Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Big Hitters, Big Traffic, and MVPs

The Offensive Machine that is the Atlanta Braves was still in full operation last night, pounding out another 13 hits and 7 runs while annoying Mets fans who thought this was more of the easy part of their schedule.

There are a lot of people who are tracing this offensive outburst from the Atlanta Braves back to the trade for Matt Kemp.  That’s actually a bit coincidental, as Freddie Freeman, Ender Inciarte, Adonis Garcia, and Nick Markakis had all already started a resurgence of their own.

Adding Kemp (.296/.851 OPS), however, hasn’t hurt a bit.  Neither did swapping out Erick Aybar (.250 with Detroit/.685 OPS) in favor Dansby Swanson (.305/.780).  Nor the return of Tyler Flowers (.319/.831 since being reinstated).

Here’s the team hitting lines over this stunning streak:  13 hits (last night), 12, 13, 9, 9, 9, 17, 11, 8, 11, 13, 11, 11, 8, 9, 13, 11, 12, 12.

The last pitcher to hold the Braves below 8 hits was Madison Bumgarner (6) of the Giants.  The day before that, Albert Suarez and a busload of relievers held Atlanta to 7 hits (and the Braves won that game).

Even so, this streak – now at 19 games – has seen Atlanta hit well despite a bunch of well-regarded pitchers:  Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg (though he didn’t last), Gio Gonzalez, Jose Fernandez, Vince Velasquez, Noah Syndergaard, and Bartolo Colon among them.

The next step, of course, is to win most of these games.  And that requires most consistent pitching so that the team doesn’t give up 8+ hits along the way.

8 happens to be the magic number of hits accrued by the Mets last night, though starter Aaron Blair allowed only 4 of those – with 1 walk – over 6 strong innings while getting his first major league win.  It was a really great start for him to build on, and something that we hope will stick with him for the upcoming off-season.

Blair will have a chance for perhaps 2 more starts to finish the year (Marlins and Tigers, if projections hold) so it would clearly be good to be able to repeat this outing and give the Braves front office an even tougher decision about what to do with the rotation for 2017.

But between Freeman (4 hits, 3 RBI), Swanson (3 hits, 3 RBI) and Blair (6 innings, 2 runs), the Mets were stymied in their attempts to gain pace in the Wild Card race… which makes their fans all the more anxious for tonight’s game against Julio Teheran.

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