The Braves left Wrigley Field with exactly the kind of split that tells two stories at once: one game where the power showed up and the comeback landed, and two others where they mostly looked stuck in the mud.
That was the shape of their three-game trip against the Cubs, a stop in the middle of a September stretch that followed Atlanta’s series win over the Phillies. With Chris Sale and Tyler Mahle not used on the mound against the league’s best offense, the Braves got a rough introduction to Chicago’s bats, except for Tuesday night, when they finally found the long ball and turned the game around.
Monday set the tone for the frustration. Reynaldo Lopez got the start and the Cubs jumped on him early, scoring three in the second after an inning was extended on a slow grounder that didn’t turn into a double play, then adding two more in the third.
AJ Smith-Shawver came out of the bullpen and handled the rest, but Pete Crow-Armstrong still got to him for a homer. Crow-Armstrong finished 4-for-5 and came a triple short of the cycle.
Atlanta’s offense spent most of the night hitting grounders and striking out against David Peterson. The Braves did scratch out three runs in the seventh, including a two-run Mike Yastrzemski pinch-hit homer, but that was the whole burst. A rally-killing double play wiped out a promising start in the eighth, and Ronald Acuña Jr. ended the game by grounding into a double play with the tying run on base in the ninth.
The numbers backed up the eye test: Braves .318 wOBA, .293 xwOBA; Cubs .386 wOBA, .326 xwOBA.
Tuesday was the outlier, and it was the kind of win that has to feel a lot better because it was earned the hard way. The Cubs scored first again, and after that the game tilted further when Pedro Ramirez hit a routine double-play ball to Mauricio Dubon in the fourth. Dubon’s throw never came close to second, the inning stayed alive, and by the time it ended, Martin Perez and the Braves were down 3-0.
Then Atlanta finally cracked through against Kevin Gausman. In the sixth, Acuña drilled a two-run homer to cut the deficit to one.
In the seventh, Ozzie Albies followed with another two-run blast, this one off Jacob Webb, and the whole thing flipped. Didier Fuentes gave the Braves two perfect innings, Drake Baldwin added a third two-run homer in the ninth, and Raisel Iglesias closed it out.
It was the rare night when Atlanta’s damage came the way it’s supposed to: pulled fly balls, not a parade of weak contact. Crow-Armstrong was quiet this time, going 0-for-5 with a strikeout, while Martin Perez battled through a rough line with a 2/4 K/BB ratio.
Wednesday brought the opposite. The Braves handed the ball to JR Ritchie after a strong four-start run in Triple-A, and it went sideways fast.
He walked two and allowed a run in the first, then Crow-Armstrong ambushed an 0-2 pitch for a homer in the third. Alex Bregman added another homer in the fourth, and once Atlanta sent Ritchie through the order a third time, the game opened up to 6-0 in a hurry.
Crow-Armstrong kept piling up damage and finished 3-for-4 with two homers, a triple, and a walk. Bregman ended up a single shy of the cycle. Shota Imanaga did his part, too, working six innings with an 8/0 K/BB line while the Braves never really threatened to make it close.
Atlanta did score four runs, but three came on RBI groundouts, which says plenty about how the offense looked. Two of those runs came in the ninth after the first three batters reached, only for the next three to make outs and end it.
Ritchie’s final line was rough: 4 2/3 innings, two homers allowed, one hit batter, and a 5/2 K/BB. Owen Murphy didn’t clean things up much either, giving up another homer to Crow-Armstrong and finishing with a 2/1 K/BB in 2 1/3.
The bigger picture still leans Atlanta’s way. While the Braves went 1-2 in Chicago, the Phillies split two games with the Nationals, so Atlanta lost only half a game and now sits 4.5 up with nine to play, with the tiebreaker in hand.
That makes the division race look close to settled. One more Braves win or one more Diamondbacks loss would also lock up a playoff berth.
The cushion is there, but the bats haven’t looked right for a while. This series didn’t change that. Atlanta has been scuffling offensively for weeks, and the trend shows up in the numbers since the start of August: 20th in xwOBA and 26th in wRC+.
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Now, Atlanta has sent him out on a rehab assignment with the Stripers, which at least puts a return back into the conversation. Given how complicated the recovery has been and how unusual his timeline looks compared with other pitchers who have dealt with similar knee issues, any late-2026 comeback would be the kind of development that still feels very much in progress. [Read more 🡒]