It’s finally here. The Braves will open their quest for a 6th straight division today with dreams of donning the big trophy at season’s end. Let’s take a look at the Opening Day Roster:
Starting Pitchers
Relief Pitchers
- Nick Anderson
- Jesse Chavez
- Lucas Luetge
- Dylan Lee
- Collin McHugh
- A.J. Minter
- Joe Jimenez
- Kirby Yates
- Michael Tonkin
Breakdown: No real surprises here. Tonkin will likely see some innings early to see if there’s anything there that can stick in the bigs. If he does well, AA will have a tough decision to make when Braves activate Dylan Dodd as only Dylan Lee and Nick Anderson have options.
Position Players
- Travis D’Arnaud
- Sean Murphy
- Matt Olson
- Ozzie Albies
- Ehire Adrianza
- Orlando Arcia
- Austin Riley
- Ronald Acuna Jr.
- Michael Harris II
- Eddie Rosario
- Sam Hilliard
- Kevin Pillar
- Marcell Ozuna
Breakdown: As expected, Hilliard, Pillar, and Adrianza make the team as bench players, but my hope is that Hilliard can work his way into the lineup as the Braves really need to see what they have in him.
Other Recent Posts
We’ve been overflowing with content lately and I want to link everything that’s been posted these past few days so we can discuss it all leading up to first pitch!
- 2023 Atlanta Braves Predictions by Jeremy Timmerman
- Braves Extend Orlando Arcia by Ryan Cothran
- BRAVES JOURNALERS ONLY: THE BAR IS COMING FOR A TRIAL! by Ryan Cothran
- How did Braves Prospects Fare in Spring Training? by Clint Manry
- Braves Prospect Watch: Ignacio Alvarez, 3B by Cade Harrington
- Storylines to Watch for Opening Day by Jeremy Timmerman
- Braves 5th Starter Battle by Matt Keasler
- Braves BP Ranks 1st According to Fangraphs by Clint Manry
- Braves Prospects to Watch for the 2023 Season by Clint Manry
And also, I’d like to thank Jeremy Timmerman for stepping up his writing and taking over the Braves Journal Twitter account, Clint Manry for rejoining us with his MILB brilliance, 2 new writers (with brilliant debuts) in Cade Harrington and Matt Keasler, Matt Langford for building this beautiful new site, and last but not least, all the regulars at Braves Journal for the continued support these past 20 years!
Let’s talk ball! Go Braves
Go Braves!
The newest Atlanta Brave: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/03/royals-trade-richard-lovelady-braves.html. He’s on the 40-man, been recovering from Tommy John. Lefty with a strong K-rate. Could be a good middle reliever, maybe.
Grew up in Hinesville, went to Kennesaw State, and I’ll bet our scouts have been on him for a while.
What Timo said. See you in the bar later. I’ll have a Sweetwater IPA please
Let’s go Braves!
basebaaaaaaaaaaaall
Ronald Acuña Jr., 1-1 at the plate and on the bases!
Acuna is gonna make some pitchers and catchers craaaazy this year.
(and possibly some fans and managers, if he’s gonna stumble after taking off on a steal attempt, but he’s our crazy sonuvagun, so I’d say let the kid play!)
Hard contact by Ozzie; I thought it was two, but Adams made a pretty nice play.
I would say we made him throw some pitches, but I don’t actually think we want Corbin out of there.
Y’all see what a professional announcer does with a well-hit ball into the gap that actually becomes just an average MLB catch?
I do think that undersells the catch. It was over his shoulder and he was still moving pretty fast when he caught it. Great call, as you say, though.
Jonathan, are you trying to imply something about previous play-by-play announcers?
Yeah, but I’ll stop doing it pretty soon…. I just had to comment in the first half-inning how much more pleased I already am.
Fried for Cy Young, MVP, and POTUS
I’d also nominate him for Gold Glove, All-Star, and star of John Wick 5.
Hard contact by Harris, then a biiiig turn. I wanna see some baserunning this year!
Arcia’s first at bat produces an RBI and will look like a line drive in the box score.
Arcia, baby!
RAJr is already locked in.
Francoeur says that RAJ hit it hard, but I’d love to see the stats on that. A major league SS makes that play basically every time. Bad error even without the context.
109.6 mph! Hardest hit ball today, so far. xBA 0.590
welp. shows what my eye knows.
Great work on the site. Really looking forward to a big year!
Olson blew all his good hitting in Spring Training, I guess.
