Today's Three Things: Braves Offense Explodes Against Miami To Extend Winning Streak
The Atlanta Braves haven't lost a game since Tarik Skubal was on the Detroit Tigers
The Atlanta Braves defeated the Miami Marlins 11-3 in Truist Park on Thursday night to extend their winning streak to a season-high eight games.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
This one’s tough, but I’m going with the top of the seventh.
Atlanta was up 6-0 and cruising, but Miami took advantage of Danny Young to attempt a comeback.
After a leadoff strikeout, Xavier Edwards worked a six-pitch walk. And at that point, Miami decided to pounce on sinkers. Leo Jiménez singled off a first-pitch sinker, and after Kyle Stowers flew put (on a sinker, yes), Javier Sanoka ripped an elevated sinker back up the middle for Miami’s first run. Griffin Conine then got his own elevated sinker and shot it to right, scoring a second run. After the lefty Young hit right-handed Brian Navaretto, the #9 hitter, with an inside sinker, Walt Weiss came to get him. Dylan Lee entered with bases loaded and got Otto Lopez (the tying run) to fly out to end the inning and preserve Atlanta’s lead.
From that point, Atlanta hit the gas and got the two runs back in the bottom half of the inning, adding three more in the 8th to put this one away and make it academic.
Today’s Player of the Game
With 48% of the vote, it’s Ronald Acuña Jr.
Ronald’s not had the conventional statistics since coming back from the injured list, hitting .205/.279/.513 (and a lot of that slug came from the two home runs tonight). But the process has been sound. Four of Ronald’s five battled balls tonight were hard-hit, and the fifth was still 92 mph. He turned around on velocity, getting a 97.3 mph fastball and ripping it at over 100 mph. He went opposite field on a sinker and just kept it inside the foul pole for a home run. He pulled the trigger on a sweeper in the zone and sent that one to left-center, with it only leaving the yard because two Miami outfielders collided and it went off their gloves and over the wall.
And even though he’s not performing up to his usual standards, the Braves are 45-18 in his games this season, showing that his presence is impacting how the rest of the lineup performs.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Atlanta’s offense.
The Braves scored 11 runs on 14 hits (losing three more hits to Miami errors), but also just four strikeouts (and the same number of walks). They had 19 hard-hit balls, with each of the lineup’s top five hitters having three each.
Michael Harris ended up with both a double and a triple in this one, scoring three runs and driving in two. Matt Olson had a home run, a double, and walked twice, scoring three runs and driving in one more. Mauricio Dubón went 4-4 while starting at second base for a resting Ozzie Albies, also drawing a walk, scoring once, and driving in two. Dom Smith picked up a hit and while Austin Riley didn’t record one of his own, he had an RBI sacrifice fly.
Even Jim Jarvis, who has been scuffling recently (.211/.274/.298 since the ASB) at the bottom of the order, had two hard-hit balls tonight.
The real question is if they can replicate this against a much better pitching staff this weekend in Yankee Stadium.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, where I went live to break down the contest.
What’s Next for the Braves?
Atlanta’s catching a late-night flight to New York to take on the Yankees for three this weekend in the Bronx. Both teams have announced their rotations for the series:
Fri (7:05): Tyler Mahle (Braves debut) vs Max Fried (4-3, 3.12)
Sat (3:05): Chris Sale (12-6, 2.08) vs Gerrit Cole (5-5, 3.42)
Sun (1:05): Grant Holmes (7-4, 3.67) vs Cam Schlittler (10-6, 2.26)