Dansby delivers first Braves homer of spring

Braves shortstop hit the team’s first homer of spring in the third game Sunday against the Nationals and Max Scherzer. (Video by David O’Brien)

Dansby Swanson hit the first Braves home run of the Grapefruit League season Sunday and did it off one of baseball’s best pitchers.

Swanson hit a towering bases-empty homer off Nationals ace Max Scherzer with one out in the first inning Sunday at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, the third game of the spring for the Braves and second for Swanson.

Minor league corner infielder Carlos Franco added a solo homer for the Braves in the eighth inning of the 9-3 loss. Matt Wieters had a two-run homer for the Nationals off Braves rookie Max Fried.

Swanson connected on Scherzer’s high 1-0 fastball and drove it far over the bullpen beyond left field. It took one bounce and hit the Astros’ offices/clubhouse building.

“I think the biggest thing is just being able to make consistent good contact with the ball,” said Swanson, who went 1-for-3 and was also encouraged by an opposite-field line-out to right in the fourth inning.

“Just some of the adjustments I had made, it’s nice to be able to continue to work on those kinds of things.”

He said the reference was to adjustments he made after being sent down to Triple-A in July for two weeks, and also things he worked on during the winter when he trained in his adopted hometown of Nashville at his alma mater, Vanderbilt University.

He wouldn’t say specifics regarding those adjustments other than to say they involved “self-awareness.”

“I fine-tuned some things in the offseason,” he said. “Stuff that I believe in, stuff that I think will pay huge dividends moving forward, and it’s just a matter of making it more of a habit instead of going back to some of the older things that I was doing that I don’t need to be doing. So I made those adjustments and I worked hard at it, going to continue to do so.”

For now at spring training, he said, “It’s kind of hard getting out of the results-oriented stuff, to just kind of look at the process and realize that the adjustments I am making I’m continuing to work on, that they’ll end up paying dividends down the road. That’s kind of how I’m approaching it right now.”

Swanson’s home run gave the Braves a 1-0 lead that was short-lived as Braves pitcher Lucas Sims allowed two runs in the second inning.

The Nationals and Astros share the training camp and stadium that opened last year in Palm Beach County. The Braves played the Astros in the same ballpark Saturday.

Swanson was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in Friday’s spring-training opener on the road against the Mets on Friday, worked out Saturday with Braves veterans back at training camp in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., then returned to South Florida to play Sunday’s game against the Nationals.

Most Braves veterans will make their spring debut Monday in the home opener against the Nationals including Freddie Freeman, Ender Inciarte and Nick Markakis.