Chicks Dig The Long Ball
While the title of this article may be a light hearted play on words from the 1999 Nike commercial starring Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, the 2023 Atlanta Braves might be taking it seriously. From the team being on pace to break the all time single season home run record, to Ronald Acuña Jr. putting together the best power/speed season in MLB history, to Matt Olson, breaking the franchise record for home runs in a season; the 2023 Atlanta Braves love to hit it deep. Ronald and Olson are raking but it isn’t just two players getting it done for the team. With one week remaining in the regular season, the Bravos are inching closer and closer to having 9 players hit 20+ homers. This may be the greatest lineup constructed in the history of Major League Baseball or at least in the conversation.
The 2023 Atlanta Braves lead all teams in Batting Average, Home Runs, RBIs, Runs Scored, OBP, Slugging, OBS, and Hits, its difficult for the opposing pitchers to find a hole in this lineupfor an “Easy Out”.
But every great team has their flaws. If you’d told me that the 5-Time NL East Champs, would lose their ace, Max Fried for 90+ days their 2022 20-Game winner, Kyle Wright for 130+ days, as well as injuries to Huascar Ynoa, Ian Anderson, Tyler Matzek, Kolby Allard, Collin McHugh, Michael Soroka, and Jesse Chavez I would never have believed we would be leading the league in Wins and clinch the division as early as September 13th. Pitching has been rough all season but this team lives and breathes by the “Next Man Up” mentality. Spencer Strider picked up where he left off last season by becoming the fastest pitcher to reach 200 strikeouts... AGAIN, beating out his own record that he set the year before. Bryce Elder entered the season not sure if he would make the rotation and ended up securing his first All-Star selection by leading the National League in ERA through the first half. This team just does not give up!
The Braves also lead all MLB teams in All Star selections with 8, including 3 starters, as well as their entire infield. Third base coach Ron Washington says, “This is probably the most emotional day of my career because all of my infielders went to the All-Star Game”. “Uncle Ron” puts in hard work showing up to the ballpark, sometimes 10 hours before each ballgame, just to be available for anyone that wants some extra defensive practice. He can often be seen doing short hop and backhand drills as early as 10:00am for a 7:00pm first pitch. The team takes their defense seriously and the hard work pays off.
Ronald Acuña Jr., and Matt Olson look to have a photo finish for the MVP award with just a few days remaining in the 2023 season. Both players flip positions with Dodgers, Mookie Betts and former Brave Freddie Freeman on a daily basis. Any other season each player would have a clean sweep of votes but this season has been special. Matt Olson leads the league in Home runs and RBI’s while posting a very respectable .280+ batting average. Olson also broke the franchise record for home runs, held by Andruw Jones since 2005, on September 16th with 52 majestic long balls. However Acuña has been the front runner for nearly the entire season. He is a handful of homers and stolen bases away from MLB’s first 40/70 season. No other player has ever had a power/speed combination this magnitude. He flourishes in the lead off role and has routinely turned a first inning walk or hit into a double by swiping a base soon afterwards. He is a big reason why the Braves have led the league in first inning runs this season.
The final stretch of this 2023 season shapes up to be a good one, but the team seems primed to head “Back 2 Battle” with a World Series Championship in their crosshairs. Anything short of that would certainly be a disappointment for this potent team who has donned this season as “Unfinished Business”. I don’t envy any team that has to endure the task of taking them out in a series. It’s a tall order indeed.
Written by Thomas Brown