{"id":69898,"date":"2025-07-20T09:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T09:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=69898"},"modified":"2025-07-20T09:28:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T09:28:17","slug":"braves-bullpen-meltdown-big-nights-for-joey-wentz-and-ozzie-albies-marcell-ozunas-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=69898","title":{"rendered":"Braves\u2019 bullpen meltdown, big nights for Joey Wentz and Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna\u2019s status"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

ATLANTA \u2014 The Atlanta Braves\u2019 once-solid but increasingly shaky bullpen must be reinforced if they\u2019re serious about overcoming already extremely long odds to make a postseason push.<\/p>\n

But it remains to be seen if they\u2019ll be buyers or sellers at the July 31 trade deadline, and after Saturday\u2019s bullpen meltdown in a 12-9 loss to the New York Yankees, one wonders if they might be leaning more toward the latter.<\/p>\n

The bullpen spoiled a four-inning scoreless start by Joey Wentz and a five-RBI night from Ozzie Albies, with Braves relievers allowing 12 runs in the last five innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just our inability to close out innings,\u201d said manager Brian Snitker, whose team has to go 45-20 the rest of the way to win 88 games, which still might not be enough to win a wild-card spot. \u201cWe were scoring some runs. I felt good last weekend in St. Louis; I saw signs of life with the offense, and we played some really good baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The Yankees are) a really good club. I mean, it\u2019s 27 hard outs against a team like this, and we just couldn\u2019t close innings off after the fourth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decisive blow was Trent Grisham\u2019s tie-breaking ninth-inning grand slam off potential trade candidate Raisel Iglesias, who hadn\u2019t allowed a run in 15 appearances but has a 5.12 ERA in the final year of his contract.<\/p>\n

Five of six Braves relievers gave up at least one run, including Anthony Volpe\u2019s homers off Wander Suero and Dylan Lee and a Cody Bellinger homer off Pierce Johnson.<\/p>\n

The Braves were 4-for-10 with runners in scoring position, but after loading the bases with one out in the seventh inning, they left them loaded when Michael Harris II struck out and Nick Allen popped out. The Yankees tied it 8-8 an inning later on Volpe\u2019s homer on a two-strike hanging slider left over the middle by Lee.<\/p>\n

Albies has another big night<\/h2>\n

Albies had another encouraging game for the Braves, to say the least, driving in five runs, including his second three-run homer in two nights against the Yankees.<\/p>\n

\n

OZZIE WE LOVE HIM@ozzie | #BravesCountry pic.twitter.com\/3iX3xu2G0D<\/p>\n

\u2014 Atlanta Braves (@Braves) July 20, 2025<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was his ninth of the season and 150th of his career, and like his homer in Friday\u2019s 7-3 win, it was just inside the right-field foul pole and came with Sean Murphy and Drake Baldwin on base. Albies added a two-run single in the fifth and has nine RBIs in the first two games of the series, after driving in two runs in the last 22 games before the All-Star break and posting a .506 OPS in that span.<\/p>\n

He said his swing began feeling better in the Athletics series at Sacramento in the final week before the break.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept working hard, and it\u2019s paying off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

All nine of the switch hitter\u2019s homers have been from the left side. Albies missed two months last season with a fractured left wrist and hit from the right side only upon returning in September. He didn\u2019t take batting practice from the right side for six months but said the wrist was strong during his struggles this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot use that as an excuse,\u201d he said. \u201cThe strength is there. It\u2019s just, when your swing is not good, you can\u2019t put up numbers and you can\u2019t hit the ball hard. It\u2019s a feel. You gotta feel it. It\u2019s a round ball with a round bat. You\u2019ve got to work on it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldwin had a two-out double and Murphy walked in the fourth before Albies hit the next pitch out. It moved him into ninth place on the Braves\u2019 Atlanta-era hits list with 1,024.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to see that maybe he had the four days off and relaxed a little bit and cleared his mind,\u201d Snitker said. \u201cHopefully, by doing that, it\u2019ll be something that starts him on the path of a really good next 60-some games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris ends ugly streaks<\/h2>\n

Harris gave the Braves a 1-0 lead in the third with a 438-foot homer off Will Warren, the seventh of the season for the center fielder and his first since June 13.<\/p>\n

\n

Money Mike puts us on the board! \ud83d\udcb8@MoneyyyMikeee | #BravesCountry pic.twitter.com\/v0DL2ZOHtg<\/p>\n

\u2014 Atlanta Braves (@Braves) July 19, 2025<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Harris hit .133 with a .330 OPS in 26 games between homers, and he entered batting .211 with the lowest OBP (.234) and lowest OPS (.550) among all MLB qualifiers.<\/p>\n

