The Atlanta Braves -- the team with the most home runs in National League history, the team with the highest slugging percentage ever in a season, the team that has averaged nearly two home runs per game -- did not hit a home run on Opening Day.
Believe it or not, they do not homer every game, although they have hit at least one in 132 of the 148 games they've played this season and three or more in 43 games -- including four in their second game.
From there, the onslaught on the record books began.
The Braves are on pace for 314 home runs, which would edge them past the 2019 Minnesota Twins, who hold the season record with 307 home runs. In June, they had one of the greatest offensive months any team has ever had. Some are calling this Braves lineup the best of all time, and that doesn't feel like an in-the-moment hyperbole.
"Sometimes, I get a little nervous before the game," Braves starter Spencer Strider said after the second game of the season. "Then I look at our lineup and I feel a lot better."
How did they get here? Let's dig into some of the Braves' most memorable home runs and the numbers behind their incredible season to determine, if indeed, this is the greatest lineup ever assembled.
No. 1, April 1: Ronald Acuna Jr., 383 feet to left field off Josiah Gray at Nationals Park
Acuna led off with a line drive into the first row of the left-field seats off an 0-2 slider that didn't slide nearly enough. The fan reaching over a railing dropped the ball and it fell to the warning track, so Acuna wasn't initially sure if the ball had cleared the fence. It had. Matt Olson followed with another home run -- he would hit a second one as well that day -- and from that moment, it was clear the Braves had a chance to be something special.
Asked what it must be like to face the Atlanta lineup, Braves catcher Travis d'Arnaud said, "I'm sure it's a very stressful ride to the ballpark."
It was fitting that Acuna hit the team's first home run. Fully recovered from the knee injury he suffered in 2021, he's been a dynamic presence all season at the top of the lineup, on his way to finishing up the greatest power/speed season we've ever witnessed. He's already the first player with 30 home runs and 60 stolen bases, he's closing in on the 40 home runs that would make him the sport's fifth 40/40 player and he has a chance at a momentous 40/70 season.
His most impressive statistic, however, may be that he's cut his strikeout rate in half, from 23.6% each of the past two seasons all the way down to 11.5%. Among qualified regulars, he's been the sixth-toughest hitter to strike out in 2023, a remarkable year-over-year improvement. That's how you hit 37 home runs and hit .337. With Acuna leading the way, the Braves have cut their strikeout rate from 24.6% in 2022 (third worst in the majors) to 20.5% (in the top five). They've scored double-digit runs 19 times.
No. 60, May 10: Acuna, 470 feet to left field off Brayan Bello at Truist Park
Another Acuna moment: His longest home run of the season. He turned on a high and inside fastball and, in the simple words of Red Sox announcer Dave O'Brien, "He destroyed that one." Acuna took a few steps toward first base, watched the ball sail high and far and then nonchalantly flipped his bat and enjoyed a slow trot around the bases.
Acuna leads the majors with eight home runs of 450-plus feet. Shohei Ohtani and teammate Austin Riley are next with six. Since Acuna reached the majors in 2018, he leads all players in 450-foot home runs with 21. The high altitude in Atlanta helps, but only 10 of those 18 have come at home. Acuna isn't built like Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton -- those players we most readily associate with Titanic blasts -- but he combines strength, rotational energy and one of the quickest bats in history to generate his exceptional raw power. Indeed, he also owns the hardest-hit home run of 2023, a 121.2-mph, 454-foot blast off Emmet Sheehan of the Dodgers on Sept. 2.
Now for the crazy part: Acuna's average launch angle has dropped in 2023, down to 7.6 degrees, a low number for a top power hitter. He was as high as 18 degrees in 2020 and 2021, so if he can combine his new ability to put the ball in play more often along with a more optimal launch angle, he'll be a threat to hit 60 someday. Not that there's anything wrong with the current version of Acuna.
