Why pitching can be Braves’ solution for Drake Baldwin’s absence

For a team with the best record in the National League, it’s a decent-sized drama.

With Sean Murphy also on the IL with a fractured finger, the Braves — and the pitching staff — will rely on two catchers who have familiarity with the team but weren’t on major league rosters before the pair of catching injuries for a reason.

A career .207 hitter in the majors, Sandy León was hitting .143 in the Mexican League when the Braves signed him to sub for Murphy. He hit .166 last year at Triple-A Gwinnett. Chadwick Tromp was hitting .169 at Gwinnett this season when he got the call after Baldwin’s injury.

That’s who is being swapped in for Baldwin, who was hitting .303 with an OPS of .931 through Monday’s game.

And it comes at a time when the offense, which had roared through April, has rejoined the ranks of the mortal. The Braves, MLB’s leader in runs through April (177, or 5.5 per game) and its No. 2 team in OPS (.786), are going through a bit of a spell.

Over the previous two weeks, through Monday, the Braves were 25th in runs (41, or 3.4 per game) and 25th in OPS (.622).

If Braves fans are looking for consolation, such as it is, it’s that catcher Jonah Heim probably wouldn’t be much more help had he been kept on the roster. Heim, who was traded to the Athletics to make room for Murphy’s addition to the roster (after 2025 hip labrum surgery), was 1-for-15 with the Athletics before Tuesday’s games.

Obviously, the return of Ronald Acuña Jr. from a hamstring injury will compensate for Baldwin’s absence.

But if you want to feed your anxiety, read further. After completing the road series in Miami, the Braves return home for a three-game weekend series with the Nationals, who have loitered around the .500 mark for most of the season but have been collecting runs willy nilly of late.

Over the same two weeks in which the Braves’ lumber has gone to slumber (hey, a rhyme!), the Nationals’ scoring has been … not boring. In that span, Washington was first in runs (82, or 6.3 per game) and first in OPS (.842).

And here’s something else. After the Braves dusted the Phillies at Truist Park in late April to leave them at 9-19 and 10½ games out of first place, Philadelphia won 16 of its next 20 through Monday. The Phillies began Tuesday at 25-23 and seven games behind the Braves.

There may be a divisional race yet.

What does this mean?

Maybe that manager Walt Weiss needs to find another 235-pound designated hitter to tackle in the midst of a bench-clearing crawl, that evidently having been the Braves’ catalyst for their April binge.

Or that president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos needs to ask ChatGPT to summon a backup catcher who can hit .250.

Or, more reasonably, that the Braves’ starting pitching has to continue to hold up.

For even as the Braves’ offense has slid, the domain of Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder and Grant Holmes (and Martín Pérez when he has started, as he did Tuesday and as he will going forward) has remained largely untoppled.

That foursome has a combined May ERA of 2.47. Through April, the trio of Sale, Elder and Holmes (Strider returned from injury May 3) combined for a 2.53 ERA.

The nearly immaculate record of winning series will end, eventually. A stumble may come soon. But as the Braves await Baldwin’s return — it is not expected to be a long-term absence — and sort out the bullpen while bracing for Weiss’ next rampage, if they can’t keep winning apace, they can at least limit the downturn.

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