-over-year change from 2022 to 2023 and from 2023 to 2024. Acuña snapped an 0-for-17 skid with an eighth-inning single Sunday.
“He’s not right yet, not locked in yet,” Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer said. “I have total confidence it’s gonna come.”
Riley, Olson coming around?
Between them, Riley and Olson had 91 homers and 236 RBIs in 2023, with Olson leading MLB in both at 54 and 139. This year, Riley and Olson have a combined five homers and 29 RBIs.
Olson is hitting .212 with a .723 OPS and Riley .234/.694. On the homestand, Riley was 4-for-33 with two RBIs, Olson 3-for-30 with three RBIs.
The encouraging signs: Olson ranked among MLB leaders in hard-hit rate and exit velocity before Sunday, when he scorched a line-out to deep center at 106.6 mph. He hasn’t had much luck but did on a game-tying broken-bat single.
Riley went hitless on three balls hit at over 100 mph Saturday, and Sunday had two hits and an eighth-inning fly to the left field track at 101 mph, which advanced a runner from second to third before Olson’s RBI single.
“Hopefully the last couple of days, getting some barrels on some balls, we’re trending in the right direction,” Riley said.
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Extra-innings beasts
The Braves’ depth both in their lineup and bullpen makes them formidable in extra innings, where they have a 4-1 record this season and are a majors-best 12-4 since the beginning of the 2023 season.
They can use one of their top setup men in the eighth inning and closer Raisel Iglesias in the ninth as they did Sunday and still have a closer-caliber reliever for the 10th from the likes of Joe Jiménez, Pierce Johnson or A.J. Minter. It was Minter who pitched a scoreless 10th on Sunday, picking up his fifth win while trimming his ERA to 1.32 in 14 appearances.
Meanwhile, there are so many good hitters throughout the lineup that there’s a strong chance they’ll get a ghost runner in from second in the first extra inning, especially since Atlanta’s .312 average with runners in scoring position ranks second in the majors. The Braves’ .823 OPS in those spots led the NL in 2023.
(Photo of Ronald Acuña Jr.: Dale Zanine / USA Today)
David O'Brien is a senior writer covering the Atlanta Braves for The Athletic. He previously covered the Braves for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and covered the Marlins for eight seasons, including the 1997 World Series championship. He is a two-time winner of the NSMA Georgia Sportswriter of the Year award. Follow David on Twitter @DOBrienATL
