Moved to Left & Moving Up
The Braves are SURGING, having won their last eleven games. They’ve cut the Mets divisional lead to 5.5 games (as of Sunday) & have moved into a National League Wildcard spot 0.5 games ahead of Milwaukee.
Over the last fifteen days Atlanta has the best offense in baseball, with 89 runs scored; tied with the Yankees & Blue Jays. Other offensive statistical ranks for Atlanta over that same timeframe: HR-2nd, OPS-3rd, AVG-3rd, RBI-2nd, H-2nd, OBP-6th, & SLG-3rd.
The Braves pitching staff as a whole is also ranked in the top-10 in almost every statistical category.
While the recent offensive explosion is due to the usual suspects maintaining their level of play plus Ozzie coming on of late, it cannot be ignored the offensive impact it has made on Adam Duvall to shift defensively from Center to Left.
Adam Duvall is a corner outfielder, there may have been a time in his career where he would’ve been able to play CF without a tangible offensive regression, but those days are over. His legs have too many miles on them to be sprinting a hundred yards a half inning & then turn around and try to drive the ball against the best pitching MLB has ever had. His legs don’t recover as fast as they used to.
Michael Harris II’s promotion to the big league club was for Adam Duvall as much as it was for Harris.
Duvall has responded just as I predicted for weeks; hitting .273 with a .932 OPS, while hitting four home runs, knocking in eight runs, & scoring ten himself. My man is on fire. Left Field for the Atlanta Braves is Adam Duvall’s spot until he hangs up his cleats.