Alex Anthopoulos said Friday that the Braves’ major-league best start to the 2026 season is exactly the kind of opening he wanted after last year’s collapse. Speaking on 92.9 The Game with Steak Shapiro and Sandra Golden, the Atlanta general manager said he would rather bank wins early than spend months trying to dig out of a slow start.
“I would prefer this than starting out slowly, no doubt about it,” Anthopoulos said. “You get to bank wins. And more importantly, we’re actually playing well. Defensively, the bullpen, the rotation, all of it.”
The Braves have reached that position while leaning hard on a roster that has been tested by injuries. Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep, Joey Wentz and Spencer Strider all went down with pitching injuries this spring, yet Atlanta’s depleted rotation still ranked third in ERA at 3.15 through 33 games. JR Ritchie and Bryce Elder have both gotten opportunities in the rotation, giving the club innings it did not know it would need.
Anthopoulos said the front office did check on pitchers and check prices, but it never came close to adding one. He said the Braves liked the talent already in the room and believed the young players could help carry the staff.
The start carries extra weight because it comes a year after Atlanta finished the 2025 season with a 76-86 record and saw a run of seven straight postseason appearances come to an end. That streak began in Anthopoulos’s second season with the organization, when the Braves turned into a regular October team and kept that going until last year’s finish.
Anthopoulos said this winter he made a point of putting more emphasis on the mix, the group and the clubhouse. He said the feeling in camp backed that up. “This group, I felt it in spring training,” he said. “I think we got away from it a little bit last year just because of maybe short on talent and so on. But I think we really put an emphasis on the mix, the group, clubhouse. Not that it was bad, but we actually put more of a premium on it back this winter to have the right guys in the room and the right team rather than collection of players.”
That is the tension inside Atlanta’s early success: the Braves are winning while short-handed, but they are still waiting to see whether a rotation stretched by injuries can hold up across a full season. Anthopoulos acknowledged the criticism over not adding another pitcher, but said the club simply was not close. For now, the results have given the front office its best answer.
Anthopoulos said he would rather be in this position than chasing a rebound later. The Braves have the record that matters today, and the next test is whether the group that has carried them this far can keep doing it.
