Wednesday night the Atlanta Braves swept the Washington Nationals for their fourteenth win in a row, and after a day off on Thursday the Braves will look to win their fifteenth game in a row in Wrigley Field against the Cubs.
If the Braves win on Friday and win their fifteenth game in a row it will be the second longest winning streak in Braves franchise history, in the modern era. Of course this winning streak has been a product of a complete team effort by the Braves, but if you think about it the young Atlanta Braves players have had a lot to do with this winning streak. Jon Chuckery explained how Wednesday night on The Jon Chuckery Show.
When MLB teams are in win now mode you usually don’t see them bring a lot of guys up from their farm system during those years, but it’s been a different story for the Braves this season due to injuries and other things, and Jon Chuckery calls it “fascinating”.
William Contreras’ bat wasn’t in question coming into this season, it was his defense that was in question before the 2022 campaign started. The Braves were so unsure of Contreras’ defense to begin the year that not only did they bring in Manny Pina to be the backup catcher behind Travis d’Arnaud, but they also discussed playing Contreras in left field or third base to get his bat in the lineup while also not having to worry about his lack of defense behind the plate.
Contreras barely saw the field in 2020, but last year in 52 games the catcher hit .215 in 163 at bats, had 35 hits, 8 home runs, and 23 RBI’s. This year in 27 games with 89 at bats Contreras is hitting .292, has 26 hits, 9 home runs, and 17 RBI’s. Not only will Contreras obliterate his offensive numbers from last year, barring any injuries, but his defense has gotten so much better that he is now the unquestioned back-up catcher behind Travis d’Arnaud, and getting regular playing time.
Jon Chuckery believes Contreras is the “long-term answer at catcher right now”. Jon also says “Nobody saw him getting to play as much and especially doing what he’s done offensively.”
Spencer Strider was drafted by the Braves in 2020, and only pitched in 2.1 innings in 2021, but this season Strider came on so strong coming out of the bullpen to start the season he is now starting games, and started Wednesday’s game against the Nationals to help the Braves secure their fourteenth straight win.
In 2022 out of the bullpen and as a starter Strider is 2-2 with a 2.35 ERA, 38.1 innings under his belt, striking out 57 batters, and only walking 19 batters. In his start Wednesday night Strider pitched 5.2 innings only giving up 2 runs on 1 hit with a career high 11 strikeouts.
Michael Harris has been one of the Braves top prospects for a while, and after skipping Triple-A and going straight from Double-A to the big leagues “Money Mike” has not disappointed. In 17 games and 63 at bats the rookie has 20 hits, 2 home runs, 9 RBI’s, and has been everything he was expected to be defensively in center field already making multiple highlight catches.
Jon Chuckery says “What Kyle Wright has done has been outstanding.” While Wright and Contreras don’t technically qualify as rookies anymore they are still in the infancy stages of their professional careers, but still find themselves being massive parts of a team who is on a fourteen game winning streak and working to defend their World Series Championship.
In Kyle Wright’s twelve starts this year he has a 7-3 record, a 2.57 ERA, 73.2 innings under his belt, 80 strikeouts, and only 25 walks. Wright has stabilized the back-end of the Braves rotation and Jon acknowledges that saying “If you didn’t have Kyle Wright I don’t know what you would’ve had right now.” Jon also believes that he’s been “neck and neck” with Max Fried when it comes to the Braves best starter this season.
Jon says “You look at the contributions that Contreras, Kyle Wright, Spencer Strider, and Michael Harris have made for this team, those guys have played a much bigger role than I think any of us could’ve seen coming.”
However, Jon doesn’t only give credit to the young guys for stepping up, but he also gives credit to Manager Brian Snitker and General Manager Alex Anthopoulos for not trading these guys, calling them up, getting the ready and putting them in positions to contribute saying “It’s a feather in his cap to you know for them to have called up and brought these guys in, and you know him and Snitker have gotten those guys successful, and they’ve made big contributions to this team. It’s also a feather in the cap of Alex Anthopoulos that he didn’t trade or move any of those guys in the offseason or any sort of thing like that, these are the guys they held on too.
Just like last year when the Braves got a lot of help from their trade deadline acquisitions in Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, Eddie Rosario, and Jorge Soler, Chuckery says it’s the same story this year saying “You’ve gotten a lot of contributions from sources on this team that you didn’t expect.”
Again, it will take a team effort to keep the Braves winning streak going, but make no mistake about it the young guys have played and will continue to play a huge part in the success of the Atlanta Braves.