Here are the numbers that define Braves’ four-game sweep at hands of Padres to open 2025 season

In Sunday’s series finale, they lost to the Padres, 5-0, at Petco Park in front of an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball national audience. The Braves were shut out for the second game in a row.

The road does not become easier: They now travel to Dodger Stadium for three games against a team that features baseball’s best roster.

Is the season over? Of course not. Is the sky falling? Not by any means. No doubt, though, it is startling when a team – especially one as talented as Atlanta – begins the season by getting swept in a four-game series.

The scores: 7-4, 4-3, 1-0, 5-0.

Those are the most basic numbers. Let’s dig into some other numbers that defined this series for the Braves, with some context on each.

22

The Braves went 22 innings without scoring a run to end this series.

Atlanta’s last run came in Friday’s fifth inning. The Braves were blanked on Saturday and Sunday. The Padres held down Atlanta’s feared lineup.

“Yeah, they were pretty good, and we’re just starting. We’re just starting,” Jurickson Profar said. “It’s early and we faced some pitching that’s way advanced right now.”

0-4

You might be wondering if the Braves, at 0-4, are in real trouble.

Some context: This is the first time the Braves have started 0-4 since 2021, when they dropped the first four contests of the season. You know what happened that year. And in 2019, the Braves began 0-3.

The longest season-opening losing streak for a Braves team that eventually made the playoffs is four games, first done in 2012 and then in 2021.

On Monday, the Braves will try to avoid going 0-5, which would position them to need to make history to get to October. Of course, if the Braves need any reassurance, they can find some with their division rivals, the New York Mets. Last season, the Mets started 0-5 before recovering and making a playoff run all the way to the National League Championship Series.

“You don’t ever like this in the beginning,” Snitker said. “(Spring training) doesn’t matter. We did – we had a good camp, I felt good about coming out (here). But as soon as we take off and leave, that’s behind us. That’s no more. It doesn’t matter how good or whatever anybody did in camp, it don’t count.”

1-for-22

The Braves went 1-for-22 with runners in scoring position over these four games. Yes, one hit in 22 such chances.

Needless to say, a few more could’ve swung a couple of these contests.

If you look at the names on the lineup card, the Braves probably are too good to continue on like this. Matt Olson. Austin Riley. Marcell Ozuna. Eventually, Ronald Acuña Jr.

But 1-for-22 isn’t what fans wanted to see after a 2024 season defined by missed opportunities with men in scoring position.

16

In these four games, the Braves hit 16 balls at 100 mph or above. The Padres had 20, so the Braves weren’t far off.

Atlanta hit some balls really hard, with nothing to show. Olson narrowly missed a homer. Ozzie Albies and Drake Baldwin had would-be homers robbed. Olson smoked a couple balls right at guys.

Can the Braves look at some of these at-bats and know that if they do something similar, the results might be different in the future?

“Yes, yes. Yes,” Profar said. “But (the Padres pitchers) were pretty good and we are not where we need to be right now. But we have a great team, great talent. And when we start going, I think we ain’t stopping.”

An opponent, Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts, noticed the hard-hit balls.

“They’re a good team,” Bogaerts said of the Braves. “They were hitting balls hard right at guys.”

27

On Sunday, the Braves only sent 27 men to the plate – the minimum.

In the series finale, the Braves had one hit and walked once. They hit into one double play and ran into another when Ozuna took a wide turn at second base and Padres first baseman Luis Arraez threw behind him.

Atlanta got a man to second – Ozuna – but he was only there for a couple seconds.

8

The Braves’ bullpen allowed eight runs over 12 innings.

But four came on Opening Day. Otherwise, the unit gave up four runs over nine frames. That’s pretty good considering the heat the group took after Hector Neris faltered in that season-opening contest.

The issue this weekend: The offense couldn’t solve San Diego’s pitching.

111 and 112

In 2024, the depleted Braves did not suffer consecutive shutouts until their 111th and 112th games – one against Miami, the other against Milwaukee.

This time, the Braves were shut out in consecutive games in the third and fourth contests of the year.

1980

The Braves hadn’t been swept in a four-game series to open the season since 1980, when they lost all four to the Reds.

In that series, Cincinnati outscored Atlanta, 25-4. This weekend, the Braves were outscored, 17-7.

“I guess better now than later,” Michael Harris II said. “We got time to get all the kinks out. I know it’s a tough look when it’s the first four games of the season and we can’t really get anything going and pull out a win, but I guess better now than later to kind of have these wrinkles or whatever, so we can kind of get those out pretty soon here and hopefully we can turn this around.”

Before this weekend, the Braves hadn’t been swept in a four-game series in San Diego since 1979. Now, they’ve lost six consecutive games here if you count last year’s postseason. It’s their longest losing streak at Petco Park since they dropped 12 straight from 2012-16.

The Braves’ task now: Learn from this, move on and put together a strong series in Los Angeles.

“Obviously not the outcome we want, but I guess heading into the Dodgers (series), I guess we gotta refresh and forget that happened,” Harris said. “We still got 158 left. Just move onto the next opponent and keep your head high. It’s too early in the season to keep your head low and focus on what just happened. It’s all up from here. Just try to move on to the Dodgers now.”