Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishATLANTA — The Atlanta Braves know that no MLB team has made the postseason after losing its first seven games in a season, nor has any team done it after starting 5-13. But with a three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins, the Braves showed why they believe they can be the first to earn the distinction on both counts.Matt Olson’s two-run homer in the first inning set the tone quickly Sunday in a 6-2 win at Truist Park that gave the Braves an 8-6 record since their abysmal 0-7 start. They’re 3-0 since calling up Alex Verdugo, who signed with the Braves in the last week of spring training and is now batting leadoff and playing left field.“It was a good series to be able to get the comeback win the first night and then the last couple days get contributions from everybody,” Olson said. “Really good. Felt like good at-bats. And yeah, hopefully it’s something we’ll keep rolling.”Olson referenced a five-run eighth inning that lifted the Braves to a 6-4 win in the series opener Friday.
Grant Holmes limited the Twins to four hits and one run in 5 2/3 innings. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)“This team is resilient and fights to the end,” said Michael Harris II, who had a tying two-run single in that eighth inning Friday, and a mammoth, 446-foot tying homer in the sixth inning of Saturday’s 4-3 win. This after Harris was 0-for-4 with four strikeouts Wednesday while batting leadoff in the Braves’ 19-strikeout loss at Toronto.“Just understanding that it’s a long season, we know what group of guys we have, the faith we have in each other, and we know where this team can be,” Harris said, “and thinking towards the end of the season, the position we can be in. So, it’s not really thinking too much about how we started, but just knowing how we can finish.”Verdugo’s provides a sparkVerdugo lined out deep twice in his Braves debut, went 4-for-5 with two doubles and a game-winning RBI on Saturday, and had one of the three consecutive singles in the second inning Sunday when Atlanta extended its lead to 3-0.The veteran outfielder has been busy making his presence felt.“He’s great — good energy,” Olson said. “Obviously been around, done it a while, has pro at-bats. He’s come in and said he likes being in that leadoff spot and jumped right in.”Batting atop the order in his first three Braves games, Verdugo has hit .357 with an .857 OPS and one strikeout. Harris is happy to have the left-handed-hitting veteran in the leadoff spot and sharing pointers on opposing pitchers with Harris during games.“Really nice,” Harris said of Verdugo’s immediate impact. “He’s getting on base and putting good swings on. So it’s good to have him in this lineup and on this team now.”Home resetThe Braves’ sweep of the Twins came on the heels of what seemed a nadir — the finale at Toronto, where Atlanta batters came within one strikeout of tying an MLB record for a nine-inning game.“You know, sometimes just chalk it up to baseball,” said Olson, who had three strikeouts batting third in that Toronto game, where the first three Atlanta’s lineup were 1-for-12 with 11 Ks. “We knew that was a terrible game there in Toronto. Came back home, got a little off day, reset a little bit and we had a really good series.”Olson has a double, two homers and five RBIs during a five-game hitting streak, and the three-strikeout game at Toronto was his only multi-strikeout game in his past 15, a stretch in which he has nine walks and 13 strikeouts.He and other Braves were able to see the Toronto debacle as a one-day blip rather than a sign of things going from bad to worse, as many frustrated Braves fans were indicating was their mindset at the time.“Games like that last one in Toronto, you have to put behind you and move forward,” said Harris, who was still batting leadoff before Verdugo’s arrival. “We came out of this with a sweep. I feel like all around we were putting the swings on the ball, playing good defense, pitchers were phenomenal. So, going into the next series is gonna be pretty fun to keep this momentum going.”Consecutive wins … finallyThe Braves improved to 6-2 at home entering a three-game series against the Cardinals on Monday, but they hadn’t won consecutive games anywhere this season until Friday and Saturday in their 19th and 20th games. That was the deepest the Braves went in a season without back-to-back wins in more than a century, since the Boston Braves failed to do it until their 28th and 29th games.They hoped Friday’s rousing come-from-behind win in front of a sold-out crowd at Truist Park would be a turning point, then backed it by winning Saturday and Sunday, giving them home series wins against Philadelphia and Minnesota along with a two-game split of a rain-shortened home series with the Marlins.The Braves are 2-11 on the road, including a season-opening 0-7 trip against the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. That winless trip doesn’t look quite as lousy now, considering those two NL West leaders are a combined 22-3 at home. But make no mistake, it was brutal for the Braves.Now, they hope they’ve put it behind them and can move forward.Grant Holmes has boosted rotationAny thoughts of moving Grant Holmes to the bullpen have been tabled due to the Braves’ rotation need and Holmes’ stellar performance through five starts.He’s 2-1 with a 3.22 ERA after limiting the Twins to four hits and one run in 5 2/3 innings Sunday, with four walks and seven strikeouts. This was coming off the best start of his career Monday at Toronto.Against the Blue Jays, Holmes was perfect through four innings, didn’t allow a hit until a leadoff homer in the sixth, and left after 7 2/3 innings with an 8-1 lead. He allowed two hits and two walks with four strikeouts, and the last two of three runs charged to him scored when reliever Aaron Bummer gave up a two-run double to the first batter he faced.The sweep and Sunday’s win had Holmes feeling confident about the team’s recent trajectory.“I feel like everybody’s starting to click, so it could get pretty dangerous,” he said.Drake Baldwin thriving in roleRookie catcher Drake Baldwin’s role has been reduced since veteran Sean Murphy returned from the injured list, but Baldwin is excelling in his opportunities to catch a couple of times a week and also DH or pinch hit occasionally. He caught Sunday and hit his second homer — a two-run, two-out shot in the third inning to the opposite field, just like his first homer.Baldwin hit his first while DHing on Wednesday at Toronto when Marcell Ozuna was recovering from hip inflammation. On Friday, Baldwin had the game-winning RBI with a two-run pinch-hit single.He’s been so good lately — 9-for-24 with two doubles, two homers during a seven-game hitting streak — that it sounds like the Braves have decided to keep him on the major-league team for the foreseeable future, rather than have him return to Triple A to continue his development by catching every day.“Drake’s been great,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “He’s staying ready. It’s kind of like putting a reliever in the bullpen that you know is going to be a starter and getting their feet wet. This is not going to be a bad thing for him.”Olson moving upOlson has been seeing good results lately, after some tough luck during the early team-wide offensive woes. He entered Sunday with the highest walk rate (17.6 percent) in his career, and ranked in the 95th percentile or better in the majors in that category as well as several advanced metrics, including weighted on-base percentage, average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage, where he was in the 99th percentile at 62.3 percent.His RBI double high off the right-field wall Saturday was the 1,000th hit of Olson’s career, and made the Atlanta native the 22nd first baseman in MLB history to have as many as 260 homers and 1,000 hits at 31 or younger.The only other active first baseman to do it? That’d be Freddie Freeman, the longtime Brave who Olson replaced after Freeman went to the Dodgers as a free agent before the 2022 season.(Photo of Alex Verdugo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
