ATLANTA -- The Braves walked into Monday riding a seven-game win streak and walked out with a 7-3 loss to the Giants, but the bigger concern inside the clubhouse was Dylan Lee.
Atlanta had already dropped the makeup game against a sub-.500 opponent, with Bryce Elder unhappy about his start and the offense quiet against former Brave Anthony Molina in his third career start and first of the season. Still, the clearest red flag came from Lee, whose second-half slide only got uglier.
“It’s just something I'm doing with my mechanics,” Lee said. “They obviously see something. So I'm gonna just work on it, talk with our guys and get it cleaned up.”
That’s the issue the Braves are watching now. Before the All-Star break, Lee looked like the kind of arm that could matter in October, putting up a 1.47 ERA across 43 innings. Since then, the numbers have flipped hard: a 5.50 ERA over 21 appearances, 18 innings.
When Lee was asked if he thought he might be tipping his pitches, he didn’t hesitate.
“Possibly,” Lee replied quickly.
He was then asked how he planned to correct it.
“It's a little bit easier to hit the ball when you know what’s coming,” Lee said. “So, I think I’m just going to clean it up and fix it.”
The damage on Monday came fast once Elder left the game. Osleivis Basabe tied it with a homer to open the sixth, and after Elder exited three batters later with two runners on and one out, Lee came in and gave up Turner Hill’s two-run double on a four-seamer. Hill later scored on Bryce Eldridge’s single, also off a four-seamer.
Walt Weiss didn’t sound alarmed, even with the recent results piling up.
“Dylan's been great for us for several years now,” the Braves manager said. “For much of this year, he’s been one of the best relievers in the game. He's going to be fine.”
The first half suggested as much. Lee held opponents to a .143 average, struck out 34 percent of them, and posted a .213 BABIP that hinted some regression could be coming. What nobody expected was this kind of drop-off.
Since the break, opponents have scored 12 runs, 11 earned, and collected 19 hits in 18 innings against him. In the first half, they scored eight runs, seven earned, and had 21 hits against him over 43 innings.
“He’s not getting away with much,” Weiss said. “He just hasn’t gotten the results.
I know he’s had a pretty good workload, nothing absurd or anything. You wonder about fatigue.
But he feels great.”
The Braves entered Monday feeling good about a homestand that included a three-game sweep of the Dodgers and better production from Ronald Acuña Jr. and Sean Murphy. But Lee’s recent stretch has stood out for the wrong reasons. Over his last five appearances, he has a 15.00 ERA, and Atlanta has won seven of its last eight despite opponents hitting .556 with a .579 on-base percentage during that span.
That run has included one appearance against the Brewers, two against the Dodgers, one against the Rockies and Monday against the Giants.
There have already been two separate rough patches for Lee in the second half. In his first five outings after the All-Star break, he posted a 9.64 ERA while opponents hit .350 and reached at a .364 clip. Then he settled in and kept hitters scoreless over the next nine appearances.
The pitch mix has also become part of the conversation. Lee fired a 95.7 mph four-seamer to Hunter Goodman of the Rockies on Sunday, but that pitch averaged 93.7 mph in the series finale against Colorado and 93.9 on Monday. Both of those marks sit among the top half of his fastball averages in any game this season.
The results on the heater and the slider have changed, too. Opponents hit .125 against Lee’s four-seamer and .147 against his slider in the first half. Entering Monday, they were hitting .207 against the fastball and .323 against the slider in the second half.
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