The Braves’ slide kept rolling Tuesday night, and with it came the latest reminder of just how badly they miss Ronald Acuña Jr.
Atlanta opened its homestand against the Cardinals by briefly jumping ahead on Ozzie Albies’ sacrifice fly in the third inning. That edge didn’t last long.
St. Louis answered in the next frame against Martin Perez, scoring four runs, including three on a hard-hit homer over the right-field wall.
Perez has been one of the more unlikely bright spots on the roster. He wasn’t expected to make the team out of Spring Training and was even designated for assignment earlier in the year.
The Braves managed to keep him around, but he’s now being asked to carry far more than his track record suggests he can over a full season. Right now, Atlanta is leaning on a pitcher who profiles more like a back-end starter and hoping he can perform like a No.
That burden has only grown heavier because the offense keeps disappearing. The Braves had chances all night, aided by seven walks from Cardinals pitchers, but they went 1-12 with runners in scoring position and fell 5-3.
It was the third straight loss for Atlanta and the seventh defeat in its last eight games. During that stretch, the offense has topped four runs only once.
The contrast with Acuña in the lineup is impossible to ignore. The Braves are 21 games over .500 when he plays and six games under when he doesn’t. Over his career, Atlanta is 521-349 with him available and 208-198 without him.
For now, though, a return doesn’t appear imminent. Braves manager Walt Weiss said Acuña is still working through the final steps of his recovery from a hamstring strain, and a return before the All-Star break sounds unlikely.
“So far so good but he’s still got some hoops to jump through.”
Weiss added that it’s “probably a long shot to see him before the break.”
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Martin Perez absorbed the biggest blow, with the Cardinals stringing together the kind of swing that can flip a night in a hurry. Atlanta had chances to answer, including a bases-loaded spot in the eighth, but managed only a single run there and never fully dug out of the hole. Even St. Louis starter Matthew Liberatore, who struck out nine in five innings, had plenty of traffic to manage with walks and a hit batter, leaving the Braves to wonder how a game with that many openings still ended the same old way. [Read more 🡒]
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The outing still fits into the larger picture of patience, because this was about building back arm strength and rhythm rather than rushing toward a return. Atlanta can use every encouraging checkpoint it gets from a pitcher who was part of its future plans, especially with the rotation already thinned by elbow issues and the club watching every healthy arm closely. [Read more 🡒]