A little over a month ago, the Atlanta Braves lost a heartbreaker at Dodger Stadium to fall to 0-7 on the season, their worst start since an 0-9 open to 2016. That was an eventual 93-loss season in the middle of the rebuild that contributed to Atlanta’s 2021 World Series title. The 2025 Braves are not rebuilding. Far from it. They entered the season as World Series contenders.
Tuesday night, the Braves mounted a ninth inning comeback and walked off the Cincinnati Reds in extra innings (ATL 2, CIN 1 in 10) for their third straight win, and their 11th win in 16 tries at home.
Slowly but surely, the Braves are putting that 0-7 start behind them. They are 17-11 in their last 28 games, the second-best record in the National League during that time, and Wednesday night against the Reds they will have a chance to level out their record at .500. Getting to .500 in mid-May usually isn’t worth celebrating, but when you start 0-7, it represents a pretty quick righting of the ship.
No team in baseball history has ever reached the postseason after starting 0-7, though obviously there were not three wild-card spots for most of baseball history. The three wild-card system has only been in place since 2022. Also, I reckon the 2025 Braves have more talent than most of baseball’s 0-7 teams. Their path back to October is a little less daunting than most 0-7 starters.
First things first though. The Braves have to get back to .500 — they tried and failed to do it last week, when they had a chance to get to 15-15 but lost to the lowly Colorado Rockies — before they start looking ahead to the wild-card standings. It’s way too early for that anyway. It’s only May. The most important thing now is stacking wins and getting on the right side of .500.
Here are three reasons the Braves have gotten their season back on the rails following that 0-7 start, and why their best still may be yet to come.
1. Sale is beginning to look like himself
The start to the season was rough for the reigning NL Cy Young winner. Four starts into 2025, Chris Sale had allowed 15 runs (14 earned) in 19 innings, and opponents were hitting .313/.368/.488 against him. That seems impossible. Sale might be the toughest at-bat in the league between the quality of his stuff and the funkiness of his delivery.
Under the hood, there were reasons to think Sale would get things ironed out, and that is exactly what’s happened. Sale has a 1.96 ERA in his last four starts and he’s struck out 10 batters in each of his last two starts. Tuesday night, Sale fanned 10 Reds in 6 ⅔ shutout innings. It was vintage Chris Sale.
The Braves let Max Fried and Charlie Morton leave as free agents this past offseason and they did not bring in any replacements. Not even a veteran innings dude to hold down the No. 5 spot. They put their faith in their young starters and also in Sale’s ability to be frontline guy. Early on, things looked dicey. Now that the season has had a chance to breathe, he looks like Sale again.
Behind Sale, reliever-turned-starter Grant Holmes has allowed no more than three runs in four of his six starts. The recently recalled AJ Smith-Shawver took a no-hitter into the eighth inning Monday and has allowed two runs in two starts since coming back to the majors. Atlanta’s rotation had a 4.70 ERA in their first 17 games. In 18 games since, it’s a much more manageable 3.68 ERA.
2. Iglesias has been lockdown
The Braves had a lead in the sixth inning or later three times during their 0-7 start, and on two other occasions the game was tied in the sixth or later. The bullpen kept letting them down, including closer Raisel Iglesias. Iglesias allowed a run in five of his first 10 appearances and in those 10 appearances he allowed five home runs allowed in 10 innings. Five homers in 10 innings!
That bad case is homeritis appears to be behind Iglesias now. He strung together four straight scoreless appearances and in those four games he’s struck out eight of the 14 batters he’s faced. Three of those five early home runs came on sliders (he allowed one homer on a slider in 2024), so Iglesias put it on the back-burner. He’s been fastball/changeup lately and the results have followed.
Iglesias has been so good lately and the bullpen as a whole has been much better. GM Alex Anthopoulos did not sit around and wait for things to straighten themselves out. Héctor Neris and José Suarez were jettisoned and replaced by Rafael Montero plus a series of call-ups. Despite the wretched 0-7 start, Atlanta’s bullpen has its head back above water with plus-0.87 win probability added.
3. Verdugo has settled the outfield
It is almost shocking how bad the Braves’ outfield has been. As a unit, their outfield is hitting .226/.266/.350 with seven home runs and minus-0.3 WAR through 35 games. Michael Harris II has been terrible so far, Jurickson Profar is serving an 80-game PED suspension, and the Bryan De La Cruz/Jarred Kelenic platoon was simply dreadful. De La Cruz was dumped on waivers and Kelenic is now in Triple-A.
Again, Anthopoulos did not wait around. De La Cruz was replaced by Alex Verdugo on April 17 and the latter has stepped into left field and also the leadoff spot as a massive upgrade. He’s hitting .297/.357/.406 with more walks (six) than strikeouts (five) through 15 games with the Braves. Compared to De La Cruz and Kelenic, Verdugo looks like prime Dale Murphy.
Verdugo’s track record says this level of offense won’t last, but what’s happened is already in the bank, and it’s helped the Braves win games. The bar is on the floor. De La Cruz and Kelenic were abysmal. League-average production from Verdugo (and Eli White) represents a huge outfield upgrade for the Braves, especially at the top of the lineup.
Also, Sean Murphy deserves a mention as well. The veteran catcher returned from cracked rib on April 8 and slugged four homers in his first six games, and seven homers in 21 games overall. Murphy and Verdugo were not part of Atlanta’s Opening Day roster. They joined the team a few weeks into April and have added needed length and thump to the lineup.
In theory, the Braves will get Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider back at some point. I say in theory because Strider returned from elbow surgery last month, made one start, then went back on the injured list with a hamstring issue. Acuña is working his way back from last year’s knee surgery. Even if they return at 75%, they’re impact players. We just don’t know when they will be back.
While Atlanta waits for Acuña and Strider, they will look to continue stacking wins and putting the 0-7 start behind them, and their upcoming schedule is favorable. They have two more games with the Reds, then will play 10 of their next 13 games against the very bad Pittsburgh Pirates and a Washington Nationals team that has talent, but hasn’t yet figured out how to win consistently.
Any team can beat any other team on any night in this game — you can’t take wins for granted — but the Braves do have several non-elite opponents coming up. The baseball gods gave them a lane in the schedule to get back to .500 and over it for good. Now it’s on the Braves to actually go do it. The pitching staff, especially Sale, has gotten on track. Verdugo has stabilized the outfield. The Braves are not out of the woods yet after their 0-7 start. They are trending in the right direction though.
This news was originally published on this post .
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