The Braves took two of three from the Reds, finally beating them twice with offensive explosions after dropping their first four matchups between these two clubs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to actually nudge them closer to a playoff spot, and their season basically now hangs in the balance with every remaining game.
Lower margin for shenanigans, but shenanigans persist
The Braves have played 153 games. They’ve won 83 of them. They’ve also out-wOBAed their opponents in 83 of them. However, they’ve won just 73 of those 83 games, which is a little lower than you’d expect. The incidence of losses where they have better offensive outcomes than their opponents has also been laddered such that it’s happened more frequently as the slack available for faffing around has diminished. The Braves had no such losses in April, two in May, one in June, and one in July. But, then they ran into four such losses in about two-and-a-half weeks in August, which really tanked their position, and they already have two in September so far… including the loss in Game 1 of this series to the Reds…