Atlanta Braves Notebook: Max Fried’s Rhythm, Jarred Kelenic’s “Solid” Year

DENVER — Needing some kind of spark to snap a six-game losing streak, the Atlanta Braves found their power in a big way on Saturday night in Denver.

Matt Olson hit two home runs and drove in a career-high-tying six runs as part of an offensive explosion that carried the Braves to an 11-8 win over the Colorado Rockies.

While Olson had two homers on the night, Marcell Ozuna added his 35th home run of the season (tying him with Shohei Ohtani for the National League lead) and Jorge Soler added his second home run in as many nights to pace the offense.

“We haven’t gotten hot yet. You never know when it’s going to happen,” Olson said of the Braves, who are now just 15-19 in July and August. “We show up every day with the mindset that it’s going to start today. It hasn’t been the stretch that we wanted as of late, but it was a good game today. Now we’ll see if we get hot at the right time.”

After relief pitcher A.J. Minter discussed the need after Friday night’s loss for the Braves as a whole to “embrace the suck,” Atlanta’s back end of the bullpen was the key to Saturday’s win. Starting pitcher Max Fried and reliever Aaron Bummer gave up all eight Colorado runs in the first 5.2 innings of the game, but three different relievers shut the Rockies down from there, allowing just one hit and no walks over the final 3.1 innings.

“It’s a good ballgame to win,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said. “That thing started out to where it could have been another ‘here we go again’ moment, but the guys fought back. They kept fighting and fighting.”

Colorado jumped out to a 3-0 lead on former Brave Sam Hilliard’s second-inning home run, then tied the game at 5-5 and 8-8 before Atlanta’s bullpen finally shut down the Rockies.

Max Fried struggles

Colorado jumped out to that early lead against Fried, who has now allowed five runs in three of his last four starts, raising his season ERA from 2.91 to 3.56 during that time. However, Fried was also keeping Rockies batters off-balance, posting nine strikeouts, his most since a season-high 13 on June 4 at Boston.

Saturday was Fried’s second start after rejoining the Braves after battling left forearm neuritis and admitted he’s still trying to find his rhythm.

“I’m just not feeling my body in space,” Fried said. “The last handful of years, I feel like I’ve been really good at being able to make an adjustment pitch to pitch and feel it instead of it taking a batter or two or an inning or two innings, I’ve been good at being able to make that adjustment pitch to pitch. So far though for the last couple of outings, I haven’t been able to do that.

“I was able to figure something out in the fourth and fifth where it felt a little bit better, but I’m still just going to be working as hard as I can to be able to limit that.

Fried said at the moment he feels, “Just out of sync, of rhythm.”

For the Braves, having Fried find that rhythm will be a key as the team is just starting its 10-game road trip to Colorado, San Francisco, and the Los Angeles Angels.

Checking in on Kelenic

While he went 0-for-4 in Saturday’s win, Jarred Kelenic registered a 3-for-4 night on Friday, pushing his batting average since July 1 to .167, the third-lowest average among 151 MLB qualifiers.

Acquired from the Seattle Mariners on December 3 as part of a five-player deal, Kelenic has yet to find his stride in a Braves uniform. However, Snitker believes that the season-ending injury to Ronald Acuña Jr. has had an impact on the expectations surrounding Kelenic as well.

“You know what? He’s holding his own,” Snitker said. “We asked a lot of that kid. We kind of were forced to throw him into that leadoff role (right after Acuña’s injury), which is asking a lot.

I think if things would have stayed the way we broke camp and he was hitting number nine in front of Ronald, I think you’d look at him thinking, ‘Man, he’s having a really nice year’ and he has for somebody in his first full year here and coming into our club. I think he’s holding his own really good.”

Having just turned 25 on July 16, Kelenic has already had to fight through questions about his future after struggling through 252 games over three seasons in Seattle. However, in Atlanta, it’s been hoped that a change of environment will eventually lead to the former sixth overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft to flash his talents at the plate.

“He’s going through a lot. He’s learning a lot. He’s doing probably what we wanted him to do,” Snitker said. “We didn’t intend for him to have a lot of responsibility in this lineup. We just kind of wanted him to exist down there (at the bottom of the order) and do his thing. I think he has handled it really well.”

After Saturday’s performance, Kelenic is slashing .236/.290/.406 with 13 homers and 34 RBI. While the numbers may not be eye-popping, Snitker calls it a “solid year” for Kelenic, who is under team control through the 2028 season.