No. 89, May 28: Matt Olson, 445 feet to center field off Connor Brogdon at Truist Park
Olson's blast in the fifth inning was a gargantuan blow to dead center into the pool that sits above and beyond the wall at Truist Park. Impressive. But not his most impressive home run of the game. In the first inning, he crushed one 464 feet to right-center.
Olson, who belted his 52nd home run Saturday to break Andruw Jones' club record, is thriving in his second season with Atlanta since coming over from the Oakland Athletics in a trade in March 2022 (and immediately signing a $168 million extension). That trade now looks like an absolute steal.
When Olson gets hot, he fires home runs in rapid-fire fashion. From June 15 to June 30, he hit 10 in 13 games. From July 28 to Aug. 13, he hit 11 in 17 games. Now he's on another tear, with nine in his last 14 games. He doesn't hit many cheap ones, with 19 of his 52 home runs going at least 425 feet. He's tied with Ohtani for the third-highest average exit velocity, behind only Judge and Acuna.
Most importantly: He's been so good that Braves fans have moved on from Freddie Freeman.
That wasn't the case last year as Olson had a productive but inconsistent season in replacing Freeman -- 34 home runs, 103 RBIs and 78 extra-base hits, but a .240 average and an .802 OPS that was 109 points lower than he had posted with Oakland in 2021. As late as June 16 of this season, he was hitting .228/.345/.487, similar to 2022. Coincidence or not, manager Brian Snitker moved Olson from the second spot in the lineup to cleanup June 15 and that's when he took off. Since June 17 he's hit .323/.420/.724 with 33 home runs and 83 RBIs in 79 games. He's broken Jones' home run record and he's just seven RBIs from breaking Eddie Mathews' franchise record of 135.
Olson is an imposing 6-foot-5 and stands at the plate with his arms extended way out from his body. You'd think that would leave him vulnerable to pitches on the inside part of the strike zone, but that's been his strength as he's hitting .314/.408/.697 against pitches located on the inner third of the plate (through Saturday). As a result, teams try to pitch him outside, his weak spot since he's primarily a pull hitter -- but just don't leave it over the middle of the plate or it's likely to end up in the pool.
No. 97, June 4: Eddie Rosario, 381 feet to right field off Miguel Castro at Chase Field
The only thing the Braves haven't done in 2023: hit a walk-off home run. There have been 51 of them this season, but none by the Braves. That leaves Rosario's home run as the team's most clutch of the season. Down 5-4 to the Diamondbacks with two outs in the top of the ninth, Rosario hit a go-ahead grand slam. Curiously enough, the second most clutch home run using win probability added was also off Castro, when Austin Riley tagged him for a three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth in an August game the Braves were losing 5-3.
If you're going to break the team home run record, you're going to need power up and down the lineup -- and the Braves have it. Five players have at least 30 home runs after Ozzie Albies reached that total Saturday, but all nine regulars have at least 17, including shortstop Orlando Arcia, the biggest surprise in the power department, and Rosario at 21 home runs.
We can see how top-to-bottom power has increased through the years when looking at the progression of the team home run record. Let's start with the 1927 Yankees, the famed Murderer's Row lineup of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and check the percentage of each team's total home runs that its top two sluggers were responsible for:
1927 New York Yankees: 158 home runs. Ruth (60) and Gehrig (47) accounted for 68% of them.
1930 Chicago Cubs: 171. Hack Wilson (56) and Gabby Hartnett (37), 54%.
1932 Oakland Athletics: 172. Jimmie Foxx (58) and Al Simmons (35), 54%.
1936 New York Yankees: 182. Gehrig (49) and Joe DiMaggio (29), 43%.
1947 San Francisco Giants: 221. Johnny Mize (51) and Willard Marshall (37), 39%. The Giants became the first team with three hitters with 35 home runs.
1956 Cincinnati Reds: 221. Frank Robinson (38) and Wally Post (36), 33%. The Reds joined the Giants with three 35-homer guys.
