The Philadelphia Phillies have been far and away baseball’s best pitching staff so far this year. Based on what happened in this series, it’s not clear that the Braves received that particular memorandum, as they hit another troika of homers en route to a dominant, 6-0 win, with Reynaldo Lopez stymying the Philadelphia attack.
In a vintage performance reminiscent of 2023, and aided by some combination of hot, humid weather in Atlanta and what appeared to be a less drag-afflicted baseball, the Braves jumped out early with a five-run frame against Philadelphia starter Michael Mercado, who was making his second career start. Mercado managed to escape the first unscathed despite three walks, as he was able to strike out Austin Riley on a borderline pitch, get Matt Olson to hit a shallow fly, and then benefit from Travis d’Arnaud lining out to shortstop… but wasn’t nearly so fortunate in the second.
Mercado started Adam Duvall with a 3-0 count, then got a couple of strikes low in the zone, and then left a fastball up that Duvall crushed into left field for a solo homer. The ball was hit at a launch angle of 40 degrees, and we’ve seen plenty of those get dragged into oblivion this year, but this one didn’t, easily sailing out of the field of play to give the Braves a lead. Orlando Arcia and Eli White then followed with two seeing-eye singles, the latter of which was bungled by Alec Bohm at third base. That brought up Jarred Kelenic, and he jumped all over a