Atlanta Braves: 5 keys to breaking out of bad stretch

Execute the fundamentals

If you’ve watched the Braves in the last month and a half, when they’ve played some of their worst baseball, you had to have noticed the fundamentals simply not being executed.

It’s become a common description among analysts and announcers to refer to this as doing the “little things” right. Not making baserunning errors, not overthrowing cutoff men, being able to get bunts down, turning double-plays when the opportunity is there, not losing composure when things go bad. All of these things add up, even if you don’t see them all on the score sheet.

Other problems that have plagued the Braves have been mental errors, just not thinking about what you’re doing out there in the field or at the plate. If there’s a hit-and-run play on, you get wood on the ball, somehow, some way. If you’ve got a 3-0 green light at the plate, you don’t swing unless it’s absolutely a perfect pitch. If you’re down in the count 0-2 or 1-2, you don’t swing for the fences, you choke up and make good solid contact with the ball.

The Braves have played an embarrassing lack of fundamental baseball, and that needs to be a point of emphasis with the coaching staff. And speaking of the coaching staff…