WHAT IS GOING ON?

Nobody likes a losing streak. It's even harder to stomach when you haven't had to really deal with losing in what's been one of the best regular seasons in Atlanta Braves history.

So it's easy to see the worst, and freak out.

I mean, not only are the Braves losing, but they're losing BAD: The pitching's getting crushed, and the bats have gone cold, and even worse...it was to the Marlins.

And don't get me wrong: The last week has been BAD. Miami put up 36 runs in three games.

Let's look back to what happened in Miami over the weekend, and Philly on Monday:

Pitching

Miami scored a lot of runs, but the distribution of those runs wasn't quite even amongst the entire pitching staff.

Looking at the starters, Bryce Elder gave up four runs in five innings. For your 4th starter in the postseason, that's...kind of what you expect a typical outing to be?

Jared Shuster gave up five runs (four earned) in three innings. I don't think Shuster's on the postseason roster, so this isn't an omen for the postseason.

Yes, Charlie Morton gave up six runs in 4.2 innings. Four of those came on a grand slam, so one bad pitch. It was the only extra base hit surrendered by Morton in the outing. I'd be more worried about the five walks, personally. This isn't great, but it's also one bad start. We've seen Charlie navigate around the walks this season, and in 2023 he's only had three outings of more than four runs. This feels like an outlier.

In the bullpen, I'll admit it's a bit worse. Kirby Yates and Brad Hand are two of the pitchers that we expected to make the postseason roster, and they each got knocked around a bit. But neither of those guys are high-leverage guys (unless the three go-to high leverage relievers, Iglesias, Minter, and Jiménez are all unavailable, and the Yates usually gets the call).

But Dereck Rodriguez gave up eight runs on seven hits, and he's already been DFA'd.

Against Philly, Kyle Wright made his second start after a three-month layoff - again, not surprised he struggled and not expecting him to bge one of the core starters in the postseason. Michael Tonkin gave up three runs in three innings, which isn't great, but he's usually used in games Atlanta's losing already, so not as concerning.

Offense

Atlanta had more than five runs and nine or more hits in two of the three Miami losses. That's normally good enough for you to win a game, so it's hard to find fault there.

Atlanta's last game in Miami saw only two runs on nine hits, and I think that comes down to bad luck as cashing in with runners in scoring position - Atlanta was 1-13 in the game with RISP. Some bad luck and an offense that wasn't clicking with Ronald Acuña Jr.

Being held to one run on four hits by Philly isn't great, admittedly, but Atlanta got the ball in play, with only nine strikeouts in the game. It wasn't a complete disaster, but it wasn't great.

The intangibles

And don't discount the varying level of emotions in the dugouts for those four games.

Miami was absolutely embarrassed by Atlanta leading into that series - the Braves were 8-1 with a plus-43 run differential this season against the Marlins entering Friday. Miami wanted vengeance, and they're fighting as hard as possible to make the postseason, to boot.

And Philly has strong emotions towards Atlanta, too. They've been fighting and going on runs all season just to see their divisional deficit...stay exactly the same. And then to top it off, they watched Atlanta celebrate winning the division on their field. That'll stick with a player; a few Phillies said as much to reporters after the game.

So what does this mean for the postseason?

This doesn't mean anything when Atlanta gets to October. Not a thing.

NOTHING.

How Atlanta performs in September has no correlation on October.

It's all about how you perform THEN. Not now, THEN.

I know we like to assume the worst, because we're Atlanta sports fans and we've been THROUGH it. Whether it's an infield fly that drops halfway to the wall in left field, or the largest blown lead in Super Bowl history, or winning thirteen consecutive division titles and winning only one World Series, we're damaged people. I get it.

But these games don't matter in the playoffs.

This Atlanta Braves team has had one of the single greatest regular seasons in baseball history.

And when they get to the postseason, it'll still come down to luck and execution.

It's only four games, and it's only the fourth time this season where Atlanta's lost four consecutive games.

So take a deep breath, sit down, and let's see what happens.

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