One year after coasting to their sixth straight division title, the Atlanta Braves are having a tough time plugging the growing number of leaky holes in their ship of state.
Five key players are down – several for the year – and the team has gone 35-38 since opening this season with a best-in-baseball record of 19-7.
Entering play Tuesday, the team still stands second to Philadelphia in the National League East but trails by eight-and-a-half games and faces the very real prospect of losing the NL’s top wild-card spot.
Sirius XM firebrand Chris (Mad Dog) Russo even predicted on his High Heat show Monday that the Braves will miss the playoffs completely – a startling prediction for a team that had entered the season as World Series favorites.
“It’s just not their year,” he said after telling listeners that second baseman Ozzie Albies (broken wrist) and All-Star pitcher Max Fried (neuritis in left forearm) had joined defending National League MVP Ronald Acuña, Jr. (torn ACL), strikeout king Spencer Strider (elbow surgery), and gifted center-fielder Michael Harris II (oblique) on an injured list loaded with stars.
Compounding the crisis is a team-wide batting slump that has hammered everyone but designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, who seems headed for his second straight 40-homer season.
The biggest culprit is first baseman Matt Olson. After leading the majors with career peaks in both home runs (54) and runs batted in (139), the cleanup man was called “the black hole of the lineup” by Gabriel Burns of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday.
