Baseball fans can rejoice. The 2025 season is now underway and it's off to quite a fast start. Offensive numbers have ticked up, nearly across the board. Teams are hitting more home runs and slugging a bit higher than in years past during the early part of the season for just about every team.
Four teams remain unbeaten which means four teams are still winless after getting swept during opening weekend. The Milwaukee Brewers and their pitching staff fell victim to the New York Yankees' insanely fast start by way of the new "torpedo bat." The Los Angeles Dodgers topped the Detroit Tigers in a three game series after sweeping the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Series. The St. Louis Cardinals swept the Minnesota Twins, and the San Diego Padres swept the Atlanta Braves.
In four games, the Braves have scored just seven runs as they head into a series with the Dodgers. Atlanta's offense struggled tremendously in 2024 and a lot of people chalked it up to the hitting coach, Kevin Seiter, and assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes. Both hitting coaches weren't brought back for the 2025 season, but it doesn't seem like they were the problem.
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Obviously, the hitting coach wasn't the key to Atlanta's issue in 2024
Somehow, the Braves are off to a worse offensive start than they had last year. Through four games, the Braves are slashing a ridiculous .045/.192/.045 with runners in scoring position. That's a total of 1 for 22 with a single, four walks, eight strikeouts and just three RBIs.
Their offensive struggles came to a peak during the series finale against the Padres. In this game, Nick Pivetta, Jason Adam, and Jeremiah Estrada held the Braves to1 for 26 with a walk. Padres pitching faced the minimum 27 hitters in this dominant performance over Atlanta.
It's clear the problem was deeper than the pitching coach and Atlanta is going to need to figure out the root cause of these issues before it's too late. No player on the roster has a batting average over .250 and the team has struck out 36 times in four games.
With a three game series against the Dodgers coming up, the Braves don't have an easy path to get out of this slump.