Austin Riley Is Hitting .209 and the Braves Are Bleeding Their Division Lead
Holy smokes, what even IS June for the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals? Seriously, if you blinked, you might’ve missed the wheels falling off for both these clubs. The Braves, who were sitting pretty with a ridiculous 10.5-game lead in the NL East back on May 22, have seen that cushion shrink faster than a washed t-shirt. Now, they're only three games up on the Philadelphia Phillies. And the Cardinals? They’re just as rough, going from 4.5 games back in the NL Central on May 31 to a full seven games behind the Brewers. Forget the division, they're barely hanging onto a wild-card spot, just a half-game ahead of both the Padres and Marlins. This ain't good, folks.
Offense Gone Missing in Action
You want to talk about cold streaks? Both these teams are basically popsicles at the plate right now. The Braves have been in a full-blown offensive funk during their 4-12 skid. We're talking shut out twice and scoring three runs or fewer in ten of those games. Manager Walt Weiss knows it's a grind, telling reporters, "Our sport is different than every other sport. We play virtually every day for seven months, so you've got to get past all that stuff." But man, some of these individual numbers are just brutal.
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Austin Riley, a guy you expect to carry the load, is straight up struggling. He went a miserable 4-for-21 on their recent West Coast road trip, dropping his average to a shocking .209, and hasn't launched a homer since May 20. Then there's Ha-Seong Kim, who's stuck in an 0-for-24 nightmare and barely hitting the Mendoza line at .068. Even Drake Baldwin, who started with a bang, hitting a dinger in his first at-bat off the injured list, has gone ice cold, hitting 2-for-43 since his return and watching his average plummet from .303 to .255. Ouch.
The Cardinals are right there with them in the "puny at the plate" category. They scored a pathetic three runs total in their entire three-game weekend series against Miami. Manager Oliver Marmol summed it up: "We haven't been able to do that recently and that's a big part of how we've gotten to this point." Ivan Herrera and Alec Burleson just saw their on-base streaks snap at 22 and a career-long 25 games respectively. The one bright spot? Rookie second baseman JJ Wetherholt, who's got 23 multi-hit games on the season, including back-to-back ones recently. At least someone's swinging a hot bat!
Pitching Pains and Veteran Stability
While the bats are silent, Atlanta's pitching staff has found a bit of stability in veteran Martin Perez. With Spencer Strider, their No. 2 starter, out for the foreseeable future, Perez has been a dependable arm, going 4-2 since rejoining the rotation in mid-May. His four-game winning streak did end on Wednesday against San Diego when he gave up three runs in just four innings, his shortest start of the season. Still, he's holding it down better than most.
On the flip side, St. Louis’s starter for Tuesday, Matthew Liberatore, has been in a world of hurt. He's 0-2 with a nasty 10.34 ERA in June over his last four starts. Arizona just shelled him for six runs in 5 1/3 innings on Wednesday. This dude needs a reset button, ASAP. This three-game series is the first time these two clubs face each other this season. The Braves won their 2025 series 4-2. Let's see if either team can actually put some runs on the board and turn this June nightmare around, starting Tuesday. It's gonna be a battle, that's for sure!
This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.