BS Report: The Braves Had a Good Weekend
Well, the Braves had about the best kind of weekend series you could have. I mean, I guess it would have been better if they had swept the Texas Rangers, but they did win 2 or 3. Winning series was something that was the signature of the first two months of the season, before it kind of all fell apart in the second week of June.
So to win 2 or 3 from Texas, a pretty decent team in the American League was a really good start at the second part of the season. And of course, on Sunday we had a couple of really big offensive performances. First of all. Drake Baldwin five for five. He had two solo home run to the game. He was outstanding.
He looks like he’s much better than he was right after he came back from his oblique injury when he struggled. And how about Austin Riley? Two solo home runs on Sunday. He had three home runs over the weekend. He was six for 12 in the weekend series with three home runs, five runs batted in and five runs scored.
Look, we said it last week before the All-Star break or during the All-Star break that for the Braves to to hold that lead in the National League East, they were going to have to have Austin Riley to step up and be better than he had been in the first part of the season, to be more like he was from 22 to 24, when he averaged 36 home runs and right at 100 runs batted in.
Well, that looked more like the Austin Riley we know compared to the mess that we saw in the first part of the season. They said on Sunday that he got away from the All-Star break, didn’t really think about it. Could it took a mental break and came back. And obviously he looks like he’s back on track. Let’s hope that will continue.
The Braves have now a three game lead on Philadelphia the National League Eastern Division. They are 57 and 41 on the year. They are six games up on Miami, eight up on Washington and 16 games up on the New York Mets. They’ll start a four game series with the Padres tonight at Truist Park. Bryce Elder on the mound for Atlanta.
He is five and six with a 4.12 earned run average against lefty JP Sears. Now, elder has struggled as of late his last seven starts. He has an area of 8.47, so he’s got to bounce out of that. Last year you may remember he had a rough 11 game stretch, then he bounce out of it at the end of the year with a much better finish to his season.
But that mess needs to stop now right? Right now because they can ill afford to have another issue with their starting rotation, as they will probably look to add, for the rotation as we are now two weeks away from the trade deadline, two weeks from Monday on August the 3rd. So the Braves and the Padres tonight at 715 at Truist Park.
