ATLANTA — Because they’ve hit so many tape-measure homers and scored runs at such a dizzying pace for weeks on end, the slugging Braves could be excused for looking a little flat with the bats for much of Wednesday’s series finale against the Twins. The game started in the noon hour and was played in temperatures that reached 90 degrees by the late innings.
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The Braves scored enough to win, 3-0, in Kolby Allard’s first MLB start since 2021. It was their 13th win in 14 games and gave them a 20-4 record in June, one shy of the Atlanta-era franchise record for wins in any month. With one June game left, the Braves can equal it Friday at home against the much-improved Marlins, who have the third-best record in the National League.
The Braves own the NL’s best record by a considerable margin, and their juggernaut offense is the primary reason. It’s a lineup that’s the pride of hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, whose run of nine seasons in the position with the Braves is the longest of any hitting coach with his current MLB team.
Just don’t expect Seitzer to puff out his chest and take credit for their roaring success this season, or to point fingers at anyone if and when the team slumps.
#Braves win 3-0, improve to 20-4 in June, one win from tying the Atlanta-era franchise record for wins in any month. Swepth the Twins and have won 13 of 14. Atlanta is 53-27.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) June 28, 2023
He’s a straight shooter who will provide a candid assessment of any hitter, slumping or surging, but will not claim to have some great formula, or try to have a hitter conform to any signature swing or stance. He is unlike certain big-name hitting coaches of recent vintage, ones who usually had a prominent stretch before eventually getting fired or fading away. Those periods of success could usually be traced to one or more star hitters. But we digress.
So, what makes Seitzer so good at his job?
“Knowing the right time to say something to somebody, or pretty much just letting you be you, giving you a few things and letting you take what you’re comfortable with,” Braves center fielder Michael Harris said. “He’s not really forcing anything on a player or just trying to make an immediate change. Just feeling you out for a little bit and choosing the right time to say something when it’s needed.”
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Seitzer also won’t seek to impress by reeling off esoteric analytics to sound like he knows more than the person he’s talking to, though he usually does know more, at least when it comes to hitting. Seitzer and top assistant Bobby Magallanes are aided at home games by Hall of Famer Chipper Jones, a Braves consultant, and the trio has all of the most sophisticated stats at its disposal and uses them regularly.
But that doesn’t mean those three need to overwhelm hitters with those stats. Selective usage, largely up to the hitter. The Braves have a top-tier analytics department, and every conceivable metric is there for any hitter who wants them. But Seitzer doesn’t force it down their throats.
“In a day when there’s an analytic and a number for everything, he’s more of an old-school side — which I think is good,” said Braves first baseman Matt Olson, who hit his NL-leading 26th home run Wednesday and also had an RBI double. “I think you can get a little too far into that other stuff, and for a hitting coach to keep it simple is one of the best things.”
Seitzer said, “The analytics is just a piece. It’s a part of the package, it’s not the majority of the package. Because each guy is different, each pitcher we’re facing is different. And depending on where a guy’s at mentally, emotionally, how he’s seeing the ball, what he’s swinging at, what his timing’s like — there’s so many variables that come into play with the direction that we’ll go with it.”
The Braves have annually produced one of baseball’s top offenses in recent years — it’s the leader by most statistical measures this season — with a cast that has multiple changes season to season. The Braves have soared to new heights now despite losing free agents Freddie Freeman after the 2021 season and Dansby Swanson last winter.
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Austin Riley has been a mainstay, a 2021 Silver Slugger Award winner and a 2022 All-Star who had 71 homers and 200 RBIs over those two seasons. But he’s hardly immune to slumps, having endured one of the worst of his career earlier this season. Throughout it, Riley appreciated both the patience of Braves manager Brian Snitker to stick with him in the middle of the order, and Seitzer for never adding any pressure.
After hitting .200 with three extra-base hits and a .563 OPS during a 17-game stretch through May 16, Riley hit .301 with 16 extra-base hits and an .861 OPS in his past 37 games before Wednesday.
