Kelly Johnson was a feel-good story at spring training, a long-ago “Baby Brave” back for a second stint with the team, now a 33-year-old father of three and a non-roster invitee who signed a minor league contract in late January. He’d become a left-handed bat for hire, hoping to win a roster spot as a bench player.
Now look at him. Johnson had a team-high five homers in 61 at-bats and was second on the team in RBIs (13) and slugging percentage (.525) entering Tuesday night’s game against the Phillies, when he made his 17th start.
“That’s incredible,” said Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman, who had one fewer RBI and one fewer homer than Johnson in 38 more at-bats (99) before Tuesday. “He went from having to win a job in spring training (t0) now we can’t have him out of the lineup. It’s awesome. It’s good to see a guy who lives in Atlanta come back to Atlanta and have such success.
Of the nine National League hitters with more more homers than Johnson before Tuesday, all had at least 74 at-bats and six had at least 90 at-bats.
“He’s right in the middle of our lineup now, leading the way,” Freeman said. “I’m just so happy for him. A guy works that hard just to get on a team, let alone now he’s in the starting lineup all the time and we’ve got to find a spot for him. That’s pretty cool.”
Johnson has started 11 games in left field, two in right field, and Wednesday marked his fourth start at third base. He batted sixth, the 13th time he was in either the fourth, fifth or sixth spot in the order.
The increased playing time and prominent spot in the lineup are sure to continue as long as he remains as productive as he’s been in recent weeks. Two of Johnson’s past three hits were home runs, leaving him two hits shy of the 1,000 for his 10-year career. He homered Sunday against Cincinnati and had a game-winning, two-run homer Friday against the Reds.
After batting just .219 with six homers and a .677 on-base-plus-slugging percentage last season in 226 plate appearances with the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles, Johnson had a .246 average and .817 OPS Johnson in 65 plate appearances with the Braves before Wednesday. And in his past 10 games, he was 10-for-34 (.294) with three homers and 11 RBIs.
His short, compact stroke has been a thing of beauty during that hot stretch, with Johnson looking much as he did when he first came up with the Braves, and venerable former manager Bobby Cox lauded his smooth swing and approach at the plate.
“Like I was saying in the spring, it’s the stuff that Seitz preaches,” Johnson said, referring to Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, who is in his first season with the Braves after a successful stint with the Blue Jays in 2014. “Staying on top of it, trying to be a consistent as you can, not deviate — good or bad, just keep working.”
Johnson said he’s benefited “big time” from following Seitzer’s tenets — hit the ball up the middle, shorten your swing with two strikes, put the ball in play with runners on base — along with the hitting coach’s persistence and attention to detail.
“He’s so big on not trying to do too much, stay in the middle — all the stuff he says, just BP and the approach and having all that kind of take care of some stuff and clean stuff up,” Johnson said. “For me personally, I think sometimes you turn up the knob a little bit and try to do too much, or maybe you get going and you feel pretty good and you keep trying to do better and better, and hit the ball farther and farther, or whatever, instead of just continuing to do the same thing and let the results take care of themselves.”
