MILWAUKEE – Freddie Freeman has been arguably the best hitter in baseball over the past 12 months, and the first baseman is getting plenty of support up and down the Braves’ lineup since the team’s slow start.
Much like the second half of last season, when the Braves went from being the worst offense in the National League to one of the best, they’ve rebounded from a disappointing early stretch this season and gone on a recent tear that featured key contributions from most hitters — and raised the team’s overall statistics closer to what was expected.
The Braves hit .350 with 36 runs, 12 doubles and six homers during a four-game winning streak before Sunday, which moved the team to fifth in the majors in batting average (.256) and ninth in OPS (.747). They were 11th in on-base percentage (.326) and 10th in slugging percentage (.421) behind the Cubs (.422) and Astros (.423).
“People are starting to go right now — that’s a good sign,” said Braves left fielder Matt Kemp, who had three home runs Saturday as the Braves increased their total to 26 homers, tied with the Dodgers and Marlins for 18th in the majors before Sunday and one homer behind the Cubs.
In their 11-3 win Saturday the Braves had 20 hits, their highest single-game total since getting 21 in a 2008 game against the Marlins.
“Some guys have started off pretty slow, but guys are working their butts off trying to get everything going,” said Kemp, whose three-homer game was the first of his career and first by a Brave since Mark Teixeira in 2008. “One through nine, even the pitchers, we’ve got some great hitters.
“Some guys start off slow, some start off fast. But hopefully coming up now everybody starts clicking.”
Freeman has, of course, been clicking for quite some time. All of this season and for roughly the last four months of the 2016 season.
Freeman’s 1.036 OPS over the past 365 days before Sunday was the major league leader ahead of Mike Trout (1.031) and Joey Votto (1.027), and his .620 slugging percentage in that span put Freeman a full 25 points higher than the next-best, Daniel Murphy’s .595. Freeman raised those stats again Sunday with his ninth home run of the season.
In that 12-month span before Sunday, Freeman hit .319 (188-for-589) with a majors-leading 92 extra-base hits including 46 doubles, seven triples, 39 homers – sixth in the majors, ahead of Nolan Arenado (38) and Kris Bryant (38) — 97 RBIs and a .416 on-base percentage (tied for fourth).
He was tied with Miguel Cabrera for ninth in batting average, just ahead of Cory Seager (.318). Freeman also tied Anthony Rizzo for third-most doubles in that span and tied Trout and seven others for 12th-most triples.
Meanwhile, Kemp’s 104 RBIs in the past 365 days before Sunday were tied for 12th in the majors with Votto and Christian Yelich, and Kemp’s 34 home runs were tied for 18th in that span, one more than had been hit by four others including former Braves Justin Upton and Evan Gattis.
The Braves had two players ranked among the majors’ top 10 this season in batting average before Sunday in Freeman (.383) and Brandon Phillips (.347); Matt Kemp was hitting .327 with six homers and 15 RBIs in just 12 games, and if catcher Tyler Flowers (.391) had about a dozen more plate appearances (to meet the minimum qualifying standard) his average would’ve been the second-highest in the big leagues before Sunday.
Braves manager Brian Snitker said the message to the team’s hitters during their sluggish start was a simple one.
“Grind away because you know it’s in there,” he said. “(The slow start was) just baseball. We get stretched out, play some consistent games, these guys get those every-day at-bats and then they start doing what they’re capable of doing.”
