Folks, this is bad.
In what is continuing to be a very disturbing run of form for this offense, the Atlanta Braves were once again unable to get much of anything tangible going at the plate. They had plenty of chances but were unable to capitalize on any of them as the Baltimore Orioles scored four early runs and cruised to a 4-0 shutout win over the Braves.
The frustration for the Braves was palpable from the get-go. Michael Harris II led off tonight’s game with a triple. In happier times for the Braves, this was usually a sign that a big inning was on the way. Instead, 2-3-4 in Atlanta’s order all went down in order from that point forward and the inning ended scoreless for the Braves.
The second inning was arguably worse for Atlanta since this was basically the turning point for the rest of the game. Marcell Ozuna led off the second with a walk and he was joined on the basepaths when Jarred Kelenic got on with a one-out walk. That set the stage for Sean Murphy to hopefully bring home both runners and to Murphy’s credit, he took a 95 mph fastball from Albert Suárez and hit it 104 mph off the bat and 392 feet to left field. If this had happened in 29 other ballparks, it would’ve been a home run. If this had happened in Camden Yards before 2022, it would’ve been a home run. Instead, it was just a loud out and then Orlando Arcia popped out to end the inning in disappointing fashion.
10 rows deep a few years ago
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) June 11, 2024
The missed opportunity ended up hurting the Braves immediately, as the Orioles immediately jumped on Max Fried with the next chance that they had. Anthony Santander battled back from being down 1-2 to coax a walk out of Fried, Austin Hays hit a single on a 1-2 count and then Fried threw a hanger to Jorge Mateo while up 0-2 in the count. Since Mateo hit it to the correct part of the ballpark, his fly ball was a home run and the Orioles had a 3-0 lead at that point in the game.
Both teams sped through the next few frames while trading scoreless innings. Atlanta had a little bit of a thing going in the sixth inning when Matt Olson and Marcell Ozuna hit back-to-back singles to chase Albert Suárez from the game. Jacob Webb entered the game with one out in that frame and proceeded to shut the door on this scoring chance by striking out Adam Duvall and getting Jarred Kelenic to fly out to end the inning.
The wasted chance came back to haunt the Braves once again, as this time the first three Orioles batters that Fried faced in Baltimore’s half of the sixth inning all reached base. Austin Hays’ single plated Ryan Mountcastle and then the other baserunners got an extra base after Kelenic misplayed the ball in the outfield. Just like that, it was 4-0 Orioles and Fried was done for the night with only five innings under his belt.
Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images
With the way things have been going for the Braves as of late, you may as well have put this one in the books once Baltimore got up by four. Atlanta had their chances to get a foothold in this game but as has been the case for just over a month now, they were unable to string together a bunch of hits in order to get a rally going. Instead, the story of the night from Atlanta’s perspective is that they were just unable to get a big hit when they needed it the most. I’m not a fan of mentioning RISP hitting but it’s really, really hard for any team to win when they go 0-for-9 at the plate with RISP and leave 11 on base as well.
Michael Harris II’s leadoff triple to start the game ended up being an omen instead of a good sign of things to come, as the Braves eventually went down in feeble fashion the rest of the way and took a 4-0 defeat. This is now the second time on this road trip alone that they’ve been shut out and the third time on this same road trip where they’ve scored one run or less. This is the same team that got shut out twice all season in 2023 and went over a calendar year (from May 12, 2023 to June 5, 2024) without getting shut out.
Simply put, this offense is in a world of hurt right now and it’s very tough to win ballgames when nearly the entire lineup is ice cold. It also doesn’t help that the Braves also got horrendously unlucky to not have gotten the home run from Sean Murphy back in the second inning but that’s just baseball. Sometimes you get the bounces and sometimes you hit a ball that would be a home run in any other ballpark except for the one that you’re currently playing in. It’s just a fact of life in baseball — just like it’s a fact that the Braves are currently heading in the wrong direction and fast.
Atlanta’s next chance to stop the bleeding comes tomorrow night at 6:35 P.M. E.T. as Spencer Schwellenbach will be making his second career big league start against fellow recent debutant Cade Povich. If the Braves can’t get anything going tomorrow then I don’t know what y’all want us to tell you at that point, folks.