OPINION / BRAVES
On Saturday night at Truist Park, Tyler Rogers was mowing through the Braves. With his submarine delivery, the Giants reliever needed seven pitches to get through the bottom of the seventh inning as the Braves tried to rally from a 5-4 deficit.
In the bottom of the eighth, Austin Riley struck out and Matt Olson grounded to third. The Braves’ supply of outs was down to four. Marcell Ozuna battled back from a 1-2 count to hit a line-drive single to center. And on the first pitch of the next at-bat, Eddie Rosario launched a sinker into the water feature beyond the center-field wall, a 441-foot blast for an indelible moment in an unforgettable season.
Before Rosario’s blast, left-handed batters were 14-for-90 against Rogers this season, with no home runs. But, in this Braves season, it almost seemed no matter.
Said Hall of Famer Tom Glavine on the Bally broadcast, “I’m not the least bit surprised. You just wonder who’s it going to be.”
But the person whose mind should have been the least boggled by the unlikelihood playing out in front of him was, in fact, quite overwhelmed. Braves hitting coach Kevin Seitzer watched it happen from his usual spot just to the right of the dugout steps. As electricity coursed throughout the park, he turned to bench coach Walt Weiss.
“(Rosario) is almost ready to touch the plate, and I said, ‘I’ve got goose bumps all over my legs still,’” Seitzer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
If anyone should come to expect the Braves to spring yet another first-inning ambush, it should be Seitzer. He’s the one prepping players in the batting cages before the game, supplying them with a detailed report on the opposing starting pitcher.
When Matt Olson launches another bomb in his pursuit of 50 – or even 60 – home runs, Seitzer’s eyebrows should be the least likely to be raised. Who knows better Olson’s capabilities at the plate than him? In June, it was Seitzer who helped Olson find his way out of a strikeout funk and settle into a groove worthy of MVP candidacy.
However, Seitzer has been left to shake his head at how this historically productive offense continues to mash home runs, generate rallies and throttle opposing pitchers.
“Pretty much every time,” Seitzer said Tuesday afternoon in the home dugout at Truist Park. “’I can’t believe that.’ “Oh, my gosh.’ ‘That was unbelievable.’”
He can’t say he saw foreshadowing of a team that, after Tuesday’s 3-2 win over the Mets, remained on pace to set a major-league record with 309 home runs for the season.
“Honestly, it’s probably gone better than I could have hoped for,” he said.
The Braves’ batting mastery has taken on the feel of inevitability. Going into Wednesday’s games, they led the majors in runs, home runs, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS. Should their slugging percentage remain at .499 through the end of the season, it would be the highest team rate since 1928.
But Seitzer recognizes the degree of difficulty that the Braves are managing, and he knows better than almost anyone. In a 12-year career in the majors, he had a career .295 batting average, twice was an All-Star and once co-led the American League in hits, but he also was released twice in his career, once on his 30th birthday.
“This game’s hard,” Seitzer said in June. “The pitching’s nasty. It’s so much better than back when I played. It’s just unbelievable.”
He relies on positivity and simplicity to come to players’ aid. From his playing experiences, he found that the best coaches were the ones who could lift him up. It was an approach he first brought to an indoor baseball facility that he and former Royals teammate Mike Macfarlane ran together in Kansas City, Missouri.
“You always try and find good in whatever was going on,” Seitzer said. “And I knew how bad I could feel when things were going bad, and I didn’t just need somebody to focus on everything that was going bad. I needed somebody to try to breathe some life in me, get me turned around. And I guess that’s how I handled it when I had a business. That’s how I handled coaching.”
Making things easy to grasp has been another pillar, one first formed at Mac N Seitz Baseball. After going back into coaching, he found the same principles taught in drills, and adjustments to youth players didn’t change with professionals.
“Because you have to simplify things for kids to get it,” he said. “Well, these guys don’t want complicated either. They want simple. So it worked really good.”
Riley can testify.
“When things aren’t going well, I like to dissect every little things, when typically I’m not that far off,” he told the AJC. “So it’s just keeping that simple mindset, game plan and then kind of letting the game come to me.”
When Ozuna was in a horrific early-season slump, Seitzer tried to keep his thinking positive.
“Earlier in the season, I was worried too much about hitting, and he said, ‘Hey, go play your game and relax your mind and look for a pitch you can hit,’” Ozuna said Tuesday. “And that’s it.”
It worked?
“Yeah.”
Seitzer’s wheels never stop turning. Even as smoothly as the Braves juggernaut continues to churn out wins, no lineup ever is completely locked in. It’s like a parent having three kids who are doing fine, but the fourth one is who occupies your worries.
“That’s 100% right on,” Seitzer said. “It’s like you want them all to do good, and you want to keep them doing good, but they’re all different.”
Someone always needs to be fixed, looking for a solution or a pat on the back. Though this year, far less often.
“I want them to do good, and I want to win ballgames and give us a shot to get to the postseason and see where it goes,” Seitzer said. “Hopefully win another World Series. It’s great being part of it. I’m just a small piece here. It’s pretty awesome.”
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
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