North Gwinnett News

Atlanta Braves star infielder Freddie Freeman can put a finger on when his season changed.

With his struggles for the season being well pronounced, Freeman points to an early morning in May, when he had the chance to bond with his young twin sons as the time when things begin to look up for him.

“I was up at like 5 o’clock, and I had them both in the double pillow you use when you have twins,” Freeman told MLB.com. “They both woke up at the same time. It was like the first time they had ever done it. I was doing like a choo-choo train around the room, and they were just cracking up and laughing. I was like, 'This is it. I’m good.' Then I just started hitting, hitting and hitting.”

For the Braves, his timing couldn’t have been for better, with the team now battling the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League Championship Series.

Before that morning, Freeman was hitting just .195 with a .733 OPS, he finished the regular season hitting .300 with an OPS of .896.

From June 10 through the end of the regular season, he ranked second in the  NL with a .342 batting average and ended up hitting .300 with 31 homers and 83 RBI.

The feat landed Freeman in rare air, allowing him to join Hank Aaron, Chipper Jones, Eddie Mathews and Dale Murphy as the only players in Braves history to hit 30 homers with a .300 batting average in multiple seasons.

A free-agent to-be, Freeman told MLB.com he is hoping it’s enough to keep him in a Braves’ uniform beyond this season.

“They expressed they want to keep me here, and I’ve expressed I want to stay here,” he said. “I love this organization, and that’s all I’ve ever known.”