For years, anticipation had built for Michael Soroka’s return to the Truist Park mound. Everyone hoped for the moment, and considered what it might be like to see him pitching here again.
And when the night arrived, it became about the offense. Soroka pitched well, then watched the fireworks show.
The Braves blew out the Marlins, 16-4, on Friday. Atlanta has won six in a row.
Five observations:
1. Since he last pitched at Truist Park almost three years ago, Soroka had built up this night in his mind. But he tried not to think about it too much.
“I didn’t want it to become too big for me,” Soroka said.
He emphasized the “for me” in that quote. He understood that fans waited a long time for this. He wanted to give them what they’ve waited for since he last appeared here.
It lived up to everything he believed it might be.
“Hearing cheers early when I was warming up, and then at the end of the first inning, and then at the end of my day, it was pretty special, and I’m very, very lucky to have this fanbase to come home to,” Soroka said.
Soroka held the Marlins to three runs over six innings. He struck out seven batters and didn’t walk anyone. He earned his first win since July 29, 2020.
And throughout the night, he looked up quite a bit to soak in the atmosphere.
“I think that’s one thing injuries give you perspective on is this is never guaranteed,” Soroka said. “When you come up really, really young, you look up at a lot of the other careers like that and you think you’re gonna be around for a long time, and it kind of gets taken away from you a bit.”
2. Soroka’s goal: Continue “letting it fly.”
Here’s what that means:
“When you come up and you’re real young, you know what you’re doing but you don’t exactly know how,” he said. “It’s kind of one of those things where you’ve got some innocent confidence. And it was about working back into that confidence. And I think truly actually letting it go out of your hand was something that I had done at times, but I was kind of guiding the ball here and there.
“That’s where the command just kind of wasn’t clicking, and still have some improvements there that I want to make. But I know it’s gonna come when I’m letting go because then you can feel everything, it comes out cleaner, things are spinning harder, and they tend to not see it as well.”
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
3. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Austin Riley and Matt Olson both had opportunities to hit for the cycle. Olson needed a double, Riley a triple.
“I mean, it would have been nice,” Olson said. “I’m not gonna lie. Triples aren’t happening too frequently for me, so it was a decent shot.”
“It’s definitely in the back of your mind, but a triple isn’t happening very often, so I probably wasn’t thinking about it as much,” Riley said.
The Braves’ offense capped a ridiculous June with one more wild game. They scored five runs in the first inning. They also put together a four-run inning and a three-run inning.
They hit six homers, and Olson had two of them. The Braves have two six-homer games this season – both against Miami – and they’re the only team in baseball to have that many.
Soroka had a fitting comparison for this offense: “You make a team on MLB The Show and play on rookie (difficulty level).”
4. The Braves went 21-4 in the month. They tied the Atlanta-era record for most wins in a calendar month and set a record for winning percentage in a month.
Here’s the list of teams, since 1901, to bat .307 with a .944 OPS and hit 61 homers in a single month: The 2023 Braves in June.
“I always felt that, up until this month, we just hadn’t really clicked altogether,” Riley said. “And I think we’re doing that right now. It’s fun. One through nine, it doesn’t matter, any time of the game, any situation, you like who’s up there, you think we got a chance. It’s been fun to come to the yard.”
5. At the halfway point of the season – 81 games into it – the Braves are 54-27. They lead the second-place Marlins by seven games.
Things are going well.
What impresses manager Brian Snitker most?
“The whole thing,” he said. “Just how they handle everything, how they handle adversity. They don’t let injuries bother them. It’s just the next man up and keep going and keep grinding through, pretty much. Just you know how they stay consistent and everything, with their attitudes, their work ethic, the energy, all that. This is a special group.”
Stat to know
61 - The Braves set a National League record for home runs in a month with 61 in June, exceeding the 2020 Dodgers, who hit 57 in August.
Quotable
“It’ll be a memory I have forever, and I’m very thankful for that.” - Soroka on his return to Truist Park
Up next
On Saturday at 4:10 p.m., Charlie Morton will face the Marlins’ Eury Pérez.
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