ATLANTA \u2014 The best team in Major League Baseball isn\u2019t slowing down.<\/p>\n
In their return to Truist Park after a 10-game, three-city trip, the Atlanta Braves took two out of three games each from the Chicago Cubs, who entered last week\u2019s series with the third-best record in MLB, and the reeling Boston Red Sox. In that stretch, the Braves (32-15) outscored opponents 22-11.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve played the same brand of baseball all year. Hitting has been on point. Pitchers continue to shut down hitters, even when not having their best day. Plus, Drake Baldwin has continued to avoid regression.<\/p>\n
Here are some takeaways from the last six games:<\/p>\n
Drake Baldwin \u2026 leadoff hitter?<\/p>\n
Without Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. leading off, the Braves have had a carousel of hitters sharing his spot. Baldwin, however, has recently taken up temporary residency since he first led off May 4. His bat has made a difference as long as he has been in the majors, and this weekend against the Red Sox was no different.<\/p>\n
His first swing Friday was a solo shot to center field on the first pitch lefty Connelly Early threw that night. Baldwin not only became the first catcher to hit a lead-off home run in modern franchise history, but also the first Braves designated hitter to do so.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n
Baldwin smoked the second offering from Payton Tolle, another rookie Red Sox left-hander, 421 feet with a 106.2 mph exit velocity for a one-run lead.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old has up until now avoided a sophomore slump by adjusting to pitchers rather than resting on his NL Rookie of the Year credentials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a constant battle of trying to get better at your weaknesses but also be ready for your strengths,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cBecause they might throw a pitch that\u2019s in a place you can hit hard. There\u2019s no perfection to that, but you just try to be as good as you can on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t seem like he\u2019s slowing down. Baldwin is hitting .301 with a .928 OPS, and his 13 home runs are the most by a catcher, one ahead of former Braves prospect Shea Langeliers, who was dealt to the A\u2019s in the Matt Olson trade in 2022.<\/p>\n
Baldwin has even seen more success facing left-handed pitchers despite being a lefty hitter, which doesn\u2019t happen often. He is hitting .342 with seven home runs, 16 RBIs and a 1.086 OPS against them compared with .274 with six homers, 22 RBIs and a .826 OPS against right-handers.<\/p>\n
As well as Baldwin has hit, there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019ll return to the two-hole once Acu\u00f1a is activated. That time likely won\u2019t come on the turf in Miami out of precaution; LoanDepot Park is where Acu\u00f1a tore his ACL in 2021.<\/p>\n
A bullpen pickle<\/p>\n
With Grant Holmes (Tuesday), JR Ritchie (Wednesday) and Spencer Strider (Friday) failing to reach the sixth inning in their starts, the Braves bullpen was active this homestand. It threw 22 1\/3 innings, to be exact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the part of winning a lot of games, right?\u201d manager Walt Weiss said. \u201cWe play a lot of close games, and we won a lot of games, so we\u2019re using those guys, but they do need to get full resets.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there isn\u2019t much rest in sight with the Braves scheduled for seven games before their next planned day off. But for a team that opened May with a stretch of 13 games in 15 days, the workload is starting to catch up.<\/p>\n
The effects of the taxed bullpen were seen in the first two games of the Red Sox series. In the opener, Strider went 5 1\/3 innings with just a two-run lead. Weiss went to high-leverage options Dylan Lee, Robert Suarez and Raisel Iglesias. The game went to extras, and Weiss was forced to use rookie Didier Fuentes in the 10th inning despite a three-inning workload three days before.<\/p>\n
Weiss said he\u2019d hope to give the 20-year-old an extra day of rest but had to use him in that spot. Fuentes would have returned for another inning, but Mike Yastrzemski saved him extra work with a walk-off double.<\/p>\n
The next night, Bryce Elder reached the eighth inning, then\u00a0gave up a two-run homer on his 100th pitch of the night, giving the Red Sox a 3-2 lead they never relinquished.<\/p>\n
Weiss said afterward that Elder would not have pitched the eighth if high-leverage arms had been available. That led to Mart\u00edn Per\u00e9z\u2019s pitching in the ninth inning and pushing back his planned Monday start in Miami to Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Luckily for the Braves, Holmes rebounded with six shutout innings in his start Sunday and could have gone at least another inning if not for a rain delay.<\/p>\n
Atlanta\u2019s challenge now becomes balancing the urgency to win games with avoiding further wear and tear on a group already being stretched thin.<\/p>\n
Sandy Le\u00f3n\u2019s influence<\/p>\n
When Sean Murphy went on the injured list, the Braves re-signed a familiar friend in Sandy Le\u00f3n, who has played in the organization in three straight seasons. He had been released by the Braves so he could pursue a playing opportunity in Mexico but had not appeared in a game before agreeing last week to serve as Atlanta\u2019s backup catcher. Le\u00f3n won\u2019t match Murphy\u2019s offensive production \u2014 Le\u00f3n has a career 57 OPS+ compared with Murphy\u2019s 109 \u2014 but his big-league wisdom is being tapped by the pitching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201c(For Sandy) to be able to handle a pitching staff, to slow the game down for a pitcher that\u2019s having a tough inning or a tough outing, that\u2019s invaluable,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n
Le\u00f3n, who has played in 14 big-league seasons, was behind the plate for starts by Strider as well as Ritchie and Elder, both of whom he frequently caught while working with many young Braves pitchers since first playing in Triple A for the Braves in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very creative,\u201d Elder said.<\/p>\n
Le\u00f3n\u2019s presence on the field has also been pivotal, giving Baldwin, who started 25 games behind the plate before Murphy was injured on a catcher\u2019s interference May 10, more time to focus on hitting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good mentally,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cYou get in the same routine, and you are able to come in and get your cage work in and all your pregame work and make it as consistent as possible on a day-to-day basis to go and have the best at-bats you can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 The best team in Major League Baseball isn\u2019t slowing down. In their return to Truist Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2111,363,99],"class_list":["post-650582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}