The 2023 Atlanta Braves May Be The Greatest First Inning Team Of All-Time
It’s no secret that this year’s Atlanta Braves are a dynamite ball club. It’s not like this came out of nowhere. We are talking about a team that has won the NL East yearly since 2018, but this year is different. It’s one of those rare seasons where you have a team with four or five guys all having career years. The offense is historically good. Ronald Acuña Jr right now is the leader in the clubhouse to win National League MVP, and Matt Olson is well on his way to a 50-home run season. It’s been a magical campaign. But what makes great offenses truly remarkable is that they can apply pressure early. And right now, the 2023 Atlanta Braves know all about getting out to early leads. They are having a historically good season in the first inning.
I’ve heard several announcers talk about how the Braves have been the best team in baseball in the first inning this season. That’s not difficult to believe. The Braves have been the best in a lot of offensive categories this year. But when I did a little bit more of a deep dive, I realized just how historically good they’ve been to start ball games this year. This year‘s Braves came into tonight averaging 0.97 runs per game in the first inning. The Los Angeles Dodgers are second in all of baseball averaging 0.77 runs in the first inning. I went as far back as I could, and only the 2008 New York Mets and the 2007 Detroit Tigers come remotely close to matching the average that the Braves put up the season. Both those teams averaged 0.86 runs in the first inning. They were the closest to the Braves but weren’t that close. Remember that total went up this evening because the Braves scored three runs in the first inning against the Mets.
Lately, I’ve been writing about a lot of random baseball anomalies. But this is not an anomaly. This is just pure dominance. If there is any downside to this, it’s not that the Braves haven’t had to worry much about coming back and winning games. Why save yourself until the seventh inning when you can win the ball game in the first? That seems like a pretty darn good philosophy. I keep tabs on so many games. I feel like I looked in the fifth inning very often in the season, and the Braves were up five or six runs. There is an excellent reason for that. They don’t take innings off. They are on pace to be the most outstanding first-inning team ever.