That 10.5-Game Lead Is GONE: Two NL Teams Are In Full Meltdown Mode

Holy smokes, you guys. We all talk about team slumps, right? But what the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals are doing right now is next level. Forget just struggling; these two National League squads are straight up imploding. They're both staring down brutal June numbers, and it's got to be absolutely crushing for their fans. I mean, we've seen rough patches here in the Emerald City, but a total freefall like this? Whew. It's almost hard to believe. They're both sitting at a grim 3-7 over their last ten games, and trust me, they are PUMPED to turn that calendar page and leave June behind.

What The Heck Happened in Atlanta?

Atlanta had a cozy 10.5-game lead in the NL East back on May 22. Ten-point-five games! That's practically insurmountable, right? WRONG. That cushion has shrunk to just three games over the Philadelphia Phillies. Three! In just over a month. They've gone 9-13 in June, which is just not gonna cut it for a team that was cruising. Their offense has vanished, period. In their current 4-12 skid, the Braves have been shut out twice and scored three or fewer runs in a staggering ten games. Manager Walt Weiss gets it, saying, "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. You've got to keep your head down and keep doing the work. These guys are doing the work, they're doing all that stuff. We've just got to fight through it." But fighting through it looks tough when guys like Austin Riley are 4-for-21 on a recent road trip, watching his average drop to .209, and haven't homered since May 20. Ha-Seong Kim is caught in an 0-for-24 nightmare, hitting a shocking .068. Even Drake Baldwin, who started with a bang, is 2-for-43 since coming off the injured list, his average plummeting from .303 to .255. Thank goodness for veteran lefty Martin Perez, who's been a dependable arm since rejoining the rotation in mid-May, going 4-2.

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He's been a steady force while their number two starter, Spencer Strider, is out for the foreseeable future. Perez did have his four-game winning streak snapped with his shortest start of the season on Wednesday, giving up three runs in four innings against San Diego, but he's been a bright spot.

St. Louis Isn't Doing Any Better

Across the league, the St. Louis Cardinals are suffering from the exact same offensive funk. They only managed to score three runs in their entire three-game series against Miami. Three runs! Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol is clear about the problem: "You look at the games, we're successful, we come up with that key hit, that big hit and kind of keep it rolling. We haven't been able to do that recently and that's a big part of how we've gotten to this point." They were 4.5 games behind the Brewers for the NL Central lead on May 31, and now they're seven games back, barely holding on by half a game over the Padres and Marlins in the hunt for the final wild-card spot. They went 12-12 in June, which looks better than Atlanta's record, but it's clearly not good enough. Even some of their on-base streaks, like Ivan Herrera's 22-gamer and Alec Burleson's career-long 25-game run, got snapped in a recent 2-1 win that did stop a four-game losing streak. Rookie second baseman JJ Wetherholt has been a spark, coming off back-to-back multi-hit games and now with 23 on the season. But Matthew Liberatore, their starter for this upcoming series, has been getting absolutely rocked. He's 0-2 with a monstrous 10.34 ERA in June over his last four starts, including getting shelled for six runs in 5 1/3 innings by Arizona on Wednesday. This dude needs to turn it around, fast. This is the first time these two struggling teams face off this season. The Braves took their series 4-2 last year, but 2025 is ancient history now. This series is huge for both clubs. Can either of them find a way to stop the bleeding and avoid letting this June disaster derail their entire season? We're about to find out.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.