Braves continue relentless pace as Matt Olsons grand slam fuels rout of White Sox

ATLANTA — During a series at Tampa Bay last weekend, Matt Olson was asked about the Braves’ hitting more home runs before the All-Star break than any team in major-league history. Major-league history is quite long. A lot of great teams have pounded a great many homers.

“It’s a cool stat to have as a team,” the first baseman said nonchalantly. “But you know, it doesn’t mean anything at the end of the day.”

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That’s where these Braves are. Piling up record-threatening or record-smashing individual and team offensive stats is getting them a lot of attention around baseball and has made them the Las Vegas oddsmakers’ favorite to win the World Series. But the Braves, who won the whole thing in 2021 but were upset in the division-series round last postseason, know what midseason stats and win-loss records mean in the grand scheme of things. For a team with soaring aspirations, as Olson said, they don’t mean anything.

World Series or bust? Most of the Braves will stop short of saying that, knowing how hard it is to win 101 games like they did last season. But the truth is, all of the spectacular statistics and overwhelming offense they’re producing would quickly be forgotten if another NL team wins the pennant and plays in the World Series. That’s the harsh reality, when you raise the bar for performance and set expectations as high as this Braves squad.

The majors’ only 60-win team before the All-Star break, the Braves resumed play Friday night and picked up where they left off at intermission. More slugging, another solid start from Charlie Morton, solid bullpen work, and did we mention more slugging?

Olson hit a first-inning grand slam before the Braves had even made an out Friday in their first game back from the break, a 9-0 rout of the Chicago White Sox at Truist Park, where the 31st sellout crowd in 46 home games saw the Braves stretch their NL East lead to 9 1/2 games — nearly four times larger than any other division lead.

Matt Olson’s NL-leading 30th home run is a grand slam! pic.twitter.com/YPMZ4qLFUO

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 14, 2023

Morton pitched seven innings of three-hit ball to reduce his ERA to 3.20, and the 39-year-old is 5-0 with a 1.82 ERA in his past six starts. He’s a big reason that, despite missing two key starters for most of the first half, the Braves still have a majors-leading 3.59 ERA. Their 3.72 starters’ ERA ranks third.

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The Braves and their punishing first-inning offense added another victim — White Sox starter Michael Kopech, who failed to make it out of the frame.

Kopech walked Ronald Acuña Jr., hit Ozzie Albies with a pitch and walked Austin Riley before Olson unloaded on a 1-0 inside fastball, driving it 430 feet to right-center for his 30th homer of the season and seventh career grand slam. In the past 11 games, Olson has hit .395 with 10 extra-base hits, including five homers and 16 RBIs.

“We were playing good ball there before the break and leading up to it, and sometimes when it’s going well you’re not sure if you want the days off,” said Olson, the first in franchise history with 30 homers in the team’s first 90 games. “But I think everybody, throughout the course of the season, you need that (rest) midway through. So it was good to come out and play the game we played today.

“Great (team) at-bats, especially after a long break like that. I think it was pretty clear (Kopech) was struggling to find the zone early on. Especially the guys there at the top — Ronald, Ozzie and Riley — have been working great at-bats and are not afraid to take a walk when they (pitchers) don’t come to them.”

Olson leads the majors with 11 first-inning homers, and the Braves’ 95 first-inning runs are 15 more than any other MLB team has scored in any inning.

“Me being a pitcher, and a starting pitcher, sometimes it’s hard to watch that part of it,” Morton said of the first-inning pummeling the Braves have administered to various opposing starters. “Because they’re relentless. And there have been so many first innings where it’s like, man, you get out on that mound and all you want is to get through that first inning. And I mean it sounds like a weird mentality, but there have been times in my career where it was a struggle to get through the first inning, and there were a couple of times where I didn’t. So I feel for those guys. Because it’s tough, and those aren’t cheap hits, either.

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“It just looks like (the Braves) are just meant to hit the ball really, really hard every time. (Morton laughed.) It’s so weird to watch. Man, I don’t know. Like, being on the right side of that is great, but the empathy for me is there.”

Acuña stole his NL-leading 42nd base in the first inning Friday to go with 22 home runs and is on pace for 39 homers and 75 steals. He’s got a shot at becoming the fifth member of the 40-40 club and would be the first to record more than 46 stolen bases.

For Olson, the first-half homer binge made him the NL leader in homers and RBIs at the break, and now he’s on pace for 54 homers and 136 RBIs. That would break Andruw Jones’ franchise record of 51 homers set in 2005, when Jones led the majors in homers and the NL with 128 RBIs — the last Brave to lead the NL in either category during a full 162-game season.

It also extended the Braves’ franchise-record streak to 27 consecutive games with at least one homer. They’ve hit 65 homers during the streak, three more than the Cleveland Guardians have hit all season.

A year ago, the Braves started slow and trailed the Mets by 10 1/2 games at the end of May. But they heated up quickly and reeled in the Mets over the next four months, catching them with a series sweep at Truist Park on the final weekend of the regular season before clinching a fifth consecutive NL East title.

Whether it was the emotional and physical energy expended pursuing the Mets, or illness and injury that weakened top starting pitchers Max Fried and Spencer Strider for the postseason, or running into a Phillies team that got hot at the right time, or — and this seems more likely — a combination of all of the above, in the division series, the Braves barely resembled the team that was so strong before.

So when the Braves built the best record before this year’s All-Star Game and went to the break with 169 homers — 20 more than any other team — and on a pace to match the 2019 Minnesota Twins with a majors-record 307 homers, they were pleased, yes. But far from satisfied.

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“Obviously you want to be at your hottest at the end of the year,” Olson said. “Look at the Phillies last year with how they were playing, that series with them, and they rode it all the way through pretty much. I mean, it (when you get hot) is nothing you can really control. But I think we know ourselves pretty well, so just continue to take those little steps we’ve been talking about. Hopefully we’re peaking there at the end.”

When they struggle at some point this summer, the Braves can look back at this tear they’ve been on as a reminder of how formidable they can be. They’ve plowed over multiple contenders, making some look like pretenders by comparison.

Then again, for those Braves who were on the team last season, and for plenty who were also on the 2021 World Series title team, it didn’t take these past six weeks to convince them of how good they can be. When healthy, they know they can beat anyone. Even with injuries, they have.

In the coming weeks, they’ll welcome back Cy Young runner-up Fried, who’s been out more than two months with a forearm strain and will make his second injury-rehab start Saturday at High-A Rome, with a likely return around by August.

Kyle Wright, the majors’ only 20-game winner last season, has also missed more than two months with a shoulder strain and is ramping up his throwing, hoping to return by September. Key relievers Jesse Chavez (shin contusion) and Dylan Lee (shoulder) could be back for most of the last two months of the season, and the Braves hope lefty A.J. Minter will avoid an IL stint after leaving a Saturday appearance with left-pectoral tightness.

It wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Braves made a move for another reliever before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, since they don’t need to add a big bat or frontline starter that many other contenders are looking for. Atlanta doesn’t need much other than to be healthy.

“I think that good stretch we had last year, is kind of like a good gauge for us as far as what we can do as a team (when) we are complete as we can be,” Olson said. “Like I said, we know who we are, we know the talent that we have in here and our potential. It’s not going to just be a perfect season the rest of the year, we’ll hit a speed bump at some point. But when you have the confidence in the guys in here, it’s easy to look past the little speed bumps and get back on track.”

(Photo: John Bazemore / Associated Press)

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