Fans lined Battery Avenue, a few rows deep on either side, and cheered as players, coaches and Manager Brian Snitker made their way back inside Truist Park for the Braves’ home opener against the Miami Marlins on Friday.
Not a bad welcome home after an 0-7 start on their season-opening road trip out West, which started the Braves off with the worst record in baseball.
“If this doesn’t show it, what would?” said Michael Murray, a Braves fan who made the trip down from Erie, Pennsylvania, gesturing to the crowd, on if fans still have enthusiasm and faith in the franchise.
The hope for many fans entering Friday came true – the Braves’ offense showed up and provided a much-needed lift, snapping the losing streak with a 10-0 win.
Alongside the offense’s 16 hits, Spencer Schwellenbach tossed eight scoreless innings and tallied 10 strikeouts, achieving what fan Ariel Walsh, from Decatur, had called for: “Once they find that little bit of balance and they click, then they’ll start doing fine. And a lot of people are hopeful. I mean, I’m always hopeful, you know, but after hopefully this home game, they’ll start to be like, ‘Oh, it’s the normal Braves team, they’re back.‘”
Much of the feeling and online chatter among fans after Wednesday’s loss to the Dodgers was bleak – understandable after a walk-off home run by Shohei Ohtani completed LA’s comeback and exposed Atlanta’s missed opportunities.
It hasn’t helped that the Braves’ biggest offseason signing, outfielder Jurickson Profar, tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance. He was suspended for 80 games, with Reynaldo López (right shoulder inflammation), Ronald Acuña Jr. (left knee ACL reconstruction), Sean Murphy (fractured left rib cage) and Spencer Strider (right elbow UCL injury) on the injured list.
With the Braves back on their home turf and with Strider and Murphy getting closer to making their returns, many fans expressed confidence Atlanta can turn things around. The palette-cleansing win kicking off a six-game homestand is a nice start.
“I could see it starting (Friday),” Murray said. “If everybody gets healthy, stays healthy, we’re gonna be one of the toughest teams to beat… We just gotta get going, gotta start meshing. It seems like there’s too many people trying to do it all themselves.”
No team has ever made the postseason after starting out 0-7. Sixty-one different clubs have endured losing streaks of at least seven games and gone on to make the postseason since MLB introduced the Wild Card in 1995, though.
“Nobody is only having seven losses, man,” said Kevin Dugan, sporting an “Acuñamania” shirt, showing off both his Acuña and wrestling fandom. “Everybody’s gonna lose seven. We just happen to get those out of the way now.”
One Braves fan, Kavin Caruso, pointed out the Braves’ scheduling draw to start the season (featuring contenders in LA and San Diego, which swept the Braves to start the season in a rematch of last year’s Wild Card).
“If the Braves started out this season facing say the Reds, Guardians, Mariners, Rockies, Royals, or even the Pirates, this 0-7 season wouldn’t have happened,” Caruso said via email after Wednesday’s loss.
Even if it’s against a different caliber opponent, Friday’s victory gets the Braves in the win column, and Snitker said it was good for the Braves to win a game decisively. And the energy is always different in front of your home crowd.
“I was proud of the fan base and how they showed up for that Braves Walk,” Snitker said. “That was pretty cool. You know, the enthusiasm. And you’d have thought that we were 7-0, quite honestly, the number of people that were there. That was really neat. That says a lot. Braves Country is the real deal, I keep saying that, and that makes the guys feel good. They feel good in this ballpark.”
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