Five reasons the Atlanta Braves will take out the Reds

4. The Braves have no such holes in their lineup.

In September, the Atlanta Braves had seven hitters with a Runs Created metric (wRC+) of 110 or better.  Six of them were at 137 or better.

That’s 10% (or 37%) better than the average major league hitter.  It’s hard to over-emphasize how good that is.

All of these homered at least 5 times in the month.  One of them was the NL Player of the Month and likely league MVP.  Yet he didn’t even lead the team in September RBIs.

Those that didn’t make that mark?  Austin Riley and Nick Markakis.  If you’re an opposing pitcher, it’s hard to look at even this pair and assume you can find easier outs with them:  Markakis will fight every pitch you throw and Riley is just waiting for a mistake pitch to crush.

Neither of them hit 20% strikeout rates, either.

So there’s danger at every turn in this Braves lineup:  somebody is going to hammer the baseball — even if you manage to get by a couple of them at a time.

3. The Braves have had multiple days to heal up and prepare

Ronald Acuna’s wrist was sore again… but he’s been given three days off.  Same for Austin Riley and his quad.

Swanson was heating up again over the past week (.346 average, .769 slugging).  Ditto for Marcell Ozuna, who was even hotter.

Don’t discount the fact that while in quarantine, this team has had nothing to do but watch game film and play video games over these two days off.

While it’s probably been more of the latter, you can bet that Kevin Seitzer is prepping his squad to know exactly what to expect from Bauer & Company.  Expect a very disciplined team with a strong game plan at the plate once this series begins.