LOS ANGELES — At 6:32 p.m. PT on Sunday, the Braves were shut out for the second straight night to end a four-game sweep in San Diego. A drive up Interstate 5 to face the undefeated Dodgers would not provide any respite.
About 15 hours later, the Braves designated for assignment one of their few pitching additions of the offseason. Héctor Neris was entrusted to hold a one-run lead in the seventh inning on Opening Day and coughed up three runs without recording an out. He would not make it to April with the team.
It was hardly the worst news on a miserable Monday that epitomized the Braves’ inauspicious start to the 2025 season. Waves of misfortune swelled into a tsunami of pain.
At 2:56 p.m., Major League Baseball announced that Jurickson Profar, the Braves’ biggest and most important signing of the offseason, had tested positive for the performance-enhancing substance chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) and would be suspended for 80 games. He was just four games into his three-year, $42 million deal.
In a statement, the Braves announced they were “surprised and extremely disappointed” to learn the news. Braves manager Brian Snitker said he spoke to Profar after the suspension was announced. Most of his teammates did not want to discuss the matter or expound beyond expressing that it’s a tough and unfortunate situation.
“I’m not going to harp on it, talk about it,” Austin Riley said. “The Braves released something, and we’ll leave it at that.”
“I’m not going to get into it, really,” Matt Olson added. “It’s not my story to tell. I’m sure he’s going to come out and say something for himself, so I’m going to let him handle that.”
At 3:11 p.m., Profar released a statement calling it the most difficult day of his baseball career, apologizing to the Braves organization and his teammates and claiming he would never willingly take a banned substance.
Should Atlanta rebound the rest of the way and make it to the postseason, Profar will not be eligible to play in those games. Then again, no Braves team has ever started a season 0-5 — let alone 0-6, as their winless start to the year stretched further Tuesday — and made the playoffs. They will have to buck history to make an eighth straight trip to the postseason.
They will also have to pivot quickly.
Outside of adding Profar, the Braves did almost nothing of note to bolster their club this winter, which was especially notable after losing Max Fried, Charlie Morton and A.J. Minter. They agreed to a one-year, split contract with outfielder Bryan De La Cruz, who is still looking for his first hit in 2025. Relievers Neris and Enyel De Los Santos were both signed to minor-league deals and added to the active roster on March 21. Neris was DFA’d 10 days later.
Their bullpen is 0-3 with a 5.21 ERA to start the season, but that is hardly their biggest issue.
Forty-nine minutes after the Profar update, the Braves announced that starter Reynaldo López would be placed on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. They did not know the extent of the injury until a day later, when Snitker said on Tuesday that López will need an arthroscopic procedure to assess the damage.
The Braves hope López will pitch again at some point this year, but they won’t know the extent of the injury until after the exploratory surgery. His shoulder has given him trouble since the end of last season’s All-Star campaign, a year in which the converted reliever posted a 1.99 ERA in 25 starts. Bryce Elder, who had a 6.52 ERA last year, was called up to fill the vacancy.
They at least still have reigning Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale and rising star Spencer Schwellenbach to lead the group until Spencer Strider’s return, which could come later this month. Starting pitching also hasn’t been the reason for the Braves’ first 0-6 start since 2016.
Instead, the biggest culprit for their struggles — and the hardest one to explain — is an offense that has been the worst in baseball the first week of the year.
Already playing without Ronald Acuña Jr, who is unlikely to return until next month as he recovers from his second ACL repair, the Braves must now move forward without Profar atop the reconfigured lineup.
As they continue absorbing hits off the field, they can’t seem to find any on it.
Two years ago, the Braves assembled one of the best offenses in MLB history. They were the first NL/AL team ever to slug over .500 in a season and tied an MLB record with 307 home runs. That group came crashing down last season, dropping from the highest-scoring offense in baseball to the middle of the pack in 2024, scoring 243 runs fewer than the season prior. Apart from Marcell Ozuna, their most reliable performers either regressed, got hurt or both.
Still, for Riley and Michael Harris II in particular, the underlying numbers suggested better days ahead. There were plenty of reasons, even with Acuña tabled at the start, to assume the Braves’ offense would bounce back.
They decided to chart a new direction forward. After 10 years with the club, hitting coach Kevin Seitzer was fired after the 2024 season. The Braves brought in Georgia native Tim Hyers, who spent the last three years as the Rangers’ hitting coach and won a World Series in Texas.
Six games in, the offense is spiraling further.
The Braves are hitting .137/.238/.220 as a group. Each slash line category represents the worst mark in baseball. They’ve scored nine runs through six games and two runs in their last four games. When they’ve gotten a chance, they’ve squandered it.
Ozuna is 1-for-4 with three walks with runners in scoring position this season; the rest of the team is 0-for-30 combined in those scenarios.
“I can’t explain it,” Snitker said. “I’m sure they’re pressing. That’s human nature to press when everybody wants to be the guy.”
The Braves were in danger of being shut out for a third straight game Monday before a Harris solo homer in the eighth inning in Los Angeles snapped a 29-inning scoreless skid.
It did not, however, flip the script. The Braves lost that game 6-1, unable to solve Tyler Glasnow and the Dodgers’ pitching staff.
“I feel like once we get rolling, everything will get back on track,” Harris said.
That did not happen the following evening.
On Tuesday, Atlanta needed Sale to be pristine. For five innings, he was. The Dodgers gifted the Braves the lone run of the game to that point when shortstop Mookie Betts threw away a potential double-play ball. In the fifth, Betts made up for the error with a go-ahead homer. The Braves did not author a response, mustering just three hits in the loss.
“We’ve definitely been tried,” Sale said. “It’s just been tough. We really just haven’t played really well as a whole and haven’t clicked. That’s obviously bad, but the good news is you look around this room and see who’s in here, we know it’s only a matter of time, right? And luckily at this point in the season, we have time.”
For now, they’re seeking help on the margins.
When Neris was DFA’d, the Braves called up 41-year-old Jesse Chavez, who allowed one run in two innings Monday before the bullpen revolving door continued. Chavez was DFA’d a day later, and the Braves selected the contract of Zach Thompson.
On the day they lost Profar, they acquired outfielder Stuart Fairchild from the Reds. Eleven days prior, they added free-agent Alex Verdugo on a $1.5 million deal for outfield depth. After missing so much time in the spring, however, the Braves want to get Verdugo more at-bats at Triple-A.
As the losses pile up, though, they may not have a choice but to call him up.
On Tuesday, the starting lineup featured more hitters batting below .100 than above .200. The majority sat somewhere in between. Four of the hitters the Braves are counting on most — Harris, Riley, Olson and Ozzie Albies — have a combined .129 batting average.
“We’ve pitched and played defense well enough to win,” Snitker said. “The only thing we haven’t done is score enough runs to win. It’s pretty much as simple as that.”
There’s still time for everyone to find their form. Last year, the Braves endured a six-game losing streak and still squeaked into a playoff spot. FanGraphs still gives them a 73% chance to make the playoffs, and they’ll get to host the Marlins in their home opener Friday.
With Strider due back soon and Acuña to follow a month from now, they just have to keep the ship afloat.
With each passing day, though, there seems to be another hole to patch and a new wave approaching out of nowhere.
“There’s confidence in this room still,” Sale said. “I mean, I know it’s coming from inspiring places right now just sitting where we’re at, but we haven’t played a game at home yet. We’re one rotation through, and, again, it’s a long season. You don’t want to hang your hat on that quote, but at the end of the day, it is.”
