The Atlanta Braves are 20-9 and hold the pole position in the NL East, and that is a surprise to no one. However, what is a surprise to a lot of people is the fact that the Braves are 20-9 and hold the pole position in the NL East with Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley & Matt Olson having only six home runs and 29 RBI combined. However, earlier today our very own Braves insider, reporter, and host of From The Diamond Grant McAuley explained to The Morning Shift earlier today why the Braves’ big three will get hot ‘any day’ now
“I really feel like it’s an any day kind of thing for one of these guys. I mean I know that the numbers have not been there, but if you look inside especially for Austin Riley and really for Matt Olson as well their hard hit rate is there and so at some point if you keep hitting the ball consistently hard something is going to start to work out for you or some things plural.”
For Ronald Acuña Jr. Grant says his slower start to this season has a lot to do with teams pitching to him differently.
“He’s being pitched differently this year I think that’s the one thing that people may not be realizing yea he is seeing a lot more fastballs pitchers and opponents are trying to get in and up on him not give him pitches to drive and that I think is the challenge is to show that you can adjust, that you can lay off, that you can foul off the tough ones and eventually make them have to do something else and I think that for Ronald is kind of where he’s at right now, but these guys you know the track record and the talent tells you they are going to get theirs.”
Grant finished his thought by giving The Morning Shift an interesting stat that is the Braves have scored more runs to this point in the season through 29 games than they did a year ago, and they’ve done so by hitting 16 less home runs, so despite slower starts from Acuña Jr., Riley and Olson, the Braves are still scoring runs at a high clip, and they’ll start scoring even more runs when the Braves big three gets hot, and it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.