It’s amazing what a month can do. Just a few weeks ago, the Atlanta Braves looked like a cautionary tale — a World Series hopeful imploding before the ink even dried on the Opening Day scorecards. An 0-7 start left fans stunned, analysts scratching their heads, and history stacked against them.
No team had ever made the postseason after a seven-game losing skid to start a season. But now? The Braves are not only alive — they’re dangerous. And leading the charge is a 24-year-old catcher who wasn’t even supposed to be here yet.
Drake Baldwin: From Emergency Call-Up to Offensive Sparkplug
Drake Baldwin’s big-league debut came out of necessity, not design. When veteran Sean Murphy went down in spring training, the Braves didn’t have much choice but to throw their top catching prospect straight into the fire. He wasn’t supposed to be the guy, at least, not yet.
And at first, that showed. Baldwin struggled through that ugly 0-7 stretch. His bat was quiet. The pressure was heavy. But then something clicked — and what’s happened since has been nothing short of a revelation.
Baldwin now leads the Braves in batting average (.329), slugging percentage (.557), and OPS (.939) — all as a rookie with just 18 starts.
He’s been locked in since those first seven games: a scorching .423 average and 1.195 OPS over his last 56 plate appearances. His breakout performance? A three-hit night against the Nationals that pushed the Braves to a .500 record and snapped them fully back into the race.
The Fastest Climb Back in Nearly 80 Years
The Braves are now 21-21. That milestone makes them just the fifth team in MLB history to climb back to .500 after starting 0-7 — and the fastest team to do it since the 1945 Boston Red Sox. That’s not just a bounce back. That’s historic. And they did it largely without their two biggest stars, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider.
Strider’s out for the year. But Acuña? He just began his rehab assignment — and promptly launched a home run in his first game back. That sound you hear? It’s the rest of the National League exhaling nervously.
A Braves Team That’s Recharged and Reawakened
Baldwin may not have been on anyone’s breakout radar when the season began, but he’s not just filling a hole — he’s becoming the pulse of this team. With his bat anchoring the middle of the order and Acuña Jr. on the verge of returning, the Braves are starting to resemble the team everyone feared in March.
The bullpen is holding up. The rotation, despite Strider’s absence, has steadied. And the offense is beginning to deliver in the clutch again, largely thanks to a rookie catcher who looks like anything but.
The early panic? Gone. The playoff odds? Rising.
The Braves may have started the season flat on their back, but now they’re up, swinging, and charging forward with the kind of swagger that makes you think they’re not done rewriting history just yet.