1961 New York Yankees: 240. Roger Maris (61) and Mickey Mantle (54), 48%. Maris and Mantle carried the load, but the Yankees became the first team with six 20-homer players.
1996 Baltimore Orioles: 257. Brady Anderson (50) and Rafael Palmeiro (39), 35%. The Orioles saw seven players reach 20 home runs.
1997 Seattle Mariners: 264. Ken Griffey Jr. (56) and Jay Buhner (40), 36%. In the homer-friendly Kingdome, the Mariners -- with Griffey, Buhner, Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez -- had a four-year run from 1996 to 1999 in which they hit 245, 264, 234 and 244 home runs, respectively.
2018 New York Yankees: 267. Giancarlo Stanton (38) and Aaron Judge (27), 24%. The Yankees broke the Mariners' record despite just one 30-home run hitter, although they had three others match Judge's 27 and 12 players reach double digits.
2019 Minnesota Twins: 307. Nelson Cruz (41) and Max Kepler (36), 25%. The Twins became the first team with five 30-homer sluggers -- a total the Braves just matched.
The Braves sit at 288 home runs, with Olson (52) and Acuna (37) accounting for around 30% of the total. One aspect that already makes the Braves' total so impressive is that 2019 was the year of the super-juiced ball. Three other teams besides the Twins also surpassed the previous record of 267, and the Yankees hit just one fewer than the Twins. The Braves, meanwhile, have one of the largest gaps ever over the No. 2 team:
1. 1947 Giants: +65
2. 1936 Yankees: +59
3. 2023 Braves: +58
4. 1968 Tigers: +52
No. 152, June 30: Sean Murphy, 459 feet to left field off Archie Bradley at Truist Park
Murphy's blast was the Braves' 60th of June, part of a 16-4, six-homer demolition of the Miami Marlins. Acuna would hit one final home run in this game as the Braves finished off one of the greatest offensive months in MLB history, hitting .306/.371/.569 with 61 home runs. In fact, here's the list of teams who hit .300 with 60 home runs in a calendar month:
1. 2023 Atlanta Braves (June)
That's it. One team.
Here's the list of teams who hit .300 with 50 home runs in a calendar month:
1. 2023 Atlanta Braves
2. 2000 St. Louis Cardinals (.301, 55 HRs in April)
That's it. Two teams.
After an impressive four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies at home in mid-June in which the Braves scored 40 runs, Michael Harris II summed up the Braves' demolition derby this way: "We're not getting too many wall-scrapers. Those count too. When you hit it 460, those count the same, but I guess you get some cool points for hitting it a little further."
Hit it far, hit it often. This was when talk began about the Braves boasting an all-time great lineup. Murphy has been a key part of it, especially in the first half when he hit .306 with 17 home runs (he's slowed down to under .200 with three home runs in the second half). Murphy came over from the A's in a three-team deal in December in which the Braves sent William Contreras to the Milwaukee Brewers and pitching prospects Kyle Muller and Freddy Tarnok to Oakland. Murphy soon signed a six-year, $73 million extension, repeating the trade-and-extension coup that president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos had pulled off with Olson. Other than Contreras, it doesn't really look like the Braves gave up any players of major significance. These are the types of transactions a general manager hopes to make once in a decade -- and Anthopoulos did it in consecutive years.