Obviously, Corbin has no fear of Olson, but Riley just terrifies him.
Hey, see what a big infield error can turn into? One more big hit & we might be able to really break this thing open.
EDIT: Bummer, but nice lil rally there.
Ronald looks like he is really having fun again. So great to see.
Patrick Corbin walked in a run in the second inning of Opening Day. He’s getting dinked and doinked all to hell, and C.J. Abrams has been doing him no favors, but… woof. The Nats had to get a man up in the bullpen in relief of their Opening Day Starter, five outs into the game.
Gonna be a long year in our nation’s capital.
Ozzie has two at bats.
First one: xBA: 0.800 — Out
Second one: xBA: 0.120 — Single and RBI
#Baseball
What was the xBA on Acuna’s second AB?
See above..
Might wanna break out the shades, Orlando…
Uh-oh… it’s a Bad News Braves inning.
Well at least our defense sucks
This is a wild game. Come on, Max.
Edit: Yes, well done, Ace!
We sure Max’s heredity doesn’t have some divinity in it somewhere? Odin or Apollo or something?
He looks like a stud ace right now, unshakeable and precise.
Bad news braves sighting, but Max had good damage control going
Should have three errors already. Catch the darn ball
Wow, that sun is no joke today…
Robles having trouble with the sun makes me feel better about our guys; he’s an elite CF.
Verlander to the IL. Ruh roh.
They’re calling it a teres major strain. That’s not a huge problem. If it’s a teres major tear, though…. well, Kate Upton is going to be seeing a lot more of her husband.
Murphy and Ozuna having both having a stellar opening day
And apparently this site doesn’t save my name and email even though I checked the box
I also have this experience with the not saving name and email.
Same here
Get well, Max.
Fried hurt. Hamstring
Great. Shelve him for 2 months
Big sigh….hopefully very minor
Sigh, throw another one on the quickly rising pile. After the last two years, the team doesn’t seem that concerned by what happens in April. Fair enough to a certain extent, but do we have to test the theory to the max?
On a different note, the pitch clock isn’t gonna speed the game up very much if there are baserunners all over the place. Though this game is only an hour-and-a-half old and would probably be into its second hour last year, I guess.
At least we don’t have Abrams at SS.
Speak for yourself, he’s currently stinking up my fantasy team!
And whose fault is that? Ha ha!
The announcers said it but they weren’t kidding: Jesse Chavez is as old as our two announcers (39 years old). That’s funny.
Also, it’s a pleasure to spend yet another Opening Day with Braves Journal. I think I’ve been able to enjoy Braves Journal 24 of the 36 years I’ve been on this earth.
Wash has some work to do on the off day tomorrow.
Jesse Chavez is so great.
New announcing team is great, but I gotta admit it feels like I’m watching a national broadcast. Will take a bit of getting used to.
Ozuna is certainly in mid-season form.
At least he literally doesn’t take any pitches…ugh
This is a textbook example of what Mac used to call Hibernation Mode.
We have a good deal of soft tossers in our bullpen
McHuge.
I chuckle every time Francoeur says “Good eye there on the take” on a ball not within a foot of a strike.
Helluva day for Travis…
Collectively, our catchers have had a great day!
Travis is just a hell of a hitter.
C.J. Abrams with three errors on the day, to go with his 0-3 in the 9-hole. Been a long time since he was one of the top 10 prospects in baseball, 12 whole months ago.
At least he had more at-bats than errors.
There’s just no reason to give Victor Robles a leadoff walk with a five-run lead. The guy has a career OPS of .666 over 1675 big league plate appearances. He just… can’t hit.
Undefeated!
1-0
So nice to get that win, then get the day off…
And btw, only 12 games this season with the Nats, so… let’s sweep these bums. They sure seem like they’re gonna be bad.
1-0 and only 161 more to go. In the video, Fried’s issue looks pretty minor. I think my legs do something like that on a daily basis, but, of course, I’m twice as old as Max.
Great win and so great to have baseball back. I think I like the trade and signing of Murphy even more now after the day Travis had. He’s a good hitter but as primary catcher, he gets worn down. This allows him to get plenty of rest.
Hope Fried is OK.
And the new site looks good. Great work, gents.
Acuna is going to steal a lot of bases if they throw over there twice on him. Once Corbin did that, Acuna practically got in a sprinters take off pose.
Atlanta now has a winning record. At 1 and 0 they are 1 game over .500. In 2021 it took them 109 games (August 6) before reaching 1 game over .500.