CHICAGO \u2014 For most of the season, Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies has resided in the heart of manager Walt Weiss\u2019 lineup. But after 151 games and a recent stretch of struggles for Albies, Weiss made a change Tuesday, dropping him to eighth for the first time this season in hopes that a change of scenery would alleviate some of the pressure.<\/p>\n
By the seventh inning, Weiss looked like an oracle.<\/p>\n
Albies crushed an 85.1 mph changeup from Chicago Cubs reliever Jacob Webb, sending it 396 feet into right-center field for a two-run homer that gave the Braves the lead in their 6-3 victory. Two innings later, Albies singled and scored on Drake Baldwin\u2019s 24th home run of the season.<\/p>\n
It was only one game. But for the Braves, Albies\u2019 production came at an important time as they moved closer to clinching a postseason berth. Entering Tuesday 7-for-53 over his previous 14 games, Albies reminded the Braves of the impact his swing can have \u2014 something Atlanta has become all too familiar with over his nine-plus years in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was an All-Star this year, so we all know what type of player he is,\u201d Baldwin said. \u201cHim doing what he did today was huge and definitely changed the momentum there and got us back in that game. It\u2019s fun to see. He\u2019s the same guy every day, so we\u2019re all rooting for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wrigley Field could not have provided a more appropriate setting for Albies to begin turning his fortunes around.<\/p>\n
After his two-hit game, Albies is batting .376 with eight home runs, 19 runs and 19 RBIs at Wrigley Field. His batting average ranks among the second-highest in the ballpark\u2019s history for hitters with at least 100 plate appearances, trailing Eddie Murray. And against the Cubs, Albies has a career .358\/.410\/.642 slash line.<\/p>\n
The Cubs could be waiting for the Braves in October. But regardless of the opponent, Atlanta will need the version of Albies that showed up Tuesday if it wants to make a deep postseason run.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully this is the night that (I) keep it going all the way,\u201d Albies said. \u201cSo it definitely felt great.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if Albies\u2019 career has shown anything, it\u2019s that he has a knack for rising to the moment.<\/p>\n
His career has been built, in part, on defying expectations. The industry questioned whether his smaller frame would limit his potential. The Braves didn\u2019t. Instead, they invested in his development and watched him become the 15th player born in Cura\u00e7ao to make his MLB debut.<\/p>\n
Tuesday offered another reminder of what Albies can do when his swing is right. But it also showed what the Braves\u2019 offense can look like when several of their most important pieces are clicking at the same time.<\/p>\n
Albies\u2019 close friend Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. also slugged a two-run homer, his 18th of the season. The performance provided a bit of nostalgia for the longtime friends, who reminisced about those early days in 2018 and 2019 when they burst onto the scene, many times homering on the same night, not yet knowing they would eventually win a World Series together.<\/p>\n
For one night, the Braves\u2019 biggest bats looked like the group they envisioned as the season began. And when those pieces click together, the Braves know how different their offense can look.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Albies) has obviously been really impactful for us for several years now,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cAnd we got several of those guys that when they get going and swing the bat, we\u2019ve seen our offense be the best in the game, and we\u2019ve seen it struggle. But we know it\u2019s in there because we did it for a couple of months (when) we were one of the best offenses in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 For most of the season, Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies has resided in the heart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2111,363,99],"class_list":["post-849767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}