The Atlanta Braves dropped the series to the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night, 3-2. For the 34th time this year, they were hard-pressed to find that extra big hit. Their seven-year streak of winning seasons also came to an end with their 81st loss.
The tight game has been a killer for this ballclub in 2025.
Overall on the year, they’re 19-34 in one-run games (.358). Just a season ago, they were 18-25 (.419) and 23-18 (.560) in the fondly looked-back-upon 2023 campaign. The number of one-run games fluctuates every year, but by looking at the winning percentages, the decline is easy to see.
“Just can’t win at home or on the road,” manager Brian Snitker said after the game. “I don’t know. We’re a hit away, pretty much.”
All year, the Braves have been hanging in there. They’ve had to hang in there more than they have had to the previous two seasons. Even if they were, give or take, a game above or below .500 in this one-run-game scenario, they’d have 72 or 73 wins right now.
It’s still not an ideal record, but they would be within five games of a playoff spot. It would have required only a few more games, here and there, to have gone their way. Many look at the long season and try to argue that one out of 162 games doesn’t matter. Those who make that argument either ignore or fail to understand that the “meaningless” games can add up.
They’ve lost on a walk-off 11 times this season. It only happened six times last season. In each of these walk-off losses the past two seasons, they’ve all been by one run. It helps reflect how this has gotten worse and how easily this season could have gone differently.
“It’s frustrating because we know we’re good enough to win these games,” Snitker said. “You have to win them, these one-run games, against anybody. When you get a starting pitcher that gives you a chance to win, you can beat anybody in baseball, and we’re just, for whatever reason, in the one-run games, have had a hard time coming up with a big hit consistently.”
Sometimes, there really isn’t a rhyme or reason to it. Some nights, even when you have a lineup capable of nearly 300 home runs a season, you just don’t have it.
However, when multiple players in the lineup have had a down year at the same time, it’s going to be a bigger issue.
We’ve seen multiple players, most notably Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies, correct course since the All-Star Break. The most they can hope for at this point is that this correction carries into next season.
Upgrades over the offseason would help, too, of course, but they won’t be enough unless those already on the team can maintain that consistency.
