By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

More than a week has passed since Spring Training games officially rang in the start of the 2020 Major League Baseball season.

In that time, the Atlanta Braves have won three games, lost five, and ended one in a tie (a Spring-only event).

Win/loss record aside (a meaningless ratio at this point anyway), there’s plenty from the past week to unpack as we roll merrily along towards the first pitch of Opening Day at the end of the month.

First, to briefly follow up on my article last week, Felix Hernandez has gotten off on the right foot. With two solid starts under his belt and Cole Hamels expected to start the season on the Injured List, Hernandez has begun to make believers out of a lot of folks who maybe didn’t think he had anything left.

It’s too early to make a true judgement call, but if he keeps it up, King Felix will be holding court at Truist Park to start the season.

Next, we have to talk about Freddie Freeman. After spending nearly the whole back half of the 2019 season playing hurt, Freddie healed himself up during the offseason and said he felt great when he reported to Florida.

However, he was scratched from a game early in the week and hasn’t played since. Everyone and their mother has told the press that they aren’t worried and that the extra rest is merely precautionary. We’d better hope that’s true.

A healthy Freddie means everything to this team, so we’ll be on the lookout for him to start getting more spring at-bats here in the coming days.

Mike Soroka seems to have picked up where he left off. The Braves lost his one start so far 5-3, but Soroka pitched two scoreless innings in his Grapefruit League debut, scattering three hits.

The real proof that he’s seemingly in mid-season form already is that after the game he talked about inducing a ground ball thanks to a scouting report. A scouting report. In his first Spring game.

Moving on. The biggest positional battle (fielding-wise, anyway) in Braves’ camp this year is that for third base. In which, once and hopeful future Johan Camargo is competing for at bats with erstwhile left fielder and early-on slugger Austin Riley.

So far, both have come on figuratively and literally swinging, with each prospective operator of the hot corner hitting over .300 in this brief period of judged time.

Next, beloved Brave, Charlie Culberson has disappointingly failed to get a hit in 10 Abs. Culberson has managed four bases on balls.

It’s not a stretch to imagine that all of Braves Country is rooting for Charlie Clutch to make the MLB roster out of Spring Training this year, especially given the cruel end to his season in 2019.

His path to the team isn’t cleared for him and therefore he’ll need to start turning heads beyond pulling walks out of pitchers, who are just getting their mechanics in order.

Lastly, let’s talk about the future: top prospects Christian Pache, Drew Waters, and Ian Anderson have all seen game time. The hype may very well be real.

Sure, Waters and Pache don’t have the sexiest stat lines in the game, but they’ve looked good enough to instill excitement in the hearts of those paying attention.

Anderson got into two games over the course of the week, pitching 2 and 1/3 innings and allowing one run. That isn’t not too shabby for the kid.

Overall, with these three, who we already know won’t make the roster at the start of the season, things are looking good. We might even prepare ourselves for their debuts sometime before September.