John Smoltz Exclusive: Braves Off To ‘Nauseating Start’

John Smoltz has full confidence the Atlanta Braves can turn things around to clinch a playoff berth for the eighth consecutive season.

The Braves have been off to a less-than-ideal start to the 2025 season despite entering the year as a World Series contender. Entering Thursday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta is 25-28 and 9.5 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the NL East lead.

However, they recently welcomed the return of their star hitter Ronald Acuna Jr., who had been sidelined for the first 49 games of the season. Acuna hit a home run in his first at-bat back in the lineup against the San Diego Padres on Friday, but the Braves still lost two of three games against the Padres following his return.

“It’s been a nauseating start,” says Smoltz in a one-on-one interview with SportsCasting on behalf of his participation in the American Century Championship. “They got a nice stretch to get over .500, (and) you thought maybe they’ll never see .500 again. They’ve gone back and forth since then. They’re just a little bit off in certain departments of where they haven’t connected their club to get on a seven-, eight-game winning streak.

“That pitching staff is really good, but the offense doesn’t make enough in certain situations,” Smoltz continues to say. “They’re starting to look better. When Acuna gets back, it changes the dynamic of their lineup. It changes the way pitchers are going to face (them), the way the lineup comes out.”

Acuna got off to a solid start in his first series of the season, batting .333 while hitting two home runs to go along with three RBIs. The Braves are also trying to get All-Star pitcher Spencer Strider back into form after he missed basically the entire 2024 season due to a UCL injury.

Smoltz: Braves a Playoff Team When Healthy

Smoltz says the Braves are “going to be a playoff team” when they’re healthy.

“Strider is a big key if he can get back to the form that he once was, and it’s going to take some time,” says Smoltz. “The Braves are lurking in a nice position, but you don’t want to stay there very long. There’s too many good teams in the National League to try to come back from a seven-, eight-, nine-game deficit. If you’re thinking about the Atlanta Braves coming up to the All-Star game, you got to be within striking distance. When they’re healthy, they’re going to be a playoff team.”

Acuna — who is returning from his own injury after suffering an LCL tear during the 2024 season — is a much-needed addition to a lineup that ranks middle-of-the-pack in most major offensive categories as we head into June.

The Braves rank 13th in batting average and 19th in runs scored. By comparison, the NL East-leading Phillies rank third in batting average and seventh in runs scored.

“He just brings too many dynamics to the club,” says Smoltz of the 2023 NL MVP. “He’s instant offense at the top of the lineup. We don’t know how much he’s going to run based on his knees, but he’s an electric defensive player. For the Atlanta Braves, they basically know that when they’re on and a pitcher’s not, they’re going to hit a bunch of home runs. They haven’t done that yet.”

The Braves great says the offense doesn’t have to be historic like the 2021 World Series team was. That was the year Atlanta led the league in runs per game, home runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, and total bases.

Smoltz: Offense Won’t Match Historic 2021 Group

“They’re starting to click a little bit,” says Smoltz of the Braves. “But their curse is the offense they had three years ago in a historic way. Everyone thought this would be more the trend, their offense. That’s not going to be the case. They just have to be about halfway of what that historic offense is and clean up some things in the bullpen.”

Smoltz calls it a “three-team race” in the NL East and it will come down to pitching to determine the winner. The Braves won six consecutive division titles from 2018 until 2023 before the Phillies dethroned them last season.

The New York Mets are also an improved bunch with the addition of All-Star Juan Soto and after making a run to the NLCS last season.

“It’s going to come down to who’s healthy and who’s got the pitching staff in September to make that final push,” says Smoltz. “The lineup construction of the Phillies is really good. The lineup construction of the Mets is really good, same thing with the Braves. Offensively, they’re very comparable, but then when you start splitting hairs, you have to look at the starting rotation and the bullpen. The starting rotations for all three clubs are really good, and who’s going to have the better bullpen at the end of the day?”

Smoltz — a former NL Cy Young winner and a Hall of Fame pitcher — says the Braves’ pitching rotation is the best in the league.

The rotation features Strider, reigning Cy Young winner Chris Sale, All-Star Bryce Elder and Rookie of the Year favorite AJ Smith-Shawver.

“Their one through five starting pitchers are as good as anybody,” says Smoltz. “They can put together some strings of games where the team only has to score three or four runs, but they’ve lost a ton of one-run games. They played a lot of one-run games early and bullpen-wise, they have a couple stop gaps there that they got to make sure they figure that out. 

“Their closer went through a rough patch,” Smoltz continues to say of Raisel Iglesias, who has a 5.75 ERA. “He blew some games. They’re going to have to have some of those people they weren’t expecting to be really, really good and get hot at the right time.”

The Hall of Fame pitching great says the balance of the National League has swung in the direction of six teams, calling the Phillies “the most complete roster” outside of the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

Smoltz ranks the Mets, Braves, Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals — in that order — as the pecking order in the National League. 

However, it’ll come down to whoever is the healthiest at the end of the season for who has the best chance to dethrone the Dodgers. 

“The model of the National League is it’s clumped together,” says Smoltz. “There’s going to be a real incredible fight for those last two playoff spots in the wild card, and it’s going to be up to the team that’s the healthiest at the end that has a chance to knock off the Dodgers if they want to represent the National League in the World Series.”