CHICAGO – At times this season, you have probably found yourself wondering, “How?” How can this offense – the historic group from a season ago – disappear? How can it go quiet for stretches? How is it not dominating? How is it unable to come up with a clutch hit like it has for the last handful of seasons?
For fans, it is infuriating.
For everyone, it is confusing.
The Braves on Thursday lost to the White Sox, 1-0, at Guaranteed Rate Field. Chicago is the worst team in baseball, and entered this contest – a makeup game for the April postponement – with six fewer runs than the Rockies, who have baseball’s second-worst record.
The White Sox are now 22-61.
The Braves are still 44-35, but they went 3-4 on this road trip that started with a great series win at Yankee Stadium. Thursday’s loss is only one game, but in it, the Braves continued reverting to last month’s version.
Five observations on this loss:
1. It seemed like the Braves had turned a corner. They won all but one game in their final homestand, including sweeping a series before heading on the road. They took a series at Yankee Stadium against a team that has one of the best records in baseball.
The Braves appeared to be themselves again.
Then they were not.
It must be disappointing to see the inconsistency toward the end of the road trip, right?
“Yeah, pretty much,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “We won a series against the Yankees, we felt really good coming out of there. Same thing (Wednesday), in the second game of the doubleheader, we just couldn’t score any runs. The pitching’s been really good. Bryce (Elder) was really good (Wednesday), bullpen’s been really good, today we got a great start (from Chris Sale). We just gotta get it going offensively again.”
The Braves wasted seven innings of one-run baseball from Sale. They lost three of four to end their trip.
The Braves looked like they had finally gained that momentum. They were hitting home runs. They were collecting key hits.
They looked to build on the Yankee Stadium series and continue their winning ways.
“Yeah, it would’ve been nice,” Sale said. “That’s a tough team to go and beat – especially going into Yankee Stadium. You know, it happens. We just gotta keep plugging away, keep doing our thing. It’s not early anymore, by any means, but we still know what we have to do, and we just gotta keep playing good baseball and not get too down when it’s not good and not get too up when it is.”
2. After Wednesday’s doubleheader, the Braves hopped on a flight to Chicago. They arrived at their hotel around midnight.
It’s not an excuse, but it should provide context on the unusual turnaround they faced.
The White Sox used a bullpen game. They deployed five different pitchers.
The Braves had three hits. One of them was Forrest Wall’s bunt single.
Did Snitker like the at-bats?
“There wasn’t much to show for them, really,” he said. “Yeah, I don’t know. We just couldn’t hit.”
In the first inning, the Braves had a man on base and the next guy struck out. In the second, they put the leadoff man on base before Sean Murphy hit into a double play. In the fourth, Ozzie Albies hit a leadoff double and Marcell Ozuna walked, but the next three hitters made outs. In the fifth, Wall reached on the bunt, then Adam Duvall (batting .163) struck out and Orlando Arcia (hitting .213) grounded into a double play.
In the ninth inning, the Braves were gifted a baserunner with an error. The next man up, pinch-hitter Travis d’Arnaud, flied out to end the game.
“You’re going to the small park (Yankee Stadium), then you’re going to the big one (Busch Stadium), then you go to the park where the ball doesn’t carry like that (in Guaranteed Rate Field),” Ozuna said of the road trip. “A little frustrated, but we’re going to figure it out when we get home. We got a long homestand over there, and we should be fine.”
The Braves hit a couple balls hard. The unlucky one: Ozuna smoked a ball that looked like it might be a game-tying homer in the eighth, but Tommy Pham made a great play at the right-field wall.
Snitker thought it was out, and if not out, then a double off the wall. Ozuna believed the same.
The bullpen game and this one-off contest, Ozuna said, presented challenges.
“It’s a little hard,” Ozuna said. “You’re coming for one day and you don’t prepare the way that you prepare. You have your routines, so you have to take a short time to do your routine. And that’s all. We were having chances and we couldn’t do it.”
3. The third batter Sale faced, Luis Robert Jr., homered on a slider low and inside. This was not a bad pitch. In fact, it probably was a great pitch.
Robert is an elite hitter, though.
“I was throwing slider, he was sitting slider and put a good swing on it,” Sale said. “Not too often a first-inning solo homer wins a game, but it happens. That’s the game of baseball. That’s why this game is played and we figure it out out there. Tough one, but we’re going back home and we’ll use that energy and get going in the right direction.”
Sale struck out a career-high 11 batters. He gave up only four hits. He issued one walk. He was excellent.
The one pitch shouldn’t have decided the game.
“He threw an amazing outing today and he never gave up,” Ozuna said. “He just gave up one run and he trusted us, and we couldn’t get anything to (make it a) no-decision game or (maybe a win). That’s hard.”
4. On Thursday, Sale pitched at the place where he began his career.
“I’ve always enjoyed coming back,” he said. “It will always be kind of weird, but once you get warming up and get going, it’s still baseball. I appreciated my time here, it was great. But now I’m here, and gotta get rolling.”
Sale, who pitched for the White Sox before Boston, has made six starts against Chicago. He has a 2.92 ERA over 37 innings in those, with 57 strikeouts.
5. The Braves can’t do anything but look toward Friday’s series opener against the Pirates at Truist Park.
Atlanta will start Charlie Morton, Max Fried and Spencer Schwellenbach – in that order. And on Saturday, the Braves will see rookie phenom Paul Skenes.
Stat to know
7 - Thursday marked the 74th time in Sale’s career that he allowed one or fewer runs in at least seven innings. He has lost only seven of those games – including Thursday. He’s gotten a no-decision 19 times.
Quotable
“It’ll always be weird, pitching on the other side for so long. You still got a job to do and still kind of looking down the same barrel that I look down a whole lot. But it was fun.” - Sale on returning to Chicago
Up next
Friday’s game begins at 7:20 p.m. The Braves will face Pirates lefty Martín Pérez.
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