The Atlanta Braves were eliminated from the postseason early this year as well, falling to the San Diego Padres 5-4 in Wednesday night’s Wild Card Game 2. In one sense, it’s a marvel that Atlanta ever got this far, considering all the injuries and difficulties this squad had to cope with in 2024. Nevertheless, given how good this team could have been and how horribly the players still standing performed over the course of two games in San Diego, it’s still a very disappointing finale.
There’s enough of blame to go around when a club crashes out of October, but here are three Braves near the top of the list.
Spencer Strider and Chris Sale were hurt. There was no Spencer Schwellenbach accessible. In the end, Max Fried was just about the last Braves pitcher left standing — yet rather than put his club on his back, the lefty laid a dud, giving up five runs on eight hits in just two innings of work in what was likely his final start in an Atlanta uniform.
Because of injuries and the Monday doubleheader that depleted their pitching staff, we knew heading into this series that the Braves were somewhat behind the eight ball. An ace like Fried should have stepped up in this situation to halt the hemorrhage and save the season, but instead he produced what may have been his worst performance of the year and the most recent in a long string of playoff disasters. It’s difficult to be too upset with Braves supporters right now, as they won’t be upset if Fried is traded this winter.
Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson
Since the reasoning for these two is the same, let’s just combine them. By October, Atlanta’s offense had completely collapsed, on top of all the pitching ailments mentioned earlier. Austin Riley and Ronald Acuña Jr. missed the entire season. Ozzie Albies had recently returned following a two-month hiatus. The three stalwarts remaining were Ozuna, Olson and Michael Harris II, and while Harris showed up to San Diego ready to hit, the other two most certainly did not.
In these two Wild Card games, Ozuna and Olson went a combined 3-for-15 with zero extra-base hits and only one RBI, an unsatisfactory performance considering their significance to this struggling Braves offense. Overall, Ozuna had yet another fantastic season, but in September and October, when Atlanta most needed him, he cooled off substantially, slugging.383. Olson, on the other hand, had a much more modest 118 OPS+ in 2024 after a 54-homer season the previous year. Atlanta will need a breakout year in 2025 from the first baseman it gave a $168 million contract to a few years ago.