Today's Three Things: Braves offense cruises to easy win behind Grant Holmes gem
Atlanta picked up their first win of the season against San Diego with relative ease on Saturday afternoon
The Atlanta Braves took down the San Diego Padres 7-1 in Truist Park on Saturday afternoon. The victory, Atlanta’s first over San Diego this season in five games, tied the weekend series at one game each and sets up a rubber match on Sunday afternoon.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Atlanta scores multiple runs in back-to-back innings late to put this one away.
In the 6th, it was the bottom of the order setting up the big bats at top. With one out in the inning, Nick Allen drew a six-pitch walk off of reliever Alek Jacob before Ronald Acuña Jr. launched his second homer in two days
The seventh-inning runs came courtesy of some station-to-station work by Atlanta. With one out in the inning, Austin Riley reached after being hit by a pitch before being singled into scoring position by Alex Verdugo. Back-to-back singles by Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris plated two more runs.
More on the offense in just a minute.
Today’s Player of the Game
This season’s converted reliever was his usual steady self, going seven innings with just one run allowed on six hits, walking just one and striking out six. His slider and fastball combo continued to be deadly, combining for ten of his twelve whiffs, but he used the curveball and cutter to keep Padres hitters off balance in this one.
The two big takeaways for me are the exit velocity allowed and how manager Brian Snitker used him. Holmes allowed just six hard-hit balls (on 21 balls in play) with an average exit velocity of just 84.8 mph and no barrels off of him. The curveball was the most responsible for some of that soft contact, allowing just a 747 mph average EV against, but his entire arsenal just kept San Diego hitters off the barrel.
Snitker sending him back out for the seventh was big. We’ve seen a tendency this season, especially from guys who are expected to have workload concerns later in the year like Holmes or AJ Smith-Shawver, for Snit to pull them an inning too early despite their pitch count being relatively low and them cruising for several innings.
With Holmes at 84 pitches and the Braves leading 5-1, Grant got to go back out for the third and, despite a leadoff double to Elias Díaz, got out of the inning in just ten total pitches with no runs allowed. Atlanta’s offense promptly added two more in the bottom of the frame, breaking this one wide open and allowing Enyel De Los Santos and Scott Blewett to take the final two innings without pressure or incident.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Atlanta’s offensive explosion.
The Braves accumulated seven runs on thirteen hits in this one, despite only having three extra-base hits. Every single Braves starter got on base, with the final hit needed for that milestone being Harris’ RBI single in the 7th inning.
And while yes, it was a bullpen game - starter Michael King was scratched for shoulder soreness after reportedly sleeping funny - the quality of the at-bats were excellent all day by Braves hitters.
For the night, Atlanta was 5-for-12 with runners in scoring position and had three different players record a two-out RBI.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves look to take the series on Sunday afternoon. Spencer Schwellenbach (3-3, 3.52) gets the ball opposite Dylan Cease (1-3, 4.50) at 4:10 PM ET.