It was a surprising trade given that Braves catchers led the majors in home runs (35) and OPS (.869) in 2022. The Braves desired the defensive upgrade Murphy would provide -- but they've hardly suffered at the plate, as their catchers once again lead the majors in home runs (31) while also leading in RBIs (100) and runs (102) and ranking second in OPS. Indeed, they hardly have a weak position. Here are their MLB-wide rankings in OPS at each position:
Catcher: Second
First base: First
Second base: Fifth
Third base: First
Shortstop: 11th
Left field: 14th
Center field: Fifth
Right field: First
Designated hitter: Fourth
If by "greatest lineup ever" you mean deepest lineup, then the Braves certainly have a strong argument. Their No. 9 hitters -- Harris has hit there the most -- are batting just under .300 with 18 home runs. Mike Petriello of MLB.com had a creative way to look at the Braves' depth. Back in early August, he looked at the percentage of plate appearances given to players with a wRC+ (weighted runs created) below 95 -- or what he labeled non-productive hitters (100 is average, so below 95 is slightly below average). Since 1920, these were the lowest figures:
1. 1984 Detroit Tigers: 5%
2. 2023 Atlanta Braves: 8%
3. 2003 Boston Red Sox: 10%
3. 1937 Chicago Cubs: 10%
3. 1985 Baltimore Orioles: 10%
That percentage has since climbed to 13.8% (mostly because d'Arnaud has also slumped in the second half and fallen into the non-productive category). Still, thanks to the fact that Olson has played every game, Acuna hadn't missed a game until Saturday and Riley hadn't missed a game until last week when he missed a couple while sick, the Braves haven't had to use their bench too often.
No. 228, Aug. 14: Austin Riley, 369 feet to right field off Clarke Schmidt at Truist Park
Lost in the dust of Acuna's all-worldliness and Olson's towering shots is the underrated, often-overlooked Riley, the team's third star player. He's hitting .277 with 36 home runs after swatting 33 in 2021 and 38 in 2022 (and finishing in the top 10 of the MVP voting both seasons). He started off somewhat slow with an OPS under .800 the first two months, but heated up in June and joins Olson and Kyle Schwarber as the only players with 20 home runs since the All-Star break.
This home run off Schmidt was a rather pedestrian opposite-field shot, part of an eight-run explosion against the Yankees in the first three innings. Schmidt had entered the game allowing three runs or fewer in 14 consecutive starts but allowed all eight runs and came away a little awed by the Atlanta lineup. "I faced the Rangers twice, Baltimore and Boston twice," Schmidt said after the game, but the Braves "were far above and beyond those teams."
Riley's opposite-field blast showcases another aspect that makes the Braves so dangerous: They can spray their home runs around. They've pulled around 59% of their home runs, but that percentage ranks near the bottom of the majors; they've gone the opposite way approximately 15% of the time, which is in the top 10. Riley is symbolic of this: He's pulled 17 home runs, hit 12 to the center-field area and seven to the opposite field.
After going 21-4 in June, the Braves would go 21-8 in August -- just missing another .300/50-homer month as they hit .299 with 53 home runs. "Right now, they're the class of the league," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Clearly, that's where you want to be."
And they're a good bet to put up a lot more crooked numbers in the future: Riley is signed through 2033, Harris through 2032, Olson through 2030, Murphy through 2029, Acuna through 2028 and Albies through 2027.
No. 281, Sept. 12: Marcell Ozuna, 401 feet to left-center off Zack Wheeler at Citizens Bank
Earlier in the game, Olson homered off Wheeler to tie the 2019 Dodgers for the National League record of 279 home runs. Then Acuna broke it. And then Ozuna hit the third home run off Wheeler -- who hadn't allowed three home runs in a game since April 21, a span of 82 starts. The Braves would win the game 7-6 in 10 innings. They're 7-3 against the Phillies in 2023, averaging 5.9 runs per game against them.
Wheeler tried to explain what happened. "Olson, we pitched him away the first at-bat," he said. "And then he just got to that one. That might have been the cause of that. Same thing with Ozuna. I think we finished him with a bunch of high heaters in and so, then the next at-bat, he was on that. And then I just hung the curveball to ... what's his name? Acuna?"
Ozuna is up to 35 home runs, hitting .266/.338/.531 -- after struggling in both 2021 and 2022 and then getting off to such a horrendous start in April (.085) that there was talk the Braves would release him, even though he had another year on his contract. Braves beat writers speculated that with Harris and d'Arnaud on the injured list at the time, Ozuna might be let go when they returned. Then Ozuna hit two home runs May 3, another the next day, another May 6 and wound up hitting .297 with nine home runs in May. Now he's the No. 5 hitter.
