In this era of Major League Baseball where home runs, analytics, and launch angles reign supreme, a lot of teams including the Atlanta Braves have abandoned any sort of old-school, small-ball philosophies where teams used to manufacture runs. Drawing a walk, hitting a single, stealing a base, being bunted over to second, a coming home on a sac fly... less en vogue today.
Now it’s all about extra-base hits and the home run ball, and the Braves lineup is built just for that. But when the entire team is struggling and goes 1 for 22 with runners in scoring position, the Braves can have series like they did against the San Diego Padres and go 22 innings without scoring a run, or not even have a plate appearance with a runner in scoring position, which is exactly what happened in Sunday’s game against the Padres.
After watching the Braves offense come up short time after time in big moments in the first four games of the 2025 season, The Morning Shift is starting to wonder whether or not the Braves offense is flawed at its foundation.
“I’m starting to get the feeling like that approach or the way you're built is flawed, like massively flawed when nobody is able to hit the ball at all," Mike Johnson said. "This is not a fire the hitting coach kind of thing. Tim Hyers just got here, so lets not blame it on him, either. It’s a flaw from the ground up right now, and they better get it fixed in a hurry.”
Beau Morgan disagrees with Mike’s notion that the Braves are flawed foundationally and believes the offense will be better and a lot will change once Ronald Acuña Jr. is back in the lineup.
“Your best player is also the guy that makes everything click because he’s not only a guy that’s gonna get on base at the top of the order, but he’s also going to automatically find his way into scoring position by the brilliance of him on the base paths, and when you get him everything changes,” Beau said.
This Braves team still has a lot of guys from the 2023 historic Braves offensive team. So to say they’re flawed foundationally might be an overreaction, but the Braves living and dying by the long ball didn’t work out for them in 2023 when they got to the postseason, and even though they’re still missing their MVP and superstar, it’s not working out for them at the start of their 2025 campaign either.