Today’s Three Things: Atlanta Holds Off Furious Boston Rally To Win Series Opener

Atlanta's pitchers collectively had location issues in Fenway Park, but were able to dig down and find a way to win

The Atlanta Braves needed to fend off a furious Boston Red Sox rally to do it, but they exited Fenway Park with a 7-6 series-opening win on Tuesday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

With all due respect to the Houdini act by Didier Fuentes in the 6th inning to hold Boston to one run after Spencer Strider left the game, let’s talk about the bottom of the 9th inning.

Raisel Iglesias’s 28.2 inning scoreless streak died to bring us this win.

Atlanta was up 7-4 and had mostly navigated the high-leverage pitching plan to perfection - Fuentes was the first man out of the pen, followed by Dylan Lee, Robert Suarez, and now Iglesias for the 9th.

That plan promptly went up in flames, and it was mostly due to the combination of some bad locations and the whims of the baseball gods.

The inning started with a single by catcher Mickey Gasper, coming off of a changeup middle-up. Gasper then got to third on a check-swing double by Nick Sogard. It was the slowest swing of the night (57.9 mph) that produced a batted ball, which came off the bat at only 87.2 mph, but the ball shot down the left field line and rattled around the corner before Mauricio Dubón could get it in. Iglesias rebounded to get a big first out, a strikeout looking off of Andrew Monasterio, but then was got by more bad locations. A middle-middle slider west sent back up the middle by Isiah Kiner-Falefa (xBA of just .070), scoring both runners on base and narrowing Atlanta’s lead to one. Jarren Duran then got a middle-middle changeup and lined it to right field, but Ronald Acuña Jr’s strong throw in held Kiner-Falefa at second and added an extra 90 feet for Boston to tie the game. Iglesias finally got a ground ball by Wilyer Abreu to end it and clinch the save.

The two runs allowed pushed Iglesias’ ERA up to 1.08, but he still hasn’t blown a save this year.

Issues with locations were a persistent theme in this game for Atlanta. Dylan Lee gave up his first homer of the year in the 7th on a slider that hung to Kiner-Falefa, while the second of Spencer Strider’s first-inning solo homers allowed came on a slider in the upper third of the zone.

Today’s Player of the Game

By a near-unanimous vote of the postcast, it’s Michael Harris II.

“Money Mike” went 4-4 in this one, driving in three and scoring twice. And as good as the results were - a RBI double in the 6th, which knocked Ranger Suarez from the game, and a two-run homer in the 8th - the process bears mentioning.

The book on Harris has always been to take advantage of his egregious chase. Sliders down and away, right-on-left changeups, or other pitches that will run away from him and drop off the plate.

That strategy might be changing.

Harris will still expand the zone, but has gotten better about ignoring pitches that are egregiously far off the plate. Most of his chase is limited to the lower parts of the zone and the close sides of the plate, with the lefty picking up hits on a changeup just below the zone (2nd inning single), a slider just off the plate away (4th inning single), a slider just below the zone (6th inning RBI double), and a changeup down (8th inning home run).

Harris’ two-run shot in the 8th was his 12th of the season, putting him on pace for 36 longballs. That’s nearly double his career-high of 20 homers, and lines up to be accompanied by close to 100 RBI. While he’s only stolen three bases so far this season, far below a pace to meet the 20/20 expectation or even the stretch goal of 30/30, there’s reason to assume that he will pick up.

The first is that his lingering quad injury, one that kept him out of the outfield for nearly two weeks, also prevented him from being aggressive on the basepaths. Now that he’s fully healthy and his sprint speed is the same as before the injury, expect this to pick up. Additionally, adopting Antoan Richardson's stolen-base technique takes some time to be comfortable with implementing. While with the Mets last year, free agent addition Juan Soto stole only 11 bags prior to the All-Star Break (96 games) before picking up 27 steals in the final two months of the season. If that same progression happens with Harris, he might finish the first half with eight steals and add 20 more down the stretch, putting him one big weekend away from a 30/30 campaign.

What You’ll Be Talking About

As much as I want to discuss Spencer Strider, who was merely fine with three runs allowed over his five innings with three walks and five strikeouts, I imagine the conversation will likely drift to the offense, both good and bad.

Among the good, Matt Olson hit a two-run homer in the 5th inning. It was his first homer since May 10th, an unusual power drought for the slugger, and that plus his recent slump had some worried about a potential injury.

Olson was seen wincing and shaking out his arm on May 15th, and he was hitting just .128 with a .389 OPS since that game. But the slugger produced two 100+ mph exit velocities tonight, including 105.4 on his home run, and generally looked to be more comfortable at the plate than he has since cameras caught him appearing to be in pain after a swing.

More good came from the outfield duo of Mike Yastrzemski and Ronald Acuña Jr. Each picked up singles in this game, with Yaz coming in as a pinch-hitter and lacing a single to left in the eighth. Acuña’s single was a 100 mph line drive in the sixth, coming off a fastball up and away. Third baseman Austin Riley continued his recent resurgence with a leadoff triple in the sixth, a good piece of hitting on a changeup away that he got in front of and pulled to left-center. (A good bounce off the wall helped here, as leftfielder Jarren Duran ended up chasing this one down in centerfield).

But on the other side of the ledger, Ozzie Albies continued a slump that looked to be over on Sunday (when he had three hits) with a 0-5 night primarily off of Suarez, a pitcher he’s traditionally performed well against. In his defense, Ozzie did have two hard-hit balls that were both defended well, but also two lazy flyouts.

Ha-Seong Kim struck out twice and mustered only two groundouts for his batted balls, although he did have a good defensive game. The gem of the night may have been his aggressive decision to go to third for a force in the 9th inning, keeping Boston from getting the tying run to third base.

With the caveat that Kim’s still only at 38 at-bats on the year after missing all of spring training and getting only two weeks of rehab appearances, the team has a smaller margin of error for his ‘ramp up’ while dealing with multiple slumps in the lineup. I’d imagine that, while his starting job appears safe for now, it may not be that way in a few weeks if his performance doesn’t start matching his paycheck.

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 back at it tomorrow at 6:45 PM, with Bryce Elder (4-2, 1.97) taking on Connelly Early (4-2, 3.33).