Today's Three Things: López Knocked Out in 2nd Inning of Blowout Loss

Atlanta's pitching was going through it on Tuesday, with almost nothing redeemable shown by the staff

The Atlanta Braves were blown out by the Washington Nationals, 11-4, in Nationals Park on Tuesday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

This game wasn’t over in the first, but the complexion and Atlanta’s chances of winning drastically changed after that frame.

Washington started the home half of the inning with a walk and a single. After a stolen base moved a 2nd runner into scoring position, James Wood scored on a Jacob Young single. CJ Abrams then walked to load the bases, with another walk bringing in the second Nationals run of the inning. After a mound visit, López gave up another single and then settled in, getting a pop out, a strikeout, and a groundout.

The issue for Lòpez was an inability to command anything in the zone. Several of the walks were just uncompetitive - Daylen Lile’s RBI walk was on five pitches, none of them remotely close to the zone. The Abrams walk was only seven pitches long because of the shortstop’s terrible plate discipline - one pitch was wholly in the zone, with one other touching, and the rest well off the plate.

López finished with just three whiffs tonight, despite eliciting 21 swings, and it’s a continuation of the inability to miss bats from his last start. In his first game back after suspension for the Angels brawl, López got just five whiffs on 31 Miami swings.

It’s not exactly clear what is going on with the right-hander, but something isn’t completely right. With Spencer Strider likely not returning until after one more rehab start, lined up for Sunday in Gwinnett, the Braves need López to figure it out.

Today’s Player of the Game

Drake Baldwin.

On a quiet night for Atlanta’s offense, Baldwin hit a home run that set a recent-ish MLB record.

First, here’s the homer, coming left-on-left against starter Foster Griffin in the top of the 3rd:

This homer, which came on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, was hit off of a curveball that was 0.99 inches off the ground at contact. In the Statcast era, since 2015, there’s never been a ball one foot or less off the ground hit further than Baldwin’s 438-foot home run tonight. (credit, as always, goes to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs)

Drake Baldwin’s now hitting .310 with six homers and an amazing 22 RBI - a total that’s even more shocking when you realize that all six of his home runs on the season have been solo shots. The sophomore catcher has more runs than anyone in baseball with 25, sits two RBI off of the league lead, and has a top-15 batting average, a top-25 slug at .530, and is tied for the most hits in baseball.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Atlanta’s awful night on the pitcher’s mound.

Starter Reynaldo López didn’t record an out until his 35th pitch of the game, and only after three Washington runs were already on the board. He left in the 2nd without recording an out after a leadoff homer and a single pushed him to four earned runs and 58 pitches.

Long man José Suarez did his job, holding Washington hitless and scoreless across his three innings, although with three walks. Dylan Dodd allowed a run in his one inning of work, and after Aaron Bummer contributed a scoreless 7th inning, Washington scored three runs in each of the final two innings, off of Ian Hamilton and Joel Payamps.

For the game, Atlanta pitchers walked twelve batters, allowed ten hits (including two homers), and had both a wild pitch and a balk.

Atlanta’s going to need to make some roster moves on Wednesday morning, if for no other reason than to bring up some fresh arms. Ian Hamilton might get designated for assignment if they’re not happy with his inputs tonight, while the Joel Payamps experiment could be rapidly nearing its end. Gwinnett has a few eligible names that could come up, although Hayden Harris, Hunter Stratton, and Rolddy Muñoz can only come up if there’s an IL placement (due to the fifteen-day rule).

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 loss.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Wednesday’s third matchup of the four-game set is scheduled for 6:45 PM ET. Martín Pérez (1-1, 2.21) needs to give Atlanta some length while righty Zach Littell (0-2, 7.11) attempts to do the same for Washington.