After a 6-1 start to the season, the Braves lost three straight games over the weekend to fall to 6-4. They went to extra innings against the Reds on Monday evening in Truist Park before prevailing, 5-4. The hero was new catcher Sean Murphy. He hit a two-run homer to center field in the bottom of the 10th:
As noted in the tweet, that was Murphy’s first home run as a Braves player. Nice job announcing his presence with authority, huh?
Murphy was one of the Braves’ big offseason acquisitions, as they pulled off a three-team trade in order to get him from the A’s. As part of the deal, All-Star catcher William Contreras was sent to the Brewers and the Braves also parted with four other players. Murphy was mostly a desirable catcher on the trading block due to his combination of skills behind the plate along with his power at the plate. He had 37 doubles, two triples and 18 homers last season for Oakland, helping push him to a .426 slugging percentage and 121 OPS+.
Prior to Monday, Murphy had gotten off to a slow start with the bat, hitting .150 with a .200 slugging percentage. Thanks to drawing eight walks he had a .393 on-base percentage, but the average and power hadn’t yet shown up. Perhaps he’s on track now, as he went 3 for 5 with two doubles and the walk-off home run Monday. He’s now slashing .240/.424/.480. See how quickly one big game can flip those small-sample stats?
The Braves are now 7-4, which is good for first place in the NL East.
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