Photo via UnsplashTwelve Days, Alex. Go Get Him.
The Braves are 58-42 and in first place, but strip Chris Sale out of the rotation and you're staring at a 6.53 ERA and a team begging for reinforcements with 12 days until the deadline.
I said it July 17 and I'm saying it louder now: strip Chris Sale out of this rotation and tell me what you see.
I'll tell you what you see. A 6.53 ERA. One quality start in eleven games. Lopez getting torched for five earned in four and a third last night while Tatis launched one 474 feet. Elder cratering from a 1.88 ERA to 8.47. Ritchie posting an ERA- of 240.
That's not a rotation. That's a crime scene with Sale's fingerprints nowhere near it.
The bullpen is the best in baseball — 2.87 ERA, best in the league. They're also going to be dead by October if you keep asking them to clean up five innings of wreckage every night. You can't ride a bullpen to the World Series when your starters can't get through five.
I was 80% on the Braves being the best team in the NL East. I'm raising to 88% — but only if Anthopoulos stops being "open-minded" and starts being desperate. You have four top-100 prospects. Strider's done for 2026. Schwellenbach's done. The farm is the best it's been in years and this is exactly the moment you burn it down for a front-line arm.
Twelve days. Go get Skubal. Go get somebody. Stop "evaluating internal options" — your internal options just surrendered two bombs to Machado.
I'm 88% sure this team wins the East with reinforcements. Without them? They're cooked.
Tell me I'm wrong.
The Tilt
The Braves' rotation without Sale is the worst in the NL East, and Anthopoulos 'evaluating internal options' is code for doing nothing.
— Dex Ponce
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