“I try to keep things as simple as possible,” Riley said. “And (Seitzer) is not pushy at all. And I think what I appreciate is, when things aren’t going well, he’s not hitting the panic button trying to figure things out. It’s like, hey, he’s going to kind of let you do your thing. Every hitter is different and they have their ways that work for themselves. He allows you to navigate that down your own path. I know I appreciate that. Because just working with Brum (former Braves minor-league hitting coach Mike Brumley, whom Riley still talks to about hitting) and all that, (Seitzer) has been very good with that.”
Harris endured the worst slump of his baseball life earlier this season, just before and for the five weeks after an IL stint for a back injury. He hit .147 with a .459 OPS in a 34-game stretch through June 6. Snitker stuck with him, and Seitzer worked with him daily.
In 20 games since June 7, Harris has hit .434 (33-for-76) with 12 extra-base hits including five homers and an OPS of nearly 1.200.
“(Seitzer) will say what he sees, and with that information, you’ll both go in the cage and try to make a correction or try to figure out the problem or what’s causing it,” Harris said. “Yeah, he doesn’t really try to change you, but he gives you the information that he thinks is needed. I don’t think we necessarily knew exactly what it was, but then I think Mags (Magallanes) told me, I was just pretty much off time (late on pitches), and lately I’ve been on time, and hitting it harder and getting the hits out of it.”
Harris said the Seitzer-Magallanes tandem is thorough and easy to work with.
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“They both have a good eye for swings,” said Harris, who also has relished tips from Jones, who often watches from the stands, after changing out of uniform following pregame work with hitters. “He has season tickets, and he sits right next to our dugout. So he’s real close, and he can see, and he’s down there telling us what he sees. I mean, to have three heads looking at a swing and noticing something — and a majority of the time, they all see the same thing, which is good.
“And having a Hall of Famer see you and try to make the correction, a guy that hit .300 for his career — yeah, that’s huge as well.”
Players say they love Kevin Seitzer’s coaching approach because it leaves room for individuality. (Sam Navarro / USA Today)Seitzer, 61, was a .295 career hitter and two-time All-Star during a 12-year MLB playing career through 1997. He was an American League Rookie of the Year runner-up in 1987 with Kansas City — George Brett was a mentor — after batting .323 with a league-high 207 hits including 56 extra-base hits (eight triples, 15 homers) and an .869 OPS.
He battled injuries for much of his career and spent less than two weeks away from the dugout a couple of years ago after emergency hip replacement surgery in the middle of the season. There’s no questioning his toughness. But he’s approachable and friendly, and players say he’s easy to be around. Important, given how much they are with him.
Seitzer knows firsthand what it means to grind through long seasons and the frustration of slumps. Through decades of coaching after his playing career, he has a good handle on how to deal with individuals, the operative word being individuality.
“You can’t cookie-cutter hitters because they’re all different,” he said. “Different mentalities, different mechanics, different moves, different strengths and weaknesses. You just want to try and put them in a position to give them the best chance to have success. The big thing is our game plan and our approach against each pitcher. And then from a swing standpoint — the mechanics, the moves — it’s to try and get them in a position where the barrel’s in the zone a long time. So they’ve got a chance to put the fat part of the bat on it. To where they’ve got length in their swing, but yet it’s still short, compact — all the stuff hitters want to be.”
The prolific offense has helped the Braves overcome a string of injuries, including ace Max Fried and last year’s only MLB 20-game winner, Kyle Wright. They made five starts apiece before landing on the 60-day injured list. The Braves expect to have Fried (forearm strain) back not long after the All-Star break and hope to have Wright (shoulder inflammation) back in August.
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In the meantime, Braves pitchers say they work with a little more confidence and aggressiveness because they’ve either been staked to a first-inning lead or know they don’t have to be perfect because the Braves are going to score plenty of runs.