So, is this the greatest lineup of all time?
Let's start with FanGraphs' wRC+ -- keep in mind this stat adjusts for the league offensive environment and home park. By this, the Braves are tied with those famed 1927 Yankees for the top spot:
1. 2023 Atlanta Braves: 125
1. 1927 New York Yankees: 125
3. 2019 Houston Astros: 124
3. 1931 New York Yankees: 124
5. 1930 New York Yankees: 123
For comparison, some other famous lineups from recent decades:
1976 Cincinnati Reds: 120
1982 Milwaukee Brewers: 120
2003 Boston Red Sox: 120
1997/2001 Seattle Mariners: 117
1995 Cleveland Indians: 115
There's one hitch here, however: For much of major league and especially NL history, pitchers had to hit. The Braves have the advantage -- like those 2019 Astros or 2003 Red Sox did -- of a designated hitter. I'm not sure we should remove pitching from the equation -- they are part of the lineup, after all -- but if we did, the best wRC+ offenses look like this:
1. 1927 New York Yankees: 134
2. 1931 New York Yankees: 132
3. 1930 New York Yankees: 131
4. 1976 Cincinnati Reds: 130
5. 1932 New York Yankees: 127
OK, we get it: Ruth and Gehrig were good. The Braves now come in tied for 10th with the 2019 Astros at 125 -- an impressive showing considering the 1976 Reds and 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers are the only other post-integration teams in the top 10.
One thing to consider is the Braves have actually underperformed their expected runs scored. Via Baseball-Reference, they've created 895 runs and scored 863 through Saturday, which is a reason they've scored just 27 more runs than the Dodgers, the No. 2 team in runs, even though they've hit 57 more home runs and have an 18-point advantage in batting average. Ultimately, the name of the game is to score runs, not just hit home runs, and the Braves' lead in that department isn't as impressive as you would think.
But that can be a tricky way to look at things. The Astros didn't even lead the majors in runs in 2019 despite their high wRC+ -- their underperformed runs created total even more than the Braves, by a whopping 84 runs. (It could be that the formulas break down a little in this era of lower batting averages and more home runs; by default, there are going to be more solo home runs.)
The other day, I heard former Braves great Tom Glavine say the Cleveland lineup of 1995, featuring Albert Belle, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez and three others who hit .300, was the best he ever faced. That team did average 5.83 runs per game -- the same as the Braves. But the Atlanta offense is clearly better; the American League averaged 5.06 runs per game in 1995; the MLB average in 2023 is 4.63. Compared to the league average, the Braves are more impressive; that's why their wRC+ is higher.
As for the 1927 Yankees, even leaving aside the caliber of competition, they had two regulars with wRC+ totals of 83 and 80, plus a weak bench. It wasn't just Ruth and Gehrig -- but it was Ruth and Gehrig that made them historic. If you prefer depth, the 1927 Yankees are out, and I'm inclined to favor the Braves.
The Big Machine of 1976 offers up a good debate. All eight regulars had a wRC+ above 100. They averaged 5.29 runs per game -- with pitchers hitting -- in a league that averaged just 3.98. They scored 87 more runs than the No. 2 team. They did it even though Johnny Bench had an off year (.234, 16 home runs).
If we did a player versus player matchup, the Reds get the edge at catcher (Bench), second base (Joe Morgan) and left field (George Foster). The Braves get the edge at first base (Olson over Tony Perez), center field (Harris over Cesar Geronimo, who had a career year) and right field (Acuna over Ken Griffey Jr.). The toss-ups are shortstop (Dave Concepcion and Arcia both have a 105 wRC+) and third base (Pete Rose at 144, Riley at 126). It looks like one through eight, maybe the Reds rate the edge.
But one through nine? Maybe the Braves do have the greatest lineup ever.