This weekend’s performance wasn’t exactly the most ideal way to head into a huge series in New York this week.
Well, if you were looking to see the Atlanta Braves build upon their sweep of the Mets last week, you’ll just have to hope that they can figure out a way to do it in New York over the course of the next four games because it certainly didn’t happen in Miami over this past weekend! The Braves went down to South Beach to face off against the last-place Marlins and depending on your level of cynicism, this was either an unfortunately timed slip-up or a completely predictable letdown in a season that’s been full of them despite not even reaching the All-Star break just yet.
As such, this was a pretty frustrating series to observe as outside of Saturday’s dominant win, the Marlins just always seemed to be a step ahead of the Braves during these three games. Now granted, it also didn’t help that this series coincided with the bottom of Atlanta’s rotation coming into play while being joined by a prospect who was a teenager just couple of weeks ago, so it would’ve been a feat if the Braves had taken care of business in this series. With that being said, if the Braves are going to figure out a way to turn their season around, they have to take opportunities against these lower-quality teams. Let’s take a look at how this series went.
Friday, June 20
Marlins 6, Braves 2
20-year-old Didier Fuentes made his big league debut on Friday night against the Marlins and while it’s certainly exciting to see him make it to the bigs at such a young age, it was also clear that, well, he’s 20-years-old. Fuentes’ career debut was an inauspicious one, as he made it through five innings while giving up four runs on six hits and one walk. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares going forward but for now, his first big league start wasn’t exactly one to remember.
Meanwhile, Janson Junk improved on what’s been a really solid season for him so far. He held the Braves to just one run while striking out five batters. The Braves themselves collected their fair share of hits but as per usual as of late, those hits weren’t coming in a timely manner or in a way that would be conducive to scoring runs or getting a rally going. A Matt Olson RBI single and an Austin Riley home run were just window dressing on what was a dominant win for Miami. Woof.
Saturday, June 21
Braves 7, Marlins 0
This is the type of game that makes me immeasurably happy whenever it happens but it also makes me miss the days when these games were a lot more common in this particular situation for the Braves. Atlanta eventually ended up cruising to victory in this one — a first inning RBI single from Marcell Ozuna plated Ronald Acuña Jr. and Grant Holmes appeared dead set on making sure that that one run ended up sticking. Five was the magic number for Holmes in this one — 5.2 innings pitched, five strikeouts, five walks and five hits allowed. Somehow, he got out of all of it without giving up a run, which hey, we’ll certainly take it! It wasn’t dominant from Holmes but it was enough to help keep the Braves in firm control of this one.
RBIs from Ronald Acuña Jr. and Austin Riley in the fifth inning helped run Eury Pérez from the game in the fifth inning and then the Braves closed things out in style with a couple of strong innings in the eighth and ninth to deliver the knockout shot. Michael Harris II collected an RBI in the eighth inning on a productive out and then Drake Baldwin’s ninth inning home run brought us to the 7-0 finish. The Braves scored early and often in this one as Holmes and the bullpen completely locked down Miami. Oh, if only this was a normal day for the 2025 Braves instead of an outlier!
Sunday, June 22
Marlins 5, Braves 3
This game had a bit of a seesaw nature to it early on, as the two teams traded quick salvos in the first three innings. Braves scored once in the first, Marlins scored once in the second and then both teams plated one run each in the third inning. The tipping point came in Bryce Elder’s final full inning, as a one-out triple from Xavier Edwards cascaded into an RBI single from Otto Lopez and then another one from Dane Myers to make it a 4-2 Marlins game after five innings.
The Braves responded once again as Alex Verdugo delivered a productive out that plated Drake Baldwin to bring the Braves to within one but that was as close as Atlanta got in this one. Miami got their insurance run back almost immediately after Nick Fortes led off the sixth with a double and then Xavier Edwards brought him home with an RBI single of his own. Atlanta’s lineup couldn’t muster up any more responses and now they’re in New York following a series loss to Miami. Blah.
As I mentioned above, these are the series that the Braves have to take care of business in if they want to have any real hope of turning this season around — even if things continue to get more and more bleak with each passing day due to various reasons both in and outside of the team’s control. It’s really tough to say that things are running out of time since it’s still just June but the Braves really, really can’t afford to be dropping series to last-place clubs if they’re going to be serious about playing themselves back into relevancy.
Fortunately, they didn’t get swept so it’s not like they simply span their wheels in the mud last week. Still, it’s pretty disappointing to follow that Mets sweep up with a bit of a slip-up in Miami. It’s especially disappointing considering that the Braves will be heading to New York for the next few days. This could’ve been an opportunity for Atlanta to build and have a bit of a decent foundation to work from as they get to work on flipping the script. Instead, they’ll now have to hope that this funk the Mets are in continues on into this week. Otherwise, the Braves might continue sailing adrift here in 2025.