The Braves cannot catch a break. Sean Murphy is headed to the injured list with a fractured left middle finger and will be out up to eight weeks, the Braves announced Wednesday. Atlanta’s catcher just got back from missing the first month of the season recovering from hip surgery. He played 23 games and is now out again.
This is the worst possible outcome for a team that has been waiting all season to look like itself. The Braves are 23-25 entering Wednesday, fourth in the NL East, and clinging to the back end of the wild card race. They are doing it without Spencer Strider for most of the year, with Ronald Acuna Jr. in and out of the lineup, and now without their best catcher again.
Murphy was actually heating up before the injury. He was hitting .267 with five homers and a .795 OPS since his return. He had finally found his timing at the plate and was getting back to the All-Star form he showed in 2023 with Oakland. Then a foul tip caught him on the bare hand during Tuesday’s game and the X-ray told the rest of the story.
Drake Baldwin is the catcher of the future in Atlanta. He gets the keys for the next two months whether the Braves think he is ready or not. The 24-year-old has been hitting .283 in Triple-A Gwinnett with eight homers, and the underlying numbers say he is a major-league bat right now. The defense is the question, but he caught Murphy’s full workload in spring training and the coaching staff was impressed.
The lineup looks different without Murphy in the middle of it. Brian Snitker had been hitting him sixth or seventh, which is where he is most comfortable. Now Snitker has to slide Baldwin into that spot or push everyone up a slot. Either way, the offense gets thinner at the back end of the order, and the Braves cannot afford that against a tough NL East slate.
The bigger problem is what this does to the pitching staff. Murphy is one of the best pitch framers in baseball. He had a strong rapport with Chris Sale and Max Fried before the latter signed with the Yankees. Replacing that defensive presence is harder than replacing the bat. Pitchers notice when the framing goes away.
Atlanta has been the most snake-bitten contender in the league two years running. Acuna Jr. missed most of 2024 with the ACL. Strider missed most of 2024 with the elbow. Both came back in 2025 and the offense started clicking again before the injuries piled up again this year. Now Murphy joins the parade.
Alex Anthopoulos is going to be active at the trade deadline if this team stays in the race. Catcher is not the easiest position to address mid-season, but the Braves have done it before. Travis d’Arnaud might be a fit. Connor Wong could come off the cap-strapped Red Sox. The market is thin, but there will be options.
The other angle here is the long-term health of Murphy. He turns 32 in October. He has had two significant injuries in two seasons. Catchers wear down faster than any other position, and the Braves have him under contract through 2028 at $15 million a year. The team needs to consider whether his future is at catcher or whether they are going to need to move him to first base or DH to keep his bat in the lineup.
Baldwin gets his audition. Snitker gets a problem to solve. Anthopoulos gets a new item on the deadline shopping list. The Braves keep finding new ways to lose pieces of a roster that was supposed to compete with the Dodgers and Phillies for the NL title.
This season is slipping away faster than anyone in Atlanta wants to admit.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