Wednesday marked the first time since June 11 that they scored fewer than four runs, and the Braves haven’t had a homerless game since June 9, when they had their only one in the past 32 games.
The Braves probably won’t sustain quite this level of production. They lead the majors with 147 homers and are on pace for 295, which would be a whopping 46 above the franchise record set by the 2019 Braves. For June, the Braves’ 55 home runs, .920 OPS and 159 runs are far ahead of the rest of baseball, with the Angels second in homers (40), and no team within 100 points of that OPS.
But even if there’s slippage, the Braves’ depth figures to cause headaches for opponents all season.
“Hopefully it lasts forever, that’d be nice,” Olson said, smiling as he discussed the offensive onslaught.
The Braves’ 76 runs in the first inning are the second-most in any inning by any MLB team this season. Their 25 homers and 109 hits in the first inning are the most by any team in any inning, and their plus-51 run differential in the first inning is far and away the best by any team in any inning.
“It’s fun,” Riley said. “We hadn’t really clicked on all cylinders until now. What’s showing is when, from a hitting standpoint, everybody’s clicking, it makes it tough on the opposing pitcher.”
The Braves again jumped out to a first-inning lead Wednesday when midseason MVP favorite Ronald Acuña Jr. drew a leadoff walk, collected his NL-leading 36th stolen base and scored on a double by Olson, who leads the majors with nine first-inning homers and is tied with Riley for the MLB lead with 21 first-inning RBIs.
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Snitker said he had no explanation for the stunning first-inning numbers, calling it crazy after the Braves homered three times in a five-run first inning Tuesday against Twins ace Joe Ryan. Acuña homered on Ryan’s first pitch of the game, and the Braves had five homers before he recorded his fourth out, including consecutive homers from nine-hole hitter Michael Harris II and Acuña to start the second inning.
Olson points to Harris, the 2022 NL Rookie of the Year, hitting ninth as an example of the great depth of this lineup. Marcell Ozuna — 14 homers and 35 RBIs since the beginning of May — is also hitting in the bottom half of the order. Orlando Arcia, with his .303 average and .794 OPS, is hitting eighth ahead of Harris.
It’s not a stretch to say three or more of the hitters in the bottom half of the Braves’ order could hit in the top half of many teams’ lineups.
But whether all the engines are humming as they’ve been lately, or the lineup is sputtering as it did during a stretch earlier this season when the Braves couldn’t get hits with runners in scoring position, Seitzer said the key is to stay on an even keel as much as possible.
“I don’t have anything to do with social media,” Seitzer said. “I mean, I’ll get stuff from friends and things like that — this was posted, that was posted. Mags will show me things in the cage because he’s heavily on it. But I don’t want any part of it. That’s a roller-coaster ride mentally and emotionally you can get yourself on if you care. And I’ve really got enough things to focus on.
“The way I look at it, since I got this job, my whole mentality is, bring your ‘A’ game every day and be as prepared as possible, work your butt off, try and be the best you can for these guys. And if it’s good enough and I get to keep doing it, great. If not, then I’ll see what God’s got in store for me after that. But that’s always been my mentality. I can only worry about the things that I can control, and that’s my attitude and effort. That’s all I’ve ever focused on.”
If he has his druthers, he’ll be in Atlanta for as long as he coaches, and Snitker will be managing the team, its current coaches remaining in place. That’s how important the whole experience of this coaching situation has been for Seitzer.
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“If you weren’t happy with who you work with, who you work for — no matter how much success you have, you would probably be miserable,” he said. “And that’s the beauty of this place. I don’t want to go anywhere else. This is where I hope I can work till I die. It’s just been really a perfect environment. You talk to other people in other organizations, you hear stories — firsthand, secondhand, thirdhand — about things that happen and what goes on, and this is the best of the best of the best.
“I mean, for what we have and how we get it, who we get it from and the way they give it to us, it’s perfect. I couldn’t ask for more.”
(Top photo of Kevin Seitzer: Rich von Biberstein / Associated Press)
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