Today's Three Things: Atlanta throws it back to 2023 with homer barrage versus Athletics
The Atlanta Braves set a new season high for homers in an easy win to tie the series
The Atlanta Braves absolutely blasted the Athletics, winning 9-2 in Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park on Wednesday night.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
We can put this one, believe it or not, in the first inning.
The Braves were up 4-0 before the first out of the game was recorded. Ronald Acuña Jr. got a 1-1 sinker on the inner edge of the plate and absolutely LAUNCHED it to left-center. After Matt Olson and Austin Riley hit themselves on, Drake Baldwin punctuated the first inning with a homer of his own, a three-run blast that pushed the lead to 4-0.
Atlanta went on to add two more in the 2nd inning on an Austin Riley homer, pushing this one into safe territory rather early.
Today’s Player of the Game
Ronald Acuña Jr.
Not only did Atlanta’s leadoff hitter return to the lineup after a day off for back tightness, he hit two homers in this one as part of a 2025 team record day for power production (more on that later).
The biggest thing to me was the second homer. Coming in the top of the 4th and pushing the lead to 7-0, this ball had no business being a home run - it was a slider that was well outside, coming in at 1.19 feet off the plate. Spence went back to a location where he had just gotten Acuña to whiff pretty badly…but he left this one a bit closer to the plate and higher than the previous strike.
It wasn’t that close to the plate, but it didn’t matter to Ronald.
Per Statcast, as uncovered by MLB’s intrepid researcher Sarah Langs, this pitch was tied for the farthest-outside pitch Ronald’s ever hit for a home run in his entire career at 1.19 feet from the center of the plate.
So he’s seeing the ball well. With just days before All-Star Week begins, Ronald has a legitimate chance of being Atlanta’s first HRD winner in the franchise’s long and storied history at this rate.
Special recognition goes to Bryce Elder, who righted the ship with a quality start: 6.2 innings pitched, with eight hits and two runs allowed. He cruised until late thanks to a surprising 13 whiffs on his sinker, part of a 24-whiff, 34% CSW outing where he struck out seven.
What You’ll Be Talking About
The offense actually producing.
Atlanta hit a season-high five home runs tonight, and the big difference here felt like the team’s aggressiveness. Rather than trying to take pitches and work counts, several Braves hitters were swinging early and often, and were rewarded for good swings on poorly executed Mitch Spence pitches with five homers and eight earned runs off of the righty.
…But you can see the downside of this more aggressive approach, too. Even with giving up nine hits and facing 28 batters, Spence threw only 79 pitches. Were he to have more success getting whiffs with his secondary pitches and/or just minimizing the hard contact allowed, he’d be in a position to practically cruise through an entire game with very little bullpen exposure.
Is this sustainable against better pitchers, ones who aren’t using a 90 mph cutter as their primary fastball and can get actual whiffs from better movement and locations? We’ll find out soon enough.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the win.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves are going for the series win in tomorrow night’s finale. Spencer Strider (3-7, 3.93) takes on lefty JP Sears (7-7, 4.76) at 9:05 PM ET.