In season-opening sweep, Braves’ new approach at plate nowhere to be found

For it isn’t only that the Braves were baseball’s only 0-4 team after Sunday’s games, having gotten swept in San Diego. It’s that a lineup laden with power and skilled batsmen didn’t score in its final 22 innings at Petco Park, getting shut out Saturday and Sunday.

Putting the blame on hard-hit balls that carried right to defenders goes only so far. None of the team’s 36 strikeouts were hit with any authority.

The issue is that a team that had hired a new hitting coach with an emphasis on game planning and an effective mental approach at the plate repeated two major flaws from 2024 — failing to produce with runners in scoring position, often by striking out.

As manager Brian Snitker succinctly put it, “We didn’t get it done. We didn’t hit enough, pretty much.”

A year ago, the Braves ranked 20th in MLB in batting average with runners in scoring position (.247) while striking out 25.1% of the time in those situations. It was part of the motivation to dismiss longtime hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and hire the heralded Hyers, who has won two World Series rings in that role with Boston and Texas.

Speaking with media members in February in North Port, Florida, Hyers said he noticed the problem himself when he reviewed game video from last season.

“There’s a lot of players, they get up there and they’ve got runners in scoring position and (they’re) just probably getting away from themselves,” he said.

Against the Padres, however, the Braves were an epically feeble 1-for-22 with runners in scoring position and struck out eight times in 26 plate appearances (30.8%). They didn’t manage a single sacrifice fly and twice hit into double plays after swinging at the first pitch. Matt Olson did so in the first inning of the third game after the first two batters had walked.

The easy spin is that it’s only four games, every team is going to have series where the offense can’t get going and it stands out only because it’s the first four games of the season.

All those things are true.

But the counterpoint is that it’s still not a good sign that it happened at any point of the season, and especially so in the first series of the season, when you would think the ability to focus and execute a game plan would be higher than a random series in June.

And, if you’re looking for another reason to feel anxious, the Braves’ worst game at the plate was Sunday, when they were one-hit and sent the minimum 27 batters to the plate. In a game when they were presumably feeling the most pressure to get something going, the Braves swung early and often, allowing the Padres to skate through the game on a Madduxian 107 pitches.

“Anytime you get in these little ruts, everybody wants to be the guy and you probably try too hard, quite honestly,” Snitker said.

A thought: While players pressing at the plate is understandable, that’s not what you want to hear about a team when the new hitting coach is supposed to address that very problem.

A last concerning point of fact: The Braves are going, as they say, from the frying pan into a raging volcano, as they start a three-game series against the defending World Series-champion Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday night. An All-Star team unto themselves, the Dodgers not only will be at home, but also returning from an off-day Sunday.

It’s not merely possible, but it’s likely that the Braves will take the field for their home opener Friday night at Truist Park at 1-6 or an entirely unpleasant 0-7.

After barely making it into the postseason and then seeing a number of rivals strengthen their rosters, the Braves went into this season with a more aggressive roster plan for opening day with the idea that every game would matter, even in March and April.

So much for March.

All that said, a 1-6 or 0-7 start would be a hole to climb out of, but hardly inescapable. It’s certainly possible that the Braves will underachieve again as they did in 2024, but probability would suggest otherwise.

And whatever influence Hyers actually has on the Braves offense, it’s reasonable to think that it could take time for it to surface. Braves fans might be encouraged to know that his last team started slowly in his first season there before ramping up. At Hyers’ last place of work, the Texas Rangers started slowly in his first season there (.623 OPS in March/April 2022) before finding their footing later (finishing at .696 for the season, a 26-point increase from the previous year). Last week, an MLB scout described Hyers to me as “a very calming influence.” That probably takes time to take effect.

It’s not time for full-blown panic. Maybe a barely inflated wince.

But it would be nice to see something soon.