The Atlanta Braves took on the Chicago Cubs this afternoon after winning 9-2 on Wednesday. This game featured two rookies taking the mound. AJ Smith-Shawver for the Braves, and Ben Brown of the Cubs. Even though both pitchers have limited experience, they have both faced the opposing team before.
Both rookies looked great to start the game. Smith-Shawver’s change up was looking fantastic. He struck out three of the first five batters he faced, and two of them were on his change up that looked almost unhittable. Through the first two innings he only allowed one baserunner when Suzuki hit a single to right field with a total of four strikeouts.
Smith-Shawver started the third inning off strong by getting Swanson to line out to right field and striking out Gomes (this time on a fastball). However, he walked Tauchman on a long eight pitch at bat. It looked like Smith-Shawver was going to get out of it when Suzuki popped it up to second base and Ozzie Albies lost it in the sun and the ball dropped putting runners on the corners. The official scorers scored the pop up as a hit. This could have been bad because Cody Bellinger was coming up. He hit a short fly ball to RF but the sun played a factor again. Ronald Acuña almost lost the ball in the sun but made the grab at the last second.
In the fourth, other than a walk to Happ, Smith-Shawver had another clean inning. All three of these outs came via batted ball.
Smith-Shawver came back out in the fifth inning and led it off with a sharp single from Dansby Swanson that was off of Williams’ glove, and after a long eight pitch flyout to Gomes he was replaced by Dylan Lee.
Smith-Shawver ended his afternoon going 4.1 innings pitched with three singles, two walks, and four strikeouts. Lee closed out the inning without any damage done.
Pierce Johnson was a little shaky giving up a double to Happ, followed by a walk to Hoerner with two outs. He was able to end the inning unscathed with a strikeout of Busch. Joe Jiménez, A.J. Minter, and Raisel Iglesias took over from there not giving up a single base runner. The bullpen combined for 4.2 innings, zero runs, one hit, one walk, and five strikeouts.
The Braves offense looked like they were going to get their old ways going with scoring in the first inning. Acuña had a 106.6 MPH single followed by an Ozzie Albies walk to put runners on first and second, but Brown was able to get Ozuna to fly out and then struck out Olson and Arcia back-to-back. The second inning did not give as much hope as Brown was able to sit down the side three-up-three down.
The third inning was no better with yet another zero base runner showing. The fourth inning looked promising when Ozuna led the inning off with a walk and then made it to second on a passed ball. Olson was able to move him over to third on a ground out to put a runner on third with one out. The Braves yet again squandered an opportunity as Brown was able to get back-to-back strikeouts again.
In the fifth, the Cubs swapped pitchers and brought in Hayden Wesneski. Jarred Kelenic took advantage of this. On a 3-1 count, he took Wesneski deep to right center field give the Braves a 1-0 lead. This ball was 109.0 MPH off the bat.
Wesneski was able to settle down and strikeout Tromp and Williams back-to-back and then Michael Busch made a fantastic play on a hard hit ball by Acuña to end the inning. Fun fact, the Braves struck out back-to-back three times this game.
To start the sixth, Wesneski stayed in the game and was able to get Albies and Ozuna to line out on a total of four pitches. Wesneski was then replaced by Luke Little to face Matt Olson. Olson struck out to end the inning.
Luke Little continued to stifle the Braves’ offense limiting them to the minimum hitters. The Braves’ offense finally came through when Kyle Hendricks came in to pitch the eighth. Tromp singled followed by Adam Duvall (who pinch hit for Luke Williams) drawing a walk. After a strikeout to the reigning MVP, Ozzie Albies came though with an RBI single down the right field line. Albies is now seven for twelve against Hendricks in his career.
The offense did not stop there. Ozuna looked like he may have broken the game open with a three-run HR, but it came up just short with a sacrifice fly RBI.
Olson grounded out to end the inning, but the Braves now led 3-0. Arcia and Tromp both singled in the ninth, but no other runs were scored.
In a game that looked like the Braves may need a lot of offense based on Smith-Shawver’s recent struggles in the minors, it was the pitching that ultimately came through in the 3-0 victory. This start was encouraging to see that even in spot starts, the Braves’ rotation is deep.
After this series victory against the Cubs, the Braves will travel to Pittsburgh to face the young Pirates squad tomorrow evening.
