Atlanta Braves Ride Drake Baldwin's Breakout Week as Acuna's Return Nears

The Atlanta Braves came out of the All-Star break and did what first-place teams are supposed to do with a six-game homestand: win it. They went 4-2 at Truist Park against the Rangers and Padres from July 17-22, took both series openers by a combined 18-3, survived a couple of bullpen adventures, and left the week still sitting on top of the NL East. The bigger story inside the Atlanta Braves news cycle, though, was the shape of the wins. Chris Sale reached a career milestone, Drake Baldwin had the kind of week that ends position debates, Austin Riley finally looked like Austin Riley again, and Ronald Acuna Jr. spent the week working through a rehab assignment that should end any day now. For a club that spent June face-planting offensively, that is about as encouraging as a 4-2 week can get.

The Week That Was: Six Games, Four Wins, Two Near-Misses

Friday's second-half opener was a 15-1 demolition of Texas. Sale threw seven shutout innings, allowed two hits and struck out six, and when he fanned Ezequiel Duran in the fifth he became the 27th pitcher in big-league history to reach 2,700 career strikeouts. Baldwin went 3-for-4 with a walk and five RBIs, including a three-run homer, Matt Olson and Riley also went deep, and all nine Atlanta starters had a hit in a 19-hit onslaught. Cal Quantrill wore most of it for Texas, giving up eleven hits in four innings.

Saturday flipped the script. Atlanta built a 4-1 lead through two innings behind homers from Eli White and Michael Harris II, then watched rookie starter Owen Murphy and the bullpen give it back in a four-run Texas sixth. Brandon Nimmo's two-run single put the Rangers ahead for good in a 7-6 loss, with a Mauricio Dubon error earlier in the game helping Texas keep pace. Dubon's seventh-inning double got Atlanta back within a run, but no closer.

Sunday's rubber match went to the Braves, 8-5, on the strength of the two performances covered below. Grant Holmes was good enough for the win with five innings of three-run ball, and Brewer Hicklen tacked on an RBI double in the seventh. That clinched Atlanta's first series win of the second half and pushed the club to 28-19 at home.

Then came four games with San Diego. Monday was a 3-2 win in which the Braves were out-hit 7-4 and did not care: Harris and Ozzie Albies supplied solo homers, a catcher's interference helped manufacture a third run, and the pitching staff made it stand up against solo shots from Manny Machado and Ty France. Tuesday was the week's ugliest night, an 8-3 loss in which Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a 474-foot homer -- the longest in the majors this season, per the recap -- as part of a 3-for-5, three-RBI game, Machado homered twice, and Reynaldo Lopez was tagged for nine hits and five runs in four-plus innings while Walker Buehler took the win.

Wednesday's response was the week's best theater. Michael King held Atlanta to one run over six innings, and the Braves trailed into the eighth before erupting for six runs, capped by Jim Jarvis drilling the go-ahead RBI double into the right-field corner. San Diego made the ninth uncomfortable -- Tatis tripled home two -- but Raisel Iglesias struck out two to lock down save No. 20 in a 7-6 win. Dylan Lee got the win to move to 5-0, and Atlanta headed into Thursday's finale at 59-42.

Drake Baldwin Is Ending the Catcher Conversation

Sunday belonged to Baldwin. The young catcher racked up a career-high five hits with two home runs, his 17th and 18th of the season and his first multi-homer game of 2026. Add Friday's five-RBI night and Baldwin drove the two most lopsided offensive outputs of the week almost single-handedly. With Sean Murphy still sidelined by a finger injury, Baldwin has not just held the position -- he has made it very hard to imagine taking at-bats away from him when Murphy returns.

Riley's Sunday mattered nearly as much. Two solo homers, his 11th and 12th, and four RBIs from a guy who limped into the break hitting .210 with a 29 percent strikeout rate, per The Athletic's reporting. "It was kind of a mental break. The first half kind of beat me up," Riley said afterward, and between Friday's homer and Sunday's pair, the reset looked real. On the mound, Sale's milestone night was the headliner, but Lee's spotless 5-0 record out of the bullpen and Iglesias reaching 20 saves quietly kept the late innings in order all week.

Where the Atlanta Braves Stand in the NL East

Atlanta's 59-42 record leads the division, and the gap widened a touch on Wednesday when Philadelphia lost 9-5 to the Dodgers. The Phillies entered the day three games back at 56-46, so the Braves ended the window up three and a half. Miami and Washington are hovering around .500 in the middle of the division, and the Mets -- Atlanta's opponent next week -- have cratered to 43-60 after Wednesday's loss in Milwaukee.

The context makes the cushion feel earned. The Braves went 10-18 during Acuna's current injured-list stint and ranked at or near the bottom of the league in runs and homers in June, yet reached the break at 55-40 and have gone 4-2 since. Winning while your best player rehabs in Gwinnett is how division leads survive July.

Injuries and Roster News: Acuna Is Coming

The biggest development of the week never showed up in a big-league box score. Acuna, out since early June with a Grade 1 left hamstring strain -- his second hamstring issue of the season -- had his rehab assignment moved to Triple-A Gwinnett on July 17, and manager Walt Weiss said he would be activated "later this week," primarily as a right fielder. He has missed 28 games on this stint and was hitting .251 with seven homers and 15 steals before going down.

The rest of the medical file is still long:

• Ha-Seong Kim (right middle finger inflammation) joined Acuna on the Gwinnett rehab track and is also close.
• Sean Murphy (finger) and Mike Yastrzemski (elbow) remain out on the position-player side.
• Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach (both elbow) are not expected back before late August at the earliest.
• A.J. Smith-Shawver (elbow), Joe Jimenez (knee) and reliever Robert Suarez (elbow) are targeting returns between late July and early August.

Trade Deadline Watch: Bats First, But an Ear Open for Arms

With the deadline looming on August 3, the reporting cuts two ways. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported on July 18 that Atlanta's early focus is on offense -- left field, shortstop and third base -- with names like Isaac Paredes, Casey Schmitt, Anthony Volpe, Brooks Lee and Ezequiel Duran floated as reported possibilities, not done deals. Two days later, Alex Anthopoulos told reporters, "If there's a playoff-caliber starter out there, we would jump at that," and CBS Sports listed Tarik Skubal and Robbie Ray among the arms Atlanta has been connected to in reports. Given the rotation injuries, both tracks make sense; given Riley's rebound weekend, the third-base chatter may cool before the bats do.

What's Next for the Atlanta Braves

The schedule turns road-heavy after Thursday's noon finale against San Diego:

• July 24-26: at Baltimore Orioles, Camden Yards
• July 27-29: at New York Mets, Citi Field
• July 30-Aug. 2: vs. Washington Nationals at Truist Park

The Mets series is the one circled here -- a division opponent sixteen games back is exactly the sort of team a leader is supposed to step on, and the Braves have not always obliged this year. Watch for Acuna's activation date, whether Baldwin keeps swinging like the best catcher in the league, and how aggressive Anthopoulos gets as August 3 approaches. The Atlanta Braves left the homestand healthier, hotter and three and a half games clear. The next ten days will tell us whether this front office thinks that is a lead worth protecting or a lead worth building on.