The Braves went 13-14 in May, and it was an incredibly frustrating stretch of baseball for fans. The club made it hard to watch them over the last four weeks, whether it was sleepy Snitker, a dormant offense, injuries, or a shoddy bullpen.

However, it’s June, and we are going to start the week with some positivity. May was brutal as the Braves sit in 4th in the NL East and 9.5 games out of first place, but there were plenty of individual bright spots.

Chris Sale

After stumbling out of the gate, the reigning Cy Young award winner has returned to form, especially in the month of May. Over five starts that spanned 32.1 innings, Chris Sale only allowed four earned runs while punching out 40 batters.

He posted a 1.11 ERA, but the Braves only went 3-2 on those starts because of a pathetic offense. Sale’s season ERA is now down to 3.06 ERA, and he’s punching out 11.4 batters per nine, the same mark as last year when he won the Cy Young award.

Chris Sale is coming off a gem against the Phillies in which he out-dueled Zack Wheeler, limiting the Philadelphia offense to just two hits over six scoreless innings while striking out eight batters, the last of which was the 2,500th of his career. Sale became the 38th pitcher in modern history to reach that mark and the fastest to ever do it.

Spencer Schwellenbach

Schwellenbach began the month with the worst start of his season, surrendering six runs in just 3.2 innings to the Dodgers. However, in Schwellenbach’s other five starts in May, he went 33.1 innings with a 2.16 ERA, punching out 34 batters and only walking four.

Schwellenbach went through some struggles after an incredibly hot start to the season, but the youngster has re-found his footing. On the season, he owns a 3.14 ERA across 12 starts and 74.2 innings, proving once again that he’s absolutely the real deal and a frontline arm in the Braves’ rotation.

He’s coming off quite possibly the most impressive outing of his career against the Red Sox. Schwellenbach matched a career-high 11 strikeouts over 6.1 innings, but it marked the second consecutive start in which he had 11 punchouts without issuing a free pass, becoming just the 16th pitcher to do so since 1901.

But what was most impressive was the heater. Spencer Schwellenbach hadn’t previously thrown a pitcher harder than 98.9 mph, but he threw 99 mph or harder 11 times through the first two innings and 13 times total during his 99-pitch outing, including a few in the triple digits.

Spencer Strider

Listen, Spencer Strider’s stat line isn’t why he is featured in this piece. He’s only started two games in May and owns a paltry 5.00 ERA across 9.0 innings of work, but he’s here because he’s healthy and is coming off a much more encouraging outing against the Phillies in his third start of the season.

Strider sat around 95-96 for most of the outing, but he was still able to have a lot of success, striking out seven batters and allowing just one hit over 4.2 innings. Unfortunately, for the Braves hurler, that one hit was a double that led to a run, which was all the Phillies would need because of Atlanta’s non-existent offense.

Spencer Strider’s re-emergence is one of the most critical factors in the rest of the Braves’ season.

Drake Baldwin

Good lord, this rookie just isn’t slowing down. Coming into the month of May, Baldwin owned a .731 OPS. Over the last four weeks, the Rookie of the Year candidate has an OPS north of 1.000 thanks to a .389 average, .411 on-base percentage, and .593 slugging percentage. The Braves need every bit of offense they can get, and Drake Baldwin is doing his best in a part-time role.

Ronald Acuna Jr.

While Spencer Strider’s return is still a bright spot despite middling results, the same cannot be said for the Braves’ best player. Ronald Acuna Jr. returned this month, and he immediately made his presence known, hitting a home run on the first pitch he saw.

Since then, he’s done nothing but hit the piss out of the ball. The guy is averaging damn near 100 mph off the bat, and it’s culiminated in a .324 average, three home runs, and two doubles in the month of May, good for a 1.042 OPS in that span. Acuna owns a team-leading 186 wRC+, and even more impressively, he’s accumulated a 0.6 fWAR in just nine games.

Ronald Acuna Jr. is looking much more like the 2023 version of himself compared to the 2022 version when he was coming off his first ACL injury, and while it’s not fair to ask, the Braves are going to need him to be Superman.