BS Report: March 18, 2026
We are now nine days away from the start of the 2026 baseball season, as the Braves will start against Kansas City next Friday at Truist Park. Looking forward to that, of course. And we are seeing very good signs down in spring training. Now, look, there is always a disclaimer with this comment that it is spring training, but the Braves have the best record in baseball and both the Grapefruit League and the Cactus League, both in Florida and Arizona, with spring training.
And usually it’s not a big deal because we’ve seen plenty of teams that have been great in March who have not done well. As the season starts and plenty of World Series champions who started off in March and struggled. So things can change, we know that. But there are a few reasons why. I think it’s a pretty good news to hear that the Braves are doing well in spring training.
Number one, they have a new manager in Walt Weiss, and you always want to get off to a good start with a new manager. And they have done just that with Walt Weiss. Plus, of course, the last two years have been a disaster for the Braves. Now they made the playoffs two years ago somehow, some way. And then last year, of course, they had their first losing season in some time by winning only 76 games with all the injuries and everything that happened.
So they’re coming off a losing season. Plus, remember last year they started last season zero and seven, which really was an indication of things to come for that year. Well so you know they wanted to get off to a good start in spring training to have things go just in a more positive direction. And it really has the top four starting pitchers in the rotation Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Reynaldo Lopez and also the Grant Holmes have combined for an era of 1.87 so far. Their numbers are good across the board. Grant Holmes hasn’t even allowed and run yet, which is great news considering the fact that he’s coming back from having a partially torn UCL in his elbow. Well, he’s doing well so far and hopefully that can continue. Lopez is only giving up one run in nine innings, so he’s been very good.
He’s coming off shoulder surgery and those two are a big question mark there. In the three and four spots in the rotation. Sale’s been great. Strider has been okay. The velocity is coming up. So to have those first four starters doing very well is a great thing. Plus they’ve had two young kids, J.R. Richie and Didier Fuentes show that when called upon from Triple-A, they may be ready to help this team in 2026. The offense is also doing very well. Mike is shrimp ski, the new left fielder for this team, is hitting over 400 with four home runs. He’s off to a great start. We’re seeing Austin Riley do very well, hitting over 350. Matt Olson’s got four home runs. We’re seeing Mauricio Dubon is going to be the starting shortstop to start the season.
He’s doing very well offensively and defensively. Great Baldwin, who of course is the rookie of the year last year off to a great start. So this is great news to see these players playing well in spring training. Now they’ll get Ronald Acuña back from the WBC since it ended last night and get him going. And of course Ozzie Albies is back already, so he hopes to get back in the swing of things as well. But I think we have to be optimistic that this team is showing signs that they are going to be a pretty good team here. Now again, it’s spring training. It’s the Grapefruit League, so you never know how to look at these things. But for a team that needs to start off strong and do well early on in the season, I think the Braves have had a very good spring training down in Florida.
