Today's Three Things: Michael Harris II and Didier Fuentes Clinch a Sweep for Atlanta

The Braves took all three games from the Pittsburgh Pirates this weekend, needing some late heroics in the final game to do it.

The Atlanta Braves took down the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2 in their series finale on Sunday, clinching the team’s third sweep of the season and second since early May.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Definitely, the bottom of the 7th.

Atlanta was trailing 2-0 and outside of loading the bases in the first (on a double and two walks) and coming away with nothing, had registered exactly one other HIT.

So when the 7th inning came around and the Braves started looking like a rally was brewing, manager Walt Weiss got to work. Dominic Smith got on base thanks to a throwing error on a grounder to third, while Mike Yastrzemski and Jorge Mateo both drew walks to load the bases.

That’s when Weiss started pulling the levers.

In place of Sandy León coming up to bat, he was pinch-hit for by Michael Harris II. The same Michael Harris that hadn’t been in the starting lineup since leaving Friday night’s game late with back tightness.

Didn’t matter. Harris laced the second pitch he saw into the right field corner, clearing the bases thanks to Jorge Mateo’s speed - he hit 30.5 ft/sec on the sprint home - and staking the Braves to a lead.

Shout to the excellent call from BravesVision broadcaster Brandon Gaudin:

And just as pleasing was the radio call from Ben Ingram (courtesy of 680 The Fan):

While things got a bit shaky late - more on that in a minute - the Braves managed to seal only their third sweep of the season.

Today’s Player of the Game

With 73% of the vote, it’s going to Michael Harris II.

We’ve already covered the home run, but I think the process there tells you a lot about the amount of trust and confidence this coaching staff has in Harris to produce in virtually any situation.

He got the hit off a lefty. The only reliever that Pittsburgh had throwing was Evan Sisk, so it’s not like Atlanta was rolling the dice here and hoping to get a favorable matchup for Mike. The fact that it was Mike going up there meant, to Weiss, it WAS a favorable matchup.

Not that Harris has ever been bad versus southpaws - a career 95 wRC+ entering this season - but there’s been talk about protecting him against the tougher ones for a few seasons now. This season, albeit in a small sample size of 86 plate appearances vs southpaws, Michael has a 128 wRC+, the highest mark of his career.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the turnaround for Harris after a dreadful start to 2025. He’s now sitting at 2.1 fWAR, a top-50 mark in all of MLB this season. Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs) and Andy Pages (Dodgers) are the only centerfielders to sit ahead of him on the leaderboards, but because they’re sharing space on the National League ballot with Harris, he faces an uphill battle to be elected to this summer’s All-Star Team for the Midsummer Classic.

What You’ll Be Talking About

With all due respect to Atlanta’s quiet offense today - just three hits and four walks - there was a lot that came out of the pitching staff today that’s worth discussion.

Bryce Elder finished six innings with just two earned runs allowed, coming on two hits and two walks. That felt incredibly unlikely in the moment, as he gave up a leadoff homer to Spencer Horwitz and generally spent too long behind in the count today. It was clear that Elder didn’t have his best stuff, particularly his four-seam fastball, which has become his primary pitch to lefties. Elder was in three different 3-0 counts today, tied for a season-high.

However, this is a new version of Bryce Elder. Previous models would have been blown up for six runs in 4.1 innings and forced an already overworked bullpen to cover more than half the frame. 2026’s Bryce Elder swapped out the four-seamer for his cutter, ramped back up his sinker usage in those situations, and still gave Atlanta a quality start. It’s safe to say that he’s probably the second-most reliable starter for the Braves right now, behind only Chris Sale.

Reynaldo López came out for a scoreless seventh, but ran into trouble in the 8th after a one-out line drive single and a walk, with Tyler Kinley being called upon to bail him out. I’m still not sure what the organization does with Reynaldo López, but I can’t imagine he’s anywhere near the Bullpen Tree of Trust anytime soon.

And with Robert Suarez getting a second consecutive day off after a heavy workload last week, Walt Weiss turned to Didier Fuentes for his first career save. Fuentes completed the drill in 20 pitches, 15 of which were strikes, and with a new-ish pitch mix that was more sliders (11) than fastballs (9). While he still isn’t using the nascent splitter that he’ll need to build trust in as he moves back to the rotation next year, he’s clearly much improved from the too-inexperienced youngster who got shelled in four MLB starts last year.

Look at this beautiful slider to seal the win.

No deep analysis here, just a pretty pitch that I think deserves to be appreciated.

Per MLB.com, Fuentes, at 20 years and 355 days old, is the youngest MLB pitcher to record a save since Andres Munoz (20y, 255d) in 2019 and the youngest to record one for the Braves since Mike McQueen (20d, 346d) in 1971.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves are flying to Chicago today for tomorrow’s off day before the start of a three-game series against the White Sox at what is now called “Rate Field” - no longer Guaranteed. Grant Holmes (4-2, 3.86) will take on Braves legend Erick Fedde (1-5, 4.94) at 7:40 PM ET.