Here’s A Secret Behind The Streaking Atlanta Braves: Their Team Meals

What about the food?

If you wish to know why the 2023 Atlanta Braves keep threatening never to lose again during their long stretches of dominance here and there, it’s partly the food.

Actually, it’s greatly the food.

That’s food as in the group meals for the Braves on every road trip, and as in the strong bonds developed from those occasions, and as in a contributing factor for this team having the most harmonious clubhouse/locker room you’ll ever find.

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It isn’t a coincidence the Braves have played out of their minds this year since they began these group meals after landing in cities. Bonding on the road has helped them everywhere. They have nearly the same record at home (30-15) as they do on the road (26-12) for baseball’s best overall mark at 56-27. They finished sweeping the Miami Marlins at home Sunday for a third winning streak of eight games or more.

It also was the Braves’ 16th victory in 17 games.

We’re back to the food.

“Every time we go into a city, we chill, and we have dinner together, and we have fun, and we talk, and we do everything together, right from that point of the dinner to the time we come to the ballpark,” Braves designated hitter Marcell Ozuna told me, and here’s something else you should know: Whenever the Braves travel, he doesn’t have to buy a meal with any of the dollars involved with the four-year contract he signed with the club after the 2020 season for $65 million.

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Matt Olson? On road trips, he also can save money, and he could do so from whatever remains on his Braves’ deal (an eight-year extension for $168 million in the spring of 2022) for stuff other than meat and potatoes.

The same goes for everybody else on the Braves.

Everybody.

In a rarity for an MLB franchise, Braves officials not only encourage these group meals for players and coaches on the road away from ballparks, but they pick up the whole tab.

This is the anthesis of the Boston Red Sox of the 1970s. Back then, Boston Globe writer Peter Gammons heard a player say “25 players, 25 cabs,” but these Braves rent a single bus away from Atlanta to take their traveling contingent to those team meals and then back to the hotel.

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“On road trips, we spend the morning of every game having breakfast together right there at the hotel, and it’s the whole team, and it’s great,” Braves manager Brian Snitker told me, saying this was the first year his players and staff have done so as a group since he began managing the club in 2o16. He laughed while sitting in the home dugout at Truist Park in Atlanta. Then he added with his 67-year-old tongue, “The team breakfasts come in handy, especially for me and the coaches, since the food helps us take our blood pressure medicine.”

Snitker laughed again.

Opponents don’t find the Braves too funny these days.

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They have an otherworldly offense that has crushed more home runs over 450 feet than anybody, and they’re among the top three in baseball of every major team hitting category invented.

They’re missing one of the best left-handed starters in Major League Baseball (Max Fried) and last year’s winningest pitcher (Kyle Wright), and they’ve had shaky bullpen outings. Even so, they’ve pitched well enough for the fifth-best team ERA.

They also play defense. They have potential or actual Gold Glove guys behind the plate, around the infield and in the outfield.

Not only that, but they run better than most teams. Among other things, ranging from his smoking bat to his brilliant glove and arm in right field, Ronald Acuna Jr., is the top candidate for National League Most Valuable Player with much help from leading the senior circuit with 37 stolen bases.

Which brings us to the hidden reason the Braves as Forbes’ No. 8 entry in MLB team valuations at $2.6 billion are sprinting to a sixth consecutive title in the NL East for a chance to win their second World Series in three years.

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The food.

It’s definitely the food.

Take this week, for instance.

The Braves began in Cleveland, and then they’re off to Tampa, where they’ll develop strategy for handling the American’s League’s best team as well as for the definitive places in south Florida to satisfy the appetites and the fellowship involving their players, coaches and support staff.

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“It’s the whole team. It’s always the whole team that eats together,” said Ozuna, mentioning this hasn’t been the case throughout his decade in the Major Leagues, including stops with the Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals. “For the Braves, by the time we land a city, the dinner is set up for us. When you spend as much time together as we do, you learn each other’s habits. You can help each other.

“That’s why we don’t have an ego. We pull for each other, and we’re not selfish on the field. Everybody’s accountable to each other, and we can do damage.”

For verification, check the MLB standings.