Austin Riley's Rare Achievement
On September 3, Austin Riley belted his fourth homer in four games, but that wasn't the big news here. I mean, sure, it put the Braves up 1-0 in a game that they would ultimately win 2-1, but this is a Stats Pack, not a Results Pack. That home-run was Riley's 35th of the season. To go along with his 36 (now 37) doubles, Austin Riley is the first Brave to hit 35 doubles and 35 homers during one of his first four seasons. Andruw Jones had this earliest 35/35 season in franchise history by doing it in his fifth year.
Overall, he became the first player since a quartet of players in 1999 who all joined this odd list (35 2B/35 HR in one of their first four seasons). Those players were Alex Bregman, Matt Chapman, Josh Bell, and Trey Mancini.
Okay, maybe this criteria is a little arbitrary. Technically, I was influenced by this ESPN tweet to investigate the numbers deeper. According to that criteria, Riley also became the first Brave since Henry Aaron in 1957 to pick up 25 doubles and 35 homers in one of their first four seasons.
Austin Riley's Rare Achievement (Part 2)
Something else happened with that home-run. Riley became the 36th player in baseball history to hit 35 homers in a season and have fewer than two intentional walks. His only intentional walk came on June 3 against the Colorado Rockies. Of course, Riley's season is not over and he could get an intentional pass before the year ends. Further, Paul Goldschmidt joined the list a few days later when he hit his 35th homer.
If Riley reaches 40 homers and doesn't pick up another intentional pass, he'll do something that's only been done 15 times in history.
By the way, Andruw Jones wasn't intentionally walked once in 2000 when he hit 36 homers. It's one of 14 times that a player hit 35 homers and wasn't intentionally walked during that season. Most notably, the first person to do it was Roger Marris in 1961 when he set the home run record.
Striding Into History
Spencer Strider enters Sunday eight K's away from 200. When he gets there, he'll give the Braves a 200-K season by different pitchers in consecutive years for the first time since 1997-99 (John Smoltz, Greg Maddux, and Kevin Millwood).
But the biggest thing to watch for with Strider is how few innings he throws. Charlie Morton had a 10.5 K/9 last season, a new franchise record. Strider won't get enough innings to qualify, but is averaging 13.8 K's per nine. Morton is the only pitcher in Braves history who threw at least 120 innings, struck out 200, and had a K/9 above 10.0. Strider could become the second today.
Morton, by the way, is just 13 strikeouts away from hitting 200 K’s.
The Sign Reads - NO BUNTING
Now that pitchers are rightfully kept out of the batter's box, the Atlanta Braves have completely embraced the idea that bunts are just not a thing they do. In their first 145 games of the season, the Braves have been credited with a sacrifice bunt all of ZERO times. Only 12 times in history has a team had fewer than two sacrifice bunts in a season and almost every single one of those situations happened in the 60-game pandemic season of 2020. In fact, the only other time a team has played more than 60 games and put down less than two sacrifice bunts is the 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers. They have one.
The Braves are less than twenty games away from not having a sacrifice bunt for a full baseball season for the first time in history!
Not only that, but the Atlanta Braves have just one bunt hit all season (thanks Michael Harris II). This won't be a record. Both the pandemic White Sox and Angels of 2020 and the 2018 Oakland A's went through the entire season without a bunt hit. That said, of the six times a team has just one bunt hit for the whole season, only this year's Braves are trying to do it all over a full season with the other five instances all coming in 2020.
Atlanta is trying to become the first team in history to have one successful bunt all year whether as a bunt hit or sacrifice.
Silvino's Super Silly Success
Back on July 1 in a 9-1 victory against the Cincinnati Reds, Silvino was summoned from the bullpen to complete the game. The Braves had just picked up Bracho for cash from the Boston Red Sox. It was the first outing in the majors for Bracho since 2020 with the Diamondbacks, a team he appeared in 91 games with from 2015-18 before his one game in the pandemic season. Bracho entered, got two outs, hit Albert Almora, and then induced Nick Senzel to hit a grounder to Orlando Arcia to end the game.
Three days later, Bracho was designated for assignment. He was later outrighted to Gwinnett.
Why bring up this fairly mundane performance? Because Bracho has a chance to become the first Brave in history to pitch one inning, allow one baserunner, and have that guy reach because he was hit by a pitch. It's only happened eight times in history. In fact, Bracho would become the first pitcher to complete this feat since Jeff Shaver of the Oakland A's in 1988.
But Bracho won't be the first player since Shaver. That's because Wilson Valdez (2011), Pablo Sandoval (2019), and Franmil Reyes this year have all done it as a position player pitching. Valdez, by the way, got the win.
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