Today's Three Things: Braves Blank Royals in Opening Day Shutout
The Atlanta Braves provided excellent defense and baserunning behind starter Chris Sale to open the season with a win
The Atlanta Braves won their series opener against the Kansas City Royals, 6-0, in Truist Park on Friday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Atlanta had the game clearly in hand the entire time, but the ‘dagger’, if you will, came in the fourth inning.
Up 2-0 after solo homers in the 1st and 3rd inning, Jonah Heim drew a one-out walk. It was a good bit of work from him, too - he was down 1-2 in the at-bat and refused to bite on a fastball in, a changeup in the dirt, or an elevated fastball.
Then Michael Harris came to the plate. Having struck out the previous at-bat on eight pitches, he was clearly feeling comfortable with the entire arsenal of Royals starter Cole Ragans. This time, rather than continuing to run up the pitch count on Ragans, Harris correctly identified a hanging slider middle-in on the first pitch and promptly pulled it into the Chop House.
That was the final dagger for Ragans, who would finish the inning but not come back out for the 5th. He was charged with the loss after allowing four runs on six hits (three homers) and four walks with six strikeouts.
Today’s Player of the Game
We’re going with starter Chris Sale.
The veteran lefty and 2024 Cy Young winner looked phenomenal tonight, allowing just two hits and no runs across six innings. He was clearly manipulating his velocity, running it up to 98 multiple times when he had runners on or with two outs, but otherwise being comfortable to let it dip as low as 92.
For the game, he finished with nine whiffs (five on the fastball) and a 27% CSW.
Something interesting was that he got out of some early jams via ground ball double play, in both the first and second innings. Per Braves broadcaster CJ Nitkowski, tonight’s two ground ball double plays equal the total he induced in the entire 2025 season.
Sale remarked in his postgame media availability that he was aware of how good the defense played behind him, citing both the double plays and some diving catches from Eli White, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Austin Riley.
What You’ll Be Talking About
The offense.
Atlanta finished with eleven hits, with five of them being for extra bases (three homers and two doubles). The heartening part of that was that none of those homers and only one of the doubles came from the trio of Ronald Acuña Jr (0-5, 3Ks), Olson (2-4, 2B, R), or Austin Riley (3-3, R, BB). Instead, Harris was joined by Drake Baldwin and Ozzie Albies on the homer tally, and Mauricio Dubón had a big two-run, two-out double in the 7th inning for some much-needed insurance.
The baserunning was on point tonight, as well. On that Dubón double, there was a play on the plate, as Austin Riley was (successfully) attempting to score from first base. Dubón correctly read the throw going from right field to home plate and continued on to third base, something that the Braves were among the league’s worst at last season.
Here’s the high home camera angle, where you can see Dubón slow up as he nears second to both read where the defense might send the throw and also to pick up third base coach Tommy Watkins’ directions.
Manager Walt Weiss referenced the play in his postgame press conference, discussing how baserunning was going to be part of the team’s identity this season. Despite Ozzie Albies being thrown out attempting to steal second in the 3rd inning, Weiss was ultimately pleased with the team’s aggressiveness on the bases tonight.
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 win/loss.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves take on Kansas City again tomorrow night, with Reynaldo López taking on Michael Wacha at 7:15 PM ET on Fox.