3 takeaways as Atlanta Braves finish off 4-game sweep of Pirates
By James Kunkle
The hottest team in baseball won again Thursday as the Atlanta Braves swept those pesky Pittsburgh Pirates with a final score of 6-5. The win is the 7th in a row for the Braves who now hold a 1.5 game lead in the NL East.
A huge fifth inning off of Monday’s nemesis Joe Musgrove proved the be the power that the Atlanta Braves needed to take down the Pirates for the series sweep.
The strike zone was all over the place today, and that eventually led to the ejection of Braves manager Brian Snitker after a terrible strike three called on Ronald Acuna in the 4th inning.
Another quick note is the outfield defense was a problem today and has been for a while now. Matt Joyce took a terrible route to a fly ball which led to a 2 base error and that run eventually scored when Ronald Acuna tried to make a diving catch that was unnecessary.
Enough with that though, let’s get to the three biggest takeaways from Thursday’s win.
3. Ozzie Albies is on a hot streak
Over the last few games, Ozzie Albies has gone 12-29 and that streak includes 3 home runs and obviously, his walk-off hit Wednesday against the Pirates.
The most positive sign is he is swinging it well from both sides of the plate and has no holes in his swing right now.
The worry is we have seen Ozzie go into these hot streaks before and he tends to follow it up with a severe cold streak. Let’s hope that is not the case this time.
Any power generated from Ozzie is a bonus. We all know he has speed, so I think the Braves are better suited when Albies is ripping doubles into the gaps and prolonging innings.
Ozzie is notoriously hard to strike out, but I feel like sometimes he gets homer happy and tries to mash some long balls and in turn pops out or hits a soft grounder.
Again though, let’s hope our second baseman continues to stay hot at the plate and the RBI number will rocket up as he has men on base in front of him most of the time.