Braves/Nats "Statcast Superlatives": Matt Olson's insane exit velos
One thing we knew about this Atlanta Braves team coming in is they had the potential to hit the baseball extremely hard, and we saw that -- for the most part -- during the first series of the year.
Matt Olson had an amazing Spring Training and was constantly putting balls into orbit.
That continued in the Nationals series where he had a double and 2 home runs.
The 2 home runs he hit in Saturday's game both had an exit velocity of 111 MPH.
However, that was not the hardest hit ball he had on the weekend as he had a single on Thursday that was clocked at 113 MPH for a single.
Those three hits by Olson were the hardest hit balls during the Braves-Nationals series.
The next closest was Ronald Acuña Jr. who hit a ball 110 MPH for a fielders choice groundout on Thursday.
Speaking of Acuña, something we'll be keeping track of all year is the launch angle.
Last year we saw his average launch angle drop from 18.2 degrees in 2021 to 10.8 degrees in 2022. That had a lot to do with the lack of home runs for Acuna who still continued to hit the ball really hard.
It's a short sample size, but the average launch angle on the 10 balls he put in play over the weekend was 16.9 degrees.
His average exit velocity of 95 MPH and HardHit% of 63.6 percent is also insane.
Another thing to keep an eye on with Acuña is his walk rate, which took a significant dip in 2022. Again, small sample size, but he took a pair of walks on Sunday and only struck out twice over the three-game series.
Travis d'Arnaud was a big standout offensively for the Braves in this series and showed you can get it done in multiple ways, as he had an average exit velocity of 87.9 MPH and only had 3 hard-hit balls, but walked away with 6 hits on the weekend.
There wasn't a lot to get excited about in Sunday's game, but Sean Murphy showed is value with an absolute dart to second base with a ridiculous pop time of 1.86 seconds.
Max Fried only threw 43 pitches on Opening Day before exiting, but the Nationals put 11 balls in play against him with only three of them registering as a hard hit (95 MPH or higher).
The other nine balls put in play were all hit 90.5 MPH or slower as Fried is the best at creating weak contact.
Spencer Strider was his typical dominant self on Saturday with 9 strikeouts in 6 innings.
Of the 96 pitches he threw, 90 of them were either a 4-seam fastball or slider.
The other six pitches were all change-ups and were highly effective with 3 whiffs and 1 called strike.
Nick Anderson was impressive in his debut with the Braves getting 3 whiffs on 5 swings against his curveball in a scoreless inning.
I know it wasn't the debut Jared Shuster was hoping for, but you saw signs of why that change-up is so good, with 5 whiffs on 13 swings and an average exit velocity of just 79.3 MPH on the seven change-ups that were put in play.
It was a highly entertaining first series for the Braves as some of their brightest stars showed why their some of the best in the world. Now it's on to St. Louis where the competition starts to pick up.
Engage with Braves Today on Socials!
Follow Braves Today on Twitter!
Like Braves Today on Facebook!