Braves Hit Four Homers, Blast Nationals in Series Opener
The Atlanta Braves made up for last night's shutout with a double-digit explosion against Washington
The Atlanta Braves scored early and often against the Washington Nationals, winning the series opener 12-0 on Tuesday night in Nationals Park.
Here’s what you need to know about from the contest.
López left after just one inning
The Atlanta Braves can’t catch a break.
Reynaldo López took 25 pitches to get through the first inning, allowing one hit but getting one strikeout. He was visited by manager Brian Snitker and team medical staff after pitch 17, a fastball that hit Andrés Chaparro, for an ominous reason:
His velocity was significantly down.
The fastball that hit Chaparro was at just 92.2 mph, a full 3.3 mph below his season average of 95.5. The hardest fastball of the thirteen that López threw was just 93.8 mph.
Atlanta removed him after the first inning, later announcing the early exit was due to right shoulder tightness.
The circumstances are reminiscent of the final 2024 start of Spencer Strider - against the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 5th, Strider’s fastball dropped as low as 93.8 in his four-inning outing. Allowing five runs on seven hits with three walks against only four strikeouts, Strider exited early with “elbow discomfort” and ended up having season-ending elbow surgery.
We don’t know the outcome for López at this juncture, but it’s not good that he could not continue after just one inning with severely diminished velocity.
The offense brought their bats!
Just one game removed from one of their worst performances of the season, a two-hit shutout against Nick Martinez and the Cincinnati Reds at home, the Braves did their darndest to exorcise those demons.
Atlanta scored seven runs off of Nationals lefty MacKenzie Gore in just 3.2 innings, tagging him for seven hits and three walks opposite just three strikeouts.
The team’s lefties were particularly brutal to Gore (something I predicted in the lead-up to the game), with Michael Harris II going 1-3 with a homer and Matt Olson hitting an RBI single, an RBI double, and scoring a run off of the lefty.
The scoring didn’t let up after Gore left the game, with Orlando Arcia and Sena Murphy hitting homers off of the Washington bullpen and Harris getting a second dinger in the 9th, that one off of position player Ildemaro Vargas.
Eight of the nine starters in the lineup collected a hit, all but Gio Urshela (and he put all five balls into play, three over 94 mph), with the team finishing with fifteen hits and going 7-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Seventeen of the 24 hard-hit balls in the game were from Atlanta.
Credit to the back of the bullpen
With López leaving after just one inning, it was possible that the Braves would need all hands on deck to make it through the final eight innings of an impromptu bullpen game.
They didn’t.
The trio of Jesse Chavez, John Brebbia, and Luke Jackson not only covered the final eight innings, they did it with just two hits and three walks allowed, striking out eight Nationals.
Matt Olson is continuing his hot streak
Atlanta’s first baseman was the other lefty in the starting lineup and saw plenty of success off of MacKenzie Gore, but it wasn’t the only success he had in the game. Olson finished 3-5 with a run, two RBI, and a walk, picking up a double in that pivotal third inning for Atlanta.
Olson is now batting .302 with a .876 OPS in his last fourteen games, picking up 10 RBI and scoring 10 runs.
With Marcell Ozuna in the middle of a power outage - he hasn’t hit a homer in the last 20 games - Olson getting hot could be the spark and offensive lift this team needs to make the postseason.
What’s next for the Atlanta Braves?
Atlanta has one final matchup against the Nationals, with lefty Max Fried (9-8, 3.35) taking on Jake Irvin (9-12, 4.28) at 6:45 PM ET from Nationals Park.