{"id":62483,"date":"2023-09-20T11:30:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=62483"},"modified":"2023-09-20T11:21:26","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T15:21:26","slug":"braves-return-winning-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/09\/20\/braves-return-winning-form\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves \u2013 Led by Acu\u00f1a and Strider \u2013 Return to Winning Form"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear not,\u00a0<\/span>Atlanta Braves<\/span><\/a>\u00a0fans, your team can still hit, pitch, and ultimately win. This was evident in a 9-3 defeat of the Philadelphia Phillies on Sept. 19, 2023, at Atlanta’s Truist Park.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Braves snapped a four-game skid that immediately followed their clinching of the NL East. The Braves were pounded by a combined score of 43-14, including a three-game sweep by the Miami Marlins.<\/span><\/p>\n

The highlight within that stretch was\u00a0<\/span>Matt Olson’s<\/span><\/a>\u00a052nd home run on Saturday, which set the\u00a0<\/span>team record for home runs in a season<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Braves ended their losing skid in typical Braves fashion: with power-hitting and solid starting pitching, specifically from <\/span>Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Spencer Strider<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing Tall<\/span><\/h2>\n

Braves Still Hold Best Record<\/span><\/h3>\n

The standings were not affected much by the losing streak, however. Atlanta is 97-54 and have clinched a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the NL Division Series. They will face the winner of the No. 4 vs. No. 5 Wild Card in a five-game NL Division Series beginning on Oct. 7. Atlanta<\/span> owns a two-game lead over the Orioles in the battle for MLB’s best record and home-field advantage for the World Series. They have a three 1\/2-game lead over the Dodgers for the NL’s best record and home-field advantage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acu\u00f1a Delivers Again<\/span><\/h3>\n

Something extra is what one gets from\u00a0<\/span>Acu\u00f1a.\u00a0<\/span><\/a>He homered on the first pitch from Phillies starter\u00a0<\/span>Cristopher S\u00e1nchez<\/span><\/a>. Singling to begin a four-run fifth against <\/span>Michael Lorenzen<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and then hit his 39th homer, producing his 100th in the sixth RBI to push his MLB-leading run total to 138.<\/span><\/p>\n

With this multi-homer performance, Acu\u00f1a moved one home run away from producing the first 40-60 season in AL\/NL history. He also tallied his 67th steal. He is close now to the first 40-70 season in the big leagues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acu\u00f1a’s next home run will also achieve the fifth 40-40 season in AL\/NL history. He aims at just the 19th season to consist of 200 hits, 40 homers, 100 RBIs, and 140 runs. <\/span>Lou Gehrig’s<\/span><\/a>\u00a0four seasons with those totals and\u00a0<\/span>Babe Ruth’s<\/span><\/a>\u00a0three account for seven of the 18 seasons on record. The other players to do so since 1937 are\u00a0<\/span>Billy Williams<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 1970,\u00a0<\/span>Ellis Burks<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 1996,\u00a0<\/span>Larry Walker<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 1997,\u00a0<\/span>Todd Helton<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 2000, and\u00a0<\/span>Albert Pujols<\/span><\/a> in 2003.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Strider In Stride<\/span><\/h3>\n

Strider struck out 11 through five innings and moved within six strikeouts of\u00a0<\/span>John Smoltz’s<\/span><\/a> single-season franchise record set in 1996. He improved to 18-5 on the season, and his ERA is at 3.73.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old right-hander has 270 strikeouts in 176 innings this season. His strikeout total is 50 more than any other MLB pitcher.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fear not,\u00a0Atlanta Braves\u00a0fans, your team can still hit, pitch, and ultimately win. This was evident in a 9-3 defeat of the Philadelphia Phillies on Sept. 19, 2023, at Atlanta’s Truist Park. The Braves snapped a four-game skid that immediately followed their clinching of the NL East. The Braves were pounded by a combined score of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4804,"featured_media":62486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1071],"tags":[1982,3820],"class_list":["post-62483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braves","category-mlb","tag-ronald-acuna-jr","tag-spencer-strider"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4804"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}