The Atlanta Braves have finally stopped the bleeding. Now the Braves offense has to prove it can start scoring again. Atlanta followed Sunday's 4-2 win over Milwaukee by beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 Tuesday night at Truist Park, giving the Braves consecutive victories after a five-game losing streak. Ozzie Albies delivered the go-ahead RBI single in the eighth inning, while Raisel Iglesias escaped trouble in the ninth to preserve Atlanta's 77th win.
That was unquestionably encouraging. The less comforting part is that the Braves offense still looks nothing like the unit that powered Atlanta's eight-game winning streak earlier this month.
The Braves have scored just 19 runs over their last eight games, an average of 2.38 per contest, and have not scored more than four in any of them. Tuesday demonstrated that Atlanta can still grind out a victory against an elite opponent. The remainder of this Dodgers series offers an opportunity to show the offense can do considerably more.
That matters because the Philadelphia Phillies had sliced Atlanta's NL East lead all the way down to 3.5 games before Tuesday. Atlanta's win, coupled with Philadelphia's 4-1 loss in Seattle, pushed the advantage back to 4.5. The cushion remains. It is no longer particularly plush.
Only a few weeks ago, Atlanta appeared to have solved this problem. The Braves scored 43 runs during an eight-game winning streak from July 29 through Aug. 6, averaging 5.38 per game and finally looking like the deep, difficult lineup everyone expected.
Since then, the Braves offense has become anemic again. From Aug. 7 through Tuesday's victory, Atlanta has scored 46 runs across 16 games, an average of only 2.88 per contest.
This is not exactly a new concern. Atlanta's bats went quiet at an inconvenient time earlier this season , and another offensive drought helped turn a June West Coast trip into an ugly reminder of 2025. The frustrating part is that the lineup has repeatedly shown it can be much better than this.
Matt Olson remains the lineup's central source of thunder, and his remarkable iron-man streak has accompanied elite production . Michael Harris II has supplied some badly needed offense recently, including an RBI single Tuesday. Austin Riley has also enjoyed encouraging stretches after a first half in which his struggles became impossible to ignore .
Aug 20, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Atlanta Braves third baseman Austin Riley (27) hits an RBI single against the Chicago White Sox during the seventh inning at Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images
The pieces are there. Too often lately, they have operated like strangers sharing a lineup card.
Nobody embodies Atlanta's current offensive frustration better than Ronald Acuña Jr . Acuña hit career homer No. 199 against Arizona on Aug. 15. He remains stuck there after Tuesday's victory, with the wait for No. 200 stretching toward two weeks.
Aug 25, 2026; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. (13) hits a single against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fifth inning at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images
The milestone itself is mostly decorative. Atlanta does not need Acuña to hit No. 200 because round numbers possess magical powers. It needs its leadoff star to start driving the baseball because a dangerous Acuña changes the geometry of the entire lineup.
When he is reaching base, stealing bags and punishing mistakes, pitchers begin innings under immediate stress. When he is scuffling, the Braves too often spend the first several hitters trying to manufacture the pressure he normally creates by himself.
Beating Los Angeles in the opener mattered. The Dodgers entered Atlanta riding a six-game winning streak, and the Braves immediately jumped on Tyler Glasnow for three first-inning runs. When Los Angeles eventually erased that advantage, Atlanta responded rather than folding. Albies' two-out single in the eighth brought home Olson with the decisive run.
That is exactly the sort of win teams need while navigating a pennant race, though it should not obscure the larger offensive problem. Atlanta managed four runs without a homer and once again relied on its pitching staff to protect an exceptionally thin margin. Bryce Elder allowed three runs over six innings before the bullpen covered the final three.
The Braves have already watched a 9.5-game NL East advantage shrink dramatically in August. Tuesday gave them one of those games back, but Philadelphia remains close enough that another extended offensive disappearance could erase the remainder quickly.
Atlanta does not need to recreate its eight-game winning streak overnight. It does need Tuesday to become the beginning of something rather than another isolated four-run performance. Taking down the Dodgers once was useful. Doing it with a rejuvenated offense would be considerably more convincing.
Main Photo Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images
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