4-2 sure beats the crap out of 0-7, right? Indeed, the Atlanta Braves have gotten their season off on the right foot following a successful homestand to get things going. Atlanta took the opening series with two straight wins over the Royals to start things off and now they’ve kept things going in the right direction by picking up another series win over the Athletics.
Now granted, the Athletics always seemed like a pretty favorable opponent and that was especially the case after they spent most of their opening series in Toronto whiffing left and right. Still, the A’s are the type of team that the Braves have to take care of business against if they plan on playing meaningful baseball later on this year and as far as the early test goes, the Braves have passed it in fine fashion. So let’s take a look at how the final series of this first homestand for the Braves.
Well, would you look at that? Two shutouts in four games for the Braves pitching staff — just like all of us predicted, right? Indeed, Bryce Elder got his season off to a fantastic start as he delivered six shutout innings while dancing around even the slightest bit of trouble that the A’s tried to cause him.
On the offensive side of things, the Braves did most of their damage in the first inning as they rudely welcomed Jacob Lopez to Atlanta with three runs to start things off. Thanks to Elder and the rest of the staff being on point, this was more than enough for the Braves to end up taking the win. Mauricio Dubón ended up with three RBI on the night, which was impressive considering that he had a less-than-stellar night in the field with the glove. That’s baseball for you.
Atlanta’s first crack at winning this series went awry as one bad inning from Jose Suarez and a lack of opportune hitting from the Braves doomed them to defeat in this one. Drake Baldwin did homer in the first inning (on his own bobblehead night, no less) and that seemed like an auspicious sign but instead, Suarez gave up three runs to the A’s in the second inning and then eventually staked themselves out to a 5-1 lead once the top of the fifth inning was done.
Braves hitters couldn’t do much with Aaron Civale, as his offspeed offerings were too tricky for a lot of Atlanta’s lineup on the night. The main positive for the Braves in this one was that Martin Pérez was able to follow in Didier Fuentes’ footsteps by helping to give the rest of the bullpen a day of rest. Pérez entered the game in the middle of the fifth inning in relief of Joel Payamps and went the rest of the way.
In the postgame press conference, Walt Weiss described Pérez’s performance as as much of a “game-saver as you could get in a loss” and Pérez himself stated that he felt very good about his approach when it came to attacking the batters in this one. He also stated that he’s feeling fully healthy for the first time since 2024, so there’s another positive to look at when it comes to one of the pitchers on this staff at the moment. The loss sure stunk but the overall outlook wasn’t horrible.
Despite the offensive effort from the A’s in the middle game, the Braves had to have felt good about their chances of bouncing back on the mound with Chris Sale going for the Wednesday matinee. Sure enough, Sale’s performance was too tough for the A’s to deal with on this day as he finished with six innings and just one hit and three strikeouts allowed. The one run came off of a home run from Shea Langeliers, which at this point you’ll take a solo shot from him because he’s come out of the gates swinging a bat that’s on fire. Outside of that blemish, Sale got some excellent results while not even looking particularly dominant, himself.
A’s starter Luis Severino looked extremely shaky to start out this contest and while the Braves let a scoring chance go by the wayside in the first inning, Drake Baldwin made sure that they didn’t waste the next chance. His two-RBI single put the Braves in front in the second inning and Atlanta was able to run Severino from the game after just 3.1 innings and four earned runs. Drake Baldwin collected all four of those RBI that Severino allowed, as his double off of Elvis Alvarado was the blow that eventually put the Braves too far ahead for the A’s to catch on this day. Matt Olson tacked on an RBI single to make it 5-1 and then the bullpen arms of Robert Suarez, Dylan Lee and Raisel Iglesias finished things of to give the Braves their first rubber game victory of the season.
Well, the first homestand of the season is over and the Braves made sure that it was a winning homestand, to boot. Even with the weirdness that is the fact that Atlanta’s gotten picked off four times in six games this season (they got picked off 10 times across all 162 games last season), that didn’t take away from the business-like performance that we saw from the Braves over the course of these six games. This was an A’s lineup that was coming into this series struggling at the plate and whiffing a ton. Outside of one bad inning from Suarez in the middle game, Atlanta’s pitching was on point and continued to make life very tough for the A’s at the plate.
Meanwhile, the star of the show at the plate so far has to be Drake Baldwin. Last season’s NL Rookie of the Year has gotten off to a blazing start — sure, Shea Langeliers may be on fire right now but Baldwin is certainly keeping stride with him, as he’s clubbed seven hits (three of those hits being homers) with seven RBI as well. The rest of the veterans in the lineup have gotten off to a bit of a fitful start at the plate but Baldwin’s great performance is helping to lift the whole team up while those guys continue to get their feet up under them to get this season going.
All-in-all, it’s hard to find fault with a 4-2 start to the season — beggars can’t be choosers, either, especially when you consider the calamitous start to the 2025 season. They’ll have an early test on their hands with another early-season road trip but a trip to Arizona and Anaheim seems a lot more reasonable than visiting San Diego and Los Angeles this early on. It’s still baseball and the Braves will have to take care of business on the road in order to make sure that this good start keeps moving into the future but for now, the foundation-laying of this season is going smoothly with two series wins right out of the gate.
