LOS ANGELES — As the night wore on at Dodger Stadium, the crowd began thinning out. The fans here, decked out in blue giveaway sweatshirts commemorating the World Series title, figured they had better beat the traffic and head home because their team had such a commanding lead.
At the start of the bottom of the eighth inning, a new face ran out of the bullpen for the Braves. His name is Raisel Iglesias. He is the closer, but he entered in a five-run game — a five-run deficit — because he had not yet pitched this season. The winless Braves had not had a situation in which to put him.
They are 0-5 after Monday’s 6-1 loss at Dodger Stadium. And that was not the biggest blow of the day.
The Braves lost Jurickson Profar, their largest offseason addition, for 80 games after he tested positive for performance-enhancing substance Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG). Profar can return and play in the regular season following his suspension, but he’ll be ineligible to participate in the postseason should the Braves make it.
And to go with that, the Braves placed right-hander Reynaldo López on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. Bryce Elder will start in his place Wednesday.
Braves manager Brian Snitker, who has spent almost five decades in this game, has experienced a few days like this.
The secret to moving on?
“You just learn that you have to,” Snitker said. “You have to put it behind you. And you know what, you always look for positives in anything. You can always find something bad in a baseball game. You look for positives and small ones, however (small) they are, in order to keep going. And understand that tomorrow is a new day and can be the start of a really good streak.”
What are the positives he sees now?
“I don’t know. There’s been a bunch with some of the younger guys,” Snitker said. “And the positive I take is (the players in the clubhouse) are in there and they’re continuing to work, they show up, they do their job, their work. It’s nothing that a hit here or there won’t cure.”
This might be true, but right now, this feels like a spiral. The Braves are playing poorly. They are not doing much of anything well. In Monday’s series opener against the Dodgers, the Braves were uncompetitive.
The big picture is this: No Braves team that has started 0-5 or worse has made the postseason. The 2025 Braves are the eighth group in modern-era franchise history (since 1900) to begin the season 0-5 or worse, and they’ll attempt to become the first to reach the playoffs. The longest season-opening losing streak for a Braves playoff team is four games, done in 2012 and then again in 2021, when the Braves won the World Series.
“Yeah, for sure,” Michael Harris II said when asked if this Braves team could be the first to reach October under these circumstances. “I feel like once we get rolling, everything will get back on track. I guess we’ve played two tough teams so far and seen some pretty good pitching, so I feel like we’ll turn it around here soon.”
Before Harris homered in Monday’s eighth inning, the Braves had gone 29 innings without scoring a run, dating to Friday’s fifth inning in San Diego. The Braves came within six outs of being shut out for a third consecutive game — something they haven’t experienced since 2007 — but Harris rescued his teammates.
It’s difficult for Snitker to believe his vaunted lineup could be tamed this way. No, the Braves don’t yet have Ronald Acuña Jr. But they’re fielding Matt Olson and Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna and Ozzie Albies.
“I was just sitting there thinking we’re too talented,” Snitker said. “There’s good hitters on this club. They’ve proven it over the years. For whatever reason right now, we’re just having a hard time getting a hit.”
Since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, they have had three scoreless droughts of more than 29 innings. Their record is 37, done in 1985. This team saved itself from matching that one. But these Braves still haven’t found a way to win.
Perhaps the most glaring area: The Braves are 1-for-28 with runners in scoring position this season. Read that again. Yes, only one hit in those spots — and it came Friday. In the series opener against the Dodgers, the Braves couldn’t solve Tyler Glasnow, who confused them over five scoreless innings.
“I feel like teams so far have done a good job of game-planning against us,” Harris said. “We just gotta do a better job of reacting to what they’re doing for us, and make adjustments during the game.”
The Braves on Monday found themselves in an early hole when Teoscar Hernandez took Grant Holmes deep for a two-run shot. It became only worse from there. But Holmes isn’t to blame. In the first time through the rotation, Braves starters have kept games manageable. The offense hasn’t matched the effort.
When the Dodgers built a four-run lead by the end of three innings, the game felt over. This is how it’s been with the Braves thus far. They’ve yet to provide proof of an offensive outburst.
“We just couldn’t, again, get a big hit with some guys on,” Snitker said. “That’s the biggest thing right now, I think, more than anything, is just we gotta get some runs on the board.”
If you zoom out from this loss, the picture is actually a bit more concerning. The Braves will be without Profar, their leadoff hitter with Acuña still out, until the end of June — then won’t have him if they make the postseason. And how will they capably fill López’s spot until Spencer Strider returns and strengthens the rotation? And how is this offense, equipped with some of the game’s best hitters, struggling like this again?
The Braves must answer these questions after they digest everything that happened Monday.
“We basically just gotta move forward,” Harris said. “We gotta worry about the guys that we have and try to win games. We haven’t won a game yet, so our biggest focus is trying to win a game with the guys that we have.”
Yes, it’s early. Yes, there are a ton of games remaining. Yes, the Braves have time.
But they must figure this out before this spiral continues.
“It’s not good,” Snitker said of the mood in the clubhouse. “Would love to get a win. It’s not fun any time — start, middle, whatever — when you go through something like this. But you gotta handle it. If you handle and just continue to come out here and work and take responsibility for what we got going on, then on the back end it’s usually something really good.”
Baseball is a daily grind, which is a double-edged sword. Tomorrow is a new day and an opportunity for a fresh start. But tomorrow comes fast, which provides little time for a reset.
“I don’t know if you get time to reset in this game because we play every day,” Snitker said. “And it’s just one of them things that we have to do. At some point, we’re gonna put together a complete game and then probably get on a run.”
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