With his two-out walk in the fourth, he also snapped an astonishing streak of 178 walk-free plate appearances since May 18, the longest such streak by a Brave in at least a quarter-century. He last homered and walked in the same game on April 19 against the Minnesota Twins.<\/p>\n

Wentz\u2019s circuitous path to Atlanta<\/h2>\n

Nine years and three other organizations since the Braves selected Wentz with the 40th pick of the 2016 MLB Draft, the left-hander made his Atlanta home debut Saturday, and plenty of fans had to be wondering why it took so long.<\/p>\n

Wentz was nearly as impressive as he\u2019d been out of the bullpen in his Braves debut a week earlier at the St. Louis Cardinals, when he had six strikeouts in three scoreless and hitless innings \u2014 the most strikeouts in franchise history for a Brave making his debut out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n

This time, he fired four scoreless innings with two strikeouts and two hits in his first start at any level since 2023, giving him seven scoreless innings for Atlanta with eight strikeouts and two walks.<\/p>\n

Because he\u2019d thrown a season-high 59 pitches and the Braves had a long four-run fourth inning, Snitker decided not to send him back out for the fifth; the original plan was to allow him to face one batter: Grisham. He has done enough in two games to earn another start next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yeah,\u201d Snitker said. \u201cWe\u2019re gradually getting him stretched back out as a starter. And I think he\u2019s done a really good job, obviously. We\u2019re kind of building him up as we go, and he\u2019s been really, really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wentz, a Kansas native, was struggling in Double A in 2019 when the Braves dealt him to the Detroit Tigers with outfielder Travis Demeritte for closer Shane Greene at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

He made his MLB debut in 2022 with Detroit, went 5-17 with a 5.81 ERA in 70 games (26 starts) over three seasons and was claimed off waivers by the Pittsburgh Pirates in June 2024. He was again claimed off waivers by the Minnesota Twins this June, posted a 15.75 ERA in six relief appearances and was waived once again.<\/p>\n

This time, he was claimed by the Braves. And in two appearances with the franchise that drafted him, Wentz has looked like a new man, using pinpoint control of an improved cutter \u2013 after he tinkered with his grip on the pitch \u2014 and a mid-90s fastball, with occasional curveballs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I got here, and really since I\u2019ve been here, just trying to simplify the game, simplify the matchups, not really dig too deep on anything, trust my stuff and just kind of get to a place where I\u2019m trying to execute as many pitches as I can,\u201d Wentz said. \u201cHowever the team sees fit to use me, I\u2019ll try to be available for any role. So, if (starting) is what it is, yeah, and if not, I\u2019m good with throwing bulk out of the pen. But I thought tonight was personally a good night for me. And it would be great to kind of try to get back in the starting role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snitker\u2019s message to the team (including Ozuna)<\/h2>\n

When Snitker told the Braves before Friday\u2019s game that he was going to make lineup decisions that gave the team the best chance to win that day, he didn\u2019t take Marcell Ozuna aside for a discussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have to,\u201d Snitker said. \u201cI talked to the team, and it\u2019s pretty much put out there what my feelings were for going forward. (Ozuna\u2019s) great. I mean, he\u2019s been through all this, and he\u2019s not gonna not play. I\u2019m going to pick my spots, and the other two guys \u2026 are doing so good, I can\u2019t not <\/em>play them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other two are hot-hitting catchers Murphy and Baldwin, who\u2019ve handled the catching and DH duties for three consecutive games and four of the past five.<\/p>\n

Ozuna started 89 of the first 92 games at DH, missing a three-game series at the Toronto Blue Jays in April to have his balky hip checked out and not leaving the lineup again until July 6, when Baldwin DH\u2019d one game.<\/p>\n

But with Ozuna hitting .172 with three homers and a puny .547 OPS in his past 35 games before Saturday, expect to see him on the bench plenty as long as Baldwin and Murphy keep performing. Ozuna struck out as a pinch hitter to end the game Saturday.<\/p>\n

This will increase speculation that Ozuna, a pending free agent, could be traded. He has trade-veto rights as a 10-and-5 player (10 years of service, five with current team), but would Ozuna want to stay if he doesn\u2019t think he\u2019ll play? That wouldn\u2019t be a good note on which to enter free agency.<\/p>\n

(Photo of Raisel Iglesias: Brett Davis \/ Imagn Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bullpen allowed 12 runs in Saturday’s last five innings, spoiling Wentz’s four-inning scoreless start and Albies’ five-RBI night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":69899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-69898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves"],"yoast_head":"\nBraves\u2019 bullpen meltdown, big nights for Joey Wentz and Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna\u2019s status - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=69898\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Braves\u2019 bullpen meltdown, big nights for Joey Wentz and Ozzie Albies, Marcell Ozuna\u2019s status - 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