Ozzie Albies Stuck to His Approach and Delivered Against For the Braves

Ozzie Albies had already explained what he wanted to do before Tuesday night's game. When the Atlanta Braves needed a big swing against one of the better young pitchers they have faced recently, he stuck to it.

Albies opened the scoring in Atlanta's 4-0 win over the Mets with a solo home run against Nolan McLean, reaching the 20-homer mark for the fifth time in his career. The situation was hardly ideal. Albies fell behind 0-2, but that did not change what he was looking for.

"I was hunting my pitch, and he left it there," Albies told reporters postgame via Braves Vision. That was the part Braves manager Walt Weiss seemed to appreciate most.

Weiss has watched plenty of Albies at-bats over the years where an unfavorable count could have turned into an ugly result. Instead, Albies has developed a knack for keeping those at-bats alive long enough to find something he can handle.

"He's down 0-2 right away, but he does that time and time again, where it looks like it's going to be an ugly at-bat, and he ends up doing something like that," Weiss told reporters postgame via Braves Vision.

Against McLean, that meant waiting for the mistake rather than chasing the count.

Albies said before the game that one of the keys to hitting good pitchers is identifying which pitches and areas of the zone he wants to attack. McLean eventually left him one of those pitches in the zone, and Albies did not miss it.

The home run also came during a stretch in which runs have been difficult for Atlanta to find. Weiss noted that the Braves have faced a number of top pitchers recently, making the ability to capitalize when an opportunity appears even more important.

Tuesday's win gave them another example of that.

Martin Pérez supplied the other half of the formula. The veteran left-hander worked six scoreless innings, extending his scoreless streak to 18 innings. Albies said Pérez had warned him before the game that he needed the defense behind him.

The Braves did exactly that. Albies helped turn a double play and made another difficult backhanded play, while rookie shortstop Jim Jarvis continued to impress Weiss with his ability to finish plays to his right and make difficult throws across the diamond.

For Albies, there was an obvious sense of satisfaction in how the night came together. He found his pitch against McLean, Pérez trusted the defense behind him, and Atlanta turned a low-scoring game into a comfortable win.

Albies finished 1-for-3 with a walk and his 20th homer of the season. More importantly, the swing that opened the game came from the approach he had already talked about.

And he's putting that approach to good use at the right time, as the Braves remain tied for the second-best record in the NL with the Dodgers, two games behind the Brewers with 42 games remaining.