NEW YORK – The Braves have never used more players than this season, and rarely have they hit fewer home runs.
When reliever Dan Winkler made his major league debut Monday, he was the 60th played used by the Braves, who became just the second major league team to use as many as 60 in a single season. They joined the 2014 Texas Rangers, who used a record 64.
The Braves have already used 20 percent more players than they did in their previous franchise record of 50 in 2007.
Winkler was the 13th pitcher to make his major league debut this season, tied with the Yankees (also this season) for the most in a full century, since the 1915 Philadelphia Athletics had 21 pitchers make their MLB debuts.
Meanwhile, the Braves had a major league-low 88 home runs in 151 games before Tuesday, and would need 12 homers in their final 11 games to avoid becoming the first Braves team to have fewer than 100 homers in a season since the 1988 team hit 96.
Considering the Braves had only five homers in 20 September games before Tuesday, it’s likely they’ll finish not only with fewer than 100, but with fewer than the 96 homers hit by the ’88 team.
The only Braves with more than eight homers before Tuesday were Freddie Freeman, whose team-high 16 homers before Tuesday were still two fewer than the career-low total he had in 2014, and Cameron Maybin, who had a career-high 10 homers before Tuesday.
Nick Markakis, who hit 141 homers in nine seasons with the Orioles through 2014, including at least 10 every season, had two homers before Tuesday. He and the Braves attribute his dropoff in large part to having missed an entire offseason of strength work after major neck surgery in December.
Markakis’ home-run rate of one every 287 at-bats before Tuesday was the lowest among major league qualifiers, and Braves teammate Andrelton Simmons’ rate of one every 166 at-bats was fourth-lowest among NL qualifiers.
