The Braves hit three homers and rode a fantastic start from Spencer Schwellenbach to snap their losing skid and beat the Padres on Friday night, 6-1.
It’s a lot of fun watching a young player figure things out at the highest level. And that is exactly what Schwellenbach seems to be doing. Coming off the best start of his career against the Phillies, Schwellenbach one-upped it on Friday night. The young righty tossed seven innings of one-run ball with just 94 pitches, allowing just three hits and a walk with three strikeouts. Other than back-to-back doubles surrendered in the fourth, San Diego never had much of a chance.
As mentioned above, the Padres struck first on Friday night with consecutive doubles from Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado to take a 1-0 lead. That was all they would get in the early going, however, as Schwellenbach really found his groove in the middle innings.
The Braves, who had gone 14 innings without scoring, broke through in a big way in the fifth. Marcell Ozuna, who is back with a vengeance after a mini-slump in the second half of June, hit a towering shot to tie it at 1-1.
Adam Duvall followed with a double, Eddie Rosario bunted — yes, bunted — Duvall over to third, and Travis d’Arnaud inside-outed a ball to bring Duvall in and make it 2-1. And then, the impossible happened: Orlando Arcia hit a two-run blast to extend Atlanta’s lead to three. It marked Orlando’s first home run since June 4 and his first extra-base hit since June 23.
Austin Riley plated an insurance run in the eighth with a deep sacrifice fly, and Ozuna hit his second homer of the evening in the ninth to extend the lead to 6-1. Ozuna now owns the franchise record with 77 RBI (and counting) before the All Star Game with three runs driven in Friday night.
In the bottom of the eighth, Joe Jimenez worked around a leadoff double without any damage. Dylan Lee closed things out in the ninth without any drama.
The series continues Saturday in America’s Finest City at a much earlier 7:15 p.m. ET start. It’ll be Reynaldo Lopez looking to wrap up his stellar first half on a high note against righty Dylan Cease, whose 4.21 ERA is inflated compared to what his underlying metrics (3.39 FIP, 3.26 xFIP) would suggest.
