ATLANTA — When Marcell Ozuna started aiming high a few weeks ago, just trying to hit home runs, the home runs stopped for the Atlanta Braves slugger.
Now that he’s refocused on hitting rather than trying to drive balls into the stands, the long balls have returned for Ozuna, who hit a three-run home run in the eighth inning of Friday’s 8-6 series-opening loss to the Philadelphia Phillies and a two-run home run in the first inning of the Braves’ 5-1 victory Saturday at Truist Park.
Braves rookie Spencer Schwellenbach homered off presumptive All-Star Ranger Suarez, and Ozzie Albies added a home run and three RBIs on a night when legendary former Braves manager Bobby Cox made a rare appearance at the stadium and met with the team before the game.
“He’s incredible,” Ozuna said of Cox, 83, who had attended only one other Braves game since suffering a massive stroke in April 2019. “I’ve never met him, this is the first time, and I felt like I was shaking a little bit. I don’t know if he knows me, but it was really cool to meet one of these legends.”
Hours before the game, Ozuna explained to The Athletic what he had done and why, recently changing his approach in a failed attempt to hit more home runs.
He made no excuses but said he realised a few days ago how counterproductive it was not only to aim high but to change the pre-match regimen he used during an extraordinary nearly 200-game strike surge dating back to early May 2023.
Ozuna said he didn’t do it for selfish reasons, but simply to see if he could hit 30 home runs before the break. Other key hitters on the Braves team were injured or had struggled for much of the season, and Atlanta was falling further and further behind the Phillies. So he figured he could make a difference by hitting home runs even more frequently than he had since the start of last season. (Hey, he admits he didn’t really think about it.)
“Yeah, I was scared to win, so I tried to be a hero,” said Ozuna, who reclaimed the National League lead in RBIs with five in the last two games, raising his total to 72.
“But if you look at the last month, I’ve left a lot of runners on base with less than two outs,” he said. “Because I’ve tried to get them all in, instead of just one. You should take one, not try to get them all in. When you try to get them all in, you don’t get any.”
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He is second in the National League in home runs with 23 in 87 games, after finishing with 40 homers and 100 RBIs in 144 games last season, when all but two of those homers and RBIs came in 126 games after May 1.
After his dreadful April last season, Ozuna didn’t experience a significant drop-off from early May 2023 through mid-June of this season. He then had 10 hits in 60 at-bats (.167) with one home run, five RBIs, 21 strikeouts and a .563 OPS in 17 games through Thursday.
“I hadn’t done anything (before the game) since the series against the Yankees,” said Ozuna, who stopped working in the batting cage before games, thinking it might help him get stronger in his at-bats. “I didn’t realize I was down, down, down. Before (Friday’s game), I realized it and I told myself, forget what you’re doing and go back to my normal job. Don’t try to do too much and just put the ball in play. That’s it.”
When he tries to hit home runs, Ozuna says, “It’s not happening. I was too late (with the swing). I wasn’t working on my mechanics, I was working on (pitch) selection. So now I was guessing. I was like, ‘OK, if he’s going to throw that, I’m going to kick your ass,’ and then …”
Here, Ozuna demonstrated how a pitcher could throw a different pitch than he intended, resulting in a swing-and-miss. He said that before that series against the Phillies, he realized that chasing home runs had backfired.
Braves hitting coaches Kevin Seitzer and Bobby Magallanes were happy to hear he understood it was a mistake to change his approach and stop his pregame ritual of hitting baseballs thrown to him in the indoor batting cage, then hitting balls with a pitching machine, then taking hitting practice outdoors. He’s back to that three-step routine now.
“I told Mags and Seitzer, ‘I haven’t done it in a while, so I’m going back to my plan,’” Ozuna said. “And then (Friday), I kept the ball in the air and didn’t strike out, so that’s a good sign. So I was like, OK. And then the last at-bat happens.”
It was his eighth at-bat Friday against Phillies left-handed flamethrower Jose Alvarado, when Ozuna hit a 98-mph sinker 409 feet the other way to right-center field for a three-run home run.
“Alvarado is a good pitcher who throws hard, he has good skills,” Ozuna said. “Every time I face him, he gets struck out or grounded out, or he can get hit off the end of the bat to someone. Yesterday, I had him good. He made a mistake and he paid for it.”
Braves manager Brian Snitker said: “It was a good at-bat. Because I know (Phillies starting pitcher Aaron) Nola was throwing him a lot of breaking balls, and you know you’re going to get some hard hits from Alvarado. So it was a good at-bat for him.”
Ozuna didn’t try to hit a home run against Alvarado, and he hit one. And in his next at-bat — the first inning Saturday — he hit another one. It was against the left-handed Suarez, who came in with a 10-2 record, a 2.27 ERA and three home runs allowed in his last 10 starts.
Jarred Kelenic doubled in the top of the first inning and Albies hit an RBI single before Suarez retired Austin Riley and Matt Olson, both in batting position. Ozuna stepped in, whom Snitker had pushed back to fifth on Friday after hitting third since mid-May. Riley moved back to third after hitting fifth since mid-June.
Suarez threw a first-pitch curveball below the strike zone, and Ozuna sent it 414 feet straight to center field to give the Braves and Schwellenbach a 3-0 lead.
“It looked like a really good throw,” Snitker said. “He went and got it. It kind of got us going. And Ozzie had a really good night.”
Schwellenbach (2-4) worked six clean innings – 60 strikeouts on 81 pitches – and allowed seven hits, one run and no walks with six strikeouts.
“He did a good job tonight,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “He hammered the zone and worked fast. His breaking ball — whatever you want to call it, slider/slurve/curveball — was really good. He played fastball. I thought he did good. He was impressive tonight.”
It was the best of Schwellenbach’s seven MLB starts, against rivals and leaders of the National League East. Ozuna played a big role in allowing the young right-hander to relax and pitch with a lead.
“It’s always nice to pitch with the advantage,” Schwellenbach said. “That’s something I’ve seen (Ozuna) do over and over since I’ve been here. He’s a good leader. He always has a smile on his face, and when he goes 0-for-3, it’s not like he’s pouting in the dugout. When he goes up for the fourth at-bat, it’s like he’s saying, ‘I’m not going out again,’ and people feel that.”
Albies added a two-run home run in the fifth, the first time this season Suarez has given up more than one home run.
Ozuna hit home runs on consecutive pitches Friday and Saturday, driving in five runs to reclaim the league lead in RBIs and restore order after his two-week misadventure on the guessing-and-swinging highway.
He now looked like the versatile hitting machine he was from May 2, 2023, through June 15, a span of nearly 13 1/2 months in which Ozuna led the major leagues with 58 homers and 160 RBIs, and did so while hitting .308 (fifth among MLB qualifiers) with a .987 OPS that trailed only Aaron Judge (1.088), Shohei Ohtani (1.045) and Juan Soto (.988).
After three hits over the last two nights — a double and two homers — Ozuna has lowered his average to .298 and his OPS to .950.
“When you’re trying to guess and hit home runs, you’re going to strike out more no matter what. Because you’re not trying to hit one hit, you’re trying to hit home runs,” said Ozuna, who has struck out once in the last two games. “Now I’m going to get back to .300. It’s good when you see your numbers and you’re hitting .300. You’re not trying to do too much.”
He stopped, smiled and said, “When you hit 40 home runs and you hit .180…that’s not me.”
(Photo: Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
