DENVER – Coors Field usually tends to bring out the best in a lineup, and the talented and deep Braves group exploded for one of the season’s best wins, a 13-6 blowout of the Rockies on Thursday at Coors Field.
Here are five observations on Atlanta (25-27) after the victory:
1. Baseball is a daily game, with teams trying to put even the good performances behind them, but this was the kind of offensive performance that could serve the Braves well going forward.
“It could do good,” manager Brian Snitker said. “We’ve been swinging the bats pretty well. When you come in here, you just never know what’s going to happen.”
The Braves’ 13 runs are tied for their third-most runs in a game at Coors Field since the ballpark opened in 1995. They had scored 13 here in two other games, and the most they have ever plated in this park is 20, in 1999.
Every Braves starter collected at least one hit, and six of them notched multi-hit games as the club finished with 18 hits. Nine were extra-base hits. The Braves had nine hits with runners in scoring position.
Led by Travis d’Arnaud, who tallied a career-high six RBIs, seven Braves starters drove in at least one run. Atlanta scored in five different innings, and the team put up at least three runs in three of those.
2. D’Arnaud put together one of the best performances of his career.
His two-homer night included a grand slam, which was the second of his career. And that blast came two innings after he launched a two-run shot in the top of the third.
“It’s a good feeling,” d’Arnaud said. “More importantly, we won game one of the series. Our offense exploded.”
D’Arnaud is the fifth Atlanta catcher to collect at least six RBIs in one game, joining Javy Lopez (twice), Paul Burris, Don Padgett and Gene Oliver. The six RBIs are tied for the second-most by a catcher in a game in Braves history (Oliver had seven in a game in 1966).
Thursday marked d’Arnaud’s fifth multi-homer game, his first since 2019.
3. Multiple times this season, the Braves’ inability to add onto leads has burned them when likely wins turn into brutal losses.
Just as they did in closing out the series in Arizona on Wednesday, they ensured that would not be an issue here.
The Braves led 5-1 after three innings. They scored four in the fifth, three in the sixth and one in the seventh to bury the Rockies at a place where anything can happen.
“Someone was saying, five runs, you’re bringing in your (closer) to get a save,” Austin Riley said. “This ballpark, the ball flies here. Things can happen in a snap, a blink of an eye.”
In addition to d’Arnaud’s grand slam in the fifth, Dansby Swanson and Riley hit RBI doubles in the sixth. Matt Olson then scored Riley with a single.
The Braves’ offensive performance in the win began with Guillermo Heredia’s run-scoring triple in the second inning and ended with Ronald Acuña’s RBI single in the seventh.
“It’s also good to come here and hit,” Riley said. “I think that kind of boosts our confidence. See balls hit the gap and stuff like that from a hitter’s standpoint, I think it’s nice.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
4. The other positive from the Braves’ offensive explosion doesn’t have anything to do with the offense.
It helped their bullpen.
After Ian Anderson tossed six innings, the Braves used Jesus Cruz, Darren O’Day and Dylan Lee to finish the game. This marks two consecutive days that Atlanta’s offense has allowed Snitker to stay away from his best relievers.
Snitker said all of his relievers will be available on Friday.
5. This win, and the offensive performance, could help the Braves as they try to turn around their season.
“This game, as tough as it already is, you take those small victories and you build off them,” Riley said. “I think that’s what we did today and hopefully tomorrow, we can continue to build that block to where we want to be.”
Added d’Arnaud: “It’s huge. The offense exploded. We had a ton of runs, a ton of hits, a lot of good at-bats, a lot of battles, a lot of moving guys over.”
Stat to know
6 - The Braves have scored 13 or more runs in a game at Coors Field six times in franchise history.
Quotable
“It’s good. I feel like we’re putting up good at-bats. To me, the biggest thing is I feel like it’s situational hitting. Your guys get to second and third, I feel like we’re not trying to do too much today and even yesterday. I think we’re just playing good, solid baseball.” - Riley on the offense seeing results
Up next
Braves lefty Max Fried will face righty Chad Kuhl in Friday’s game, which begins at 8:40 p.m. ET and will be on Apple TV+.
