Marcell Ozuna's walk-off homer should have Brian Snitker eating his words

I will believe it when I see it, but the Atlanta Braves are simply not built to be a small-ball baseball team. This is a franchise that once had two of its greatest pitchers of all time in Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux practice the art of the swing in an iconic 1990s Nike spot. What can I say: The Braves dig the long ball! When it is good, this is one of the hardest offenses to stop. When it is bad, well, I don't watch TV ...

The first few weeks of the Braves' 2025 MLB season has been the epitome of painfully frustrating. The starting rotation has been mostly okay, but the bats are quite yet again, and the bullpen is leaking like a sieve. After Wednesday night's loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, Braves manager Brian Snitker touched on the frustrations of being able to only score runs one way: This team can only hit homers.

Philadelphia is a high-quality team, but you cannot afford to let winnable games like this slip away.

“We had the deck stacked in our favor a couple of times and just couldn’t pierce a gap, get a big hit — the kind of things that have been kind of haunting us for the beginning of this year. I still hold out (that) it’s gonna happen, where we’re gonna hit with guys on and win games we should."

Snitker did mention that the Braves are trying to adopt small-ball practices, possibly a result of Atlanta hiring Tim Hyers to be their new hitting coach this past offseason.

“I like seeing that and being able to execute it," Snitker said. "Because it’s something good. That’s hopefully a thing as we’re growing to get better.”

But as fate would have it, Atlanta won in walk-off fashion early Friday morning, thanks to Marcell Ozuna.

I would love to see this team make more meaningful contact at the plate, but this is who they are.

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Atlanta Braves continue to live and die by the long ball because they dig it

I do not want to point the finger at anyone, but I get the feeling this falls back on three players in particular: Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II and Austin Riley. Matt Olson is always going to hit for a relatively low average with his power bat. Ozuna has been a more willing contact hitter over the last few years than expected. Albies, Riley and especially Harris need to limit their strikeouts yesterday.

At some point, the Braves are going to have to accept that the 2021 World Series run was the anomaly, and so might the offensive juggernaut that was the 2023 team. Hardly anyone at all is still here from the 2021 team. Kevin Seitzer is no longer the team's hitting coach for a reason. Adapt or die, Braves. This is not that hard. The team is far too talented to be sitting in the cellar of the NL East.

What I will say though is the same old way of doing things is not being overly fruitful for the Braves. The starting rotation is mostly of quality with Chris Sale coming off his best season yet, Spencer Strider slated to return and Spencer Schwellenbach undeniably being in his bag now. Squandering any of their starts because the Braves cannot score runs is not acceptable, but it is who they are.

When a team's offense becomes one-dimensional, its production is allowed to become anemic.