Atlanta Braves: 3 Takeaways from Opening Series Win Over New York Mets

We take a look back at the Atlanta Braves series against the New York Mets and talk about three things that stood out to us.

It was an emotional first weekend of baseball for the Atlanta Braves and really a tale of two halves.

For the first 17 innings of the regular season, the Atlanta Braves offense had only mustered to score one run on an Adam Duvall home run that took out a dog.

Things were looking pretty bleak and I was preparing myself for the doom-and-gloom reactions on Twitter.

But then Marcell Ozuna took Edwin Diaz deep in the ninth of game two to tie it up and the offense scored three more runs in the 10th inning to get their first win of the season.

And then the offense exploded in a laugher on Sunday Night Baseball taking the series over the Mets with a 14-1 blowout win.

Here are my biggest takeaways from this first series.

The Good and Bad of Marcell Ozuna with the Atlanta Braves

We’ll start with the good. Ozuna’s bat was huge for the Braves against the Mets as he went 4-for-12 with a couple of home runs showing us what he’s capable of bringing to the lineup.

But his defense is as bad as we feared and I cringe every time a ball is hit out there. Against a lefty on Saturday they put Austin Riley in left field and had Marcell Ozuna as the DH. I think we may see this happen more and even against righties if Matt Adams isn’t hitting.

Sean Newcomb Could Quickly Find is Way out of the Atlanta Braves starting rotation

I know, it’s one start. But it’s also a 60-game season so you can’t give starting pitchers much time to figure things out.

Sean Newcomb has so much potential, and when you look at the end results they’re not terrible. He gave up just 1 earned run over 3.1 innings, but how he got there will make you want to pull your hair out.

It was very telling how Brian Sntiker felt when he went out there to talk to Newcomb instead of the pitching coach. I don’t think Snitker is going to put up with outings like that too long.

Dansby Swanson Was the MVP for the Atlanta Braves

I say it here a lot, but there is no one I root harder for than Dansby Swanson, so I was very happy to see him get off to a hot start going 5-for-12 over the weekend with 6 RBI.

And he was literally an inch or two away from having a double in Saturday’s game. But that at-bat in the 10th on Saturday was so clutch and really kick-started that inning. Hopefully this is just the start of a huge season for Dansby.

Other things of note:

Ronald Acuna Jr. is off to a dreadfully slow start with just 2 hits in 15 at-bats with 8 strikeouts. But I’m not ready to hit the panic button for the MVP candidate.

The pitching was outstanding over the weekend allowing just 4 earned runs in 27 innings with just 5 walks. Freddie Freeman walked five times himself for the Braves.

The Atlanta Braves will be back in action Monday night as they start a series in Tampa against the Rays.