Come on, Travis d’Arnaud, just one homer tonight? To be fair, he didn’t get much of a chance to do anything different, as his other three plate appearances consisted of two walks and a hit-by-pitch. But, the catcher’s fourth homer in two games was another big one, as it turned a one-run lead into a three-run advantage in the eighth inning, helping the Braves notch their sixth straight win, and take their third straight series.
After a 1-2-3 first by Charlie Morton, the Braves immediately began to threaten against Nathan Eovaldi. Ronald Acuña Jr. got things started by beating out an infield single down the third-base line, and Michael Harris II followed suit by successfully bunting for a hit — both batters beat out throws by Texas third baseman Josh Smith. The two then combined on a double steal… but it all went for naught, as Eovaldi struck out Austin Riley and Matt Olson, and after a walk to Marcell Ozuna, got a groundout from Orlando Arcia.
The Rangers then struck against Morton. Adolis Garcia mashed a leadoff single, and Morton issued a four-pitch walk to Nathaniel Lowe in his first plate appearance of the season after returning from an oblique injury. That set up this game’s bizarre first run: Smith hit a really weak bouncer to the left side of second base, but it snuck through because of how far over Arcia was playing. Morton recovered to collect a strikeout, but a second run scored on another weak bouncer, though the veteran right-hander was able to field it and fire to first in time. A flyout limited the damage to just those two Texas runs.
The Braves, though, came storming right on back. d’Arnaud drew a leadoff walk, and moved to third on a ball smashed into the left-field gap by Jarred Kelenic. Perhaps thinking the ball wasn’t going to be cut off as quickly as it was, Kelenic tried to stretch his ball in play into a double, but was gunned down at second. No worries, though: Luis Guillorme swung at a first-pitch Eovaldi curveball and dinked it into left for a double (the Guillorme specialty? TBD). Eovaldi then hit Acuña on the hand in what was a temporarily scary sequence, and then Harris jumped on a first-pitch splitter that didn’t quite split and rolled it very hard back up the middle to tie the game at two runs apiece. Riley walked, and then Olson hit a deep sacrifice fly to give the Braves a lead they wouldn’t relinquish; Ozuna followed with a comebacker to end the inning.
After that, there were certainly events at the dish and on the basepaths, but most of the rest of the game was goose eggs. There were four total baserunners in the third, fourth, and fifth innings. The Rangers threatened in the sixth, with their lineup getting a look at Morton for a third time, as Garcia doubled to right with one out. However, Morton pulled off a really good sequence against Lowe, getting him to 2-2 without Lowe offering, and then blowing him away with a high four-seamer. That left it up to Smith, and Morton tied him up with four straight curves, getting him to swing through a well-placed one on the bottom edge of the zone to strand Garcia.
In the bottom of the sixth, Eovaldi issued two walks (d’Arnaud, Guillorme) before departing in favor of Jon Gray, making his first relief appearance of the year. Gray basically blew the Braves away, striking out the first four in the Atlanta order and then getting Ozuna to fly out to center. But, this didn’t really help the Rangers, because the Atlanta bullpen was up to the task, even without leveraging a starter to their cause. Joe Jimenez struck out two in a perfect seventh, A.J. Minter gave up a two-out, pinch-hit single but then struck out Garcia to end the eighth, and lastly, Raisel Iglesias struck out the last two he faced in a perfect ninth to seal the game.
Not that there was as much tension in Iglesias’ inning as in those hurled by Jimenez and Minter, because the Braves opened the game up against Austin Pruitt in the eighth. Arcia greeted Pruitt with a single, and then d’Arnaud went boom, yet again:
The Braves almost made this one a real laugher after that homer made it 5-2, because a walk to Acuña and another Harris single (his third of the game) set up an absolute smash by Riley, but the Atlanta third baseman was robbed by a jumping Travis Jankowski in center field.
That’s alright, though, as the Braves really didn’t end up needing any of those extra runs, and they didn’t really need d’Arnaud’s homer, either, when it comes down to it. Charlie Morton had a nice outing, though it was really rendered nice by his ability to finish off the sixth with those strikeouts. Up to that point, he had just a 2/2 K/BB ratio, but the ability to prevent things from going sideways by taking ball-in-play stuff out of the equation came at the right time. Eovaldi finished with a bizarre 6/6 K/BB ratio, tying a career high in walks he first reached all the way back in 2012. Every Braves batter reached base at least once thanks to those walks, and each of them but Guillorme managed at least one hard-hit ball.
They’ll go for another sweep and a clean Texas week sheet on Sunday night.
