3 things to know about the 2025 Atlanta Braves ahead of tonight's series opener

The Milwaukee Brewers open a three-game series with the Atlanta Braves tonight, in a matchup of two of the winningest National League teams of the last five years. But while a Brewers vs. Braves matchup anytime during the last few seasons likely pitted two division leaders against each other, the script is a little different as the two teams meet for the first time in 2025. While the Brewers have righted the ship in the last few weeks, Atlanta has not; they enter tonight's contest with a 27-37 record, and currently sit in fourth place in the NL East, a mere two and a half games ahead of the last-place Miami Marlins.

Despite their disappointing start to the season, no one is counting the Braves out yet; their roster is simply too talented to forget about. And while the team is currently 14 games back in their division and 9.5 games back in the Wild Card race, there are reasons to be optimistic. Here are three storylines to help contextualize the Braves' season thus far.

The Atlanta Braves have had multiple 7-game losing streaks

A season ago, the Brewers never lost four games in a row, and while they haven't maintained that streak this year (they lost it in the first four games of the season), it's still difficult to imagine losing seven straight games. The Braves have sustained two such streaks this season, one to start the year and one that is currently active as they open their series with Milwaukee.

Atlanta opened their season with a West Coast road trip against two of the best teams in the National League, the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not only were they three time zones away from their home ballpark and spring training facility, but they were staring down pitchers like Dylan Cease, Tyler Glasnow, and Blake Snell. The team didn't win a game in either series, and with their opening set against the Padres being a four-gamer, the Braves started out 0-7 — a nightmare start to the season.

Fast forward to last Sunday, the Braves are wrapping up a series with the Boston Red Sox and drop the finale after splitting the first two games. Atlanta drew Garrett Crochet in the final game of the series, so despite the loss, the team is feeling better about where they're at. With a 27-31 record, the Braves face a home series against the Arizona Diamondbacks before traveling to San Francisco (without an off day) for a three-game series.

The Braves dropped all six games, their last four by just one run each. Now, they sit 10 games below .500 and in desperate need of a win. Most still aren't ready to count the Braves out of it, but with mid-June quickly approaching, things need to turn around fast.

Atlanta has the best defense in baseball

There are several ways to measure defensive value, but two predominant ones are Outs Above Average (OAA) and Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), with the former being used by FanGraphs to calculate fWAR and the latter being a part of the bWAR calculation by Baseball Reference. OAA uses Statcast data to determine how many outs a given defender makes compared to the average defender, whereas DRS uses hand-recorded data that could be skewed by bias. As a result, OAA is widely accepted as the more accurate statistic, despite DRS being more widely used.

The 2025 Atlanta Braves rank first in MLB in DRS (47) and third in OAA (17), and they have more combined DRS and OAA than any other team in baseball. All that to say, the defense has not been the problem. Both Nick Allen, the Braves' glove-first, fourth-year shortstop who spent the last three seasons with the Athletics, and veteran first baseman Matt Olson are having exceptional years defensively in Atlanta's infield. Michael Harris II continues to play a strong center field despite his down season at the plate.

Meanwhile, for the Brewers, Joey Ortiz and Jackson Chourio are settling into their respective new positions, while Caleb Durbin is showing his defensive prowess at the hot corner (see video below). With the Brewers starting to hit their stride defensively and the Braves' defense being the best in baseball, don't expect a heavy onset of errors in this week’s matchup.

The Braves are just getting back to full strength

In addition to their stellar defense, Braves fans have reason to be optimistic simply because they've barely watched their team at full strength this season. Two major pieces of the Braves’ young core made their return to the active roster in the second half of May. Ironically, their return coincided with two weeks of losing baseball, but they are certain to be a big part of the Braves’ turnaround should it occur.

Ronald Acuña Jr. is not only the best player on the Braves, he's one of the best players in baseball when he's healthy. Just over a year ago, on May 26, 2024, Acuña tore his ACL on the base paths, forcing him to miss the rest of the 2024 season and the first two months of the 2025 season. But after a long recovery process, Acuña returned to the lineup on May 23, just three days shy of the one-year anniversary of his injury. He's appeared in 15 games since then and is doing his usual Acuña things, hitting for a slash line of .304/.391/.554 with four home runs, including one on the first pitch that he saw after making his return.

Meanwhile, the Braves' co-ace Spencer Strider, who missed all but two starts in 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery, also returned from the injured list in late May. Strider made his initial return from his lengthy Tommy John rehab process back on April 16, but he suffered a hamstring strain and subsequently spent a month on the injured list. While the Brewers won't face Strider in this week's series, the 2023 All-Star is a huge re-addition to the Braves’ starting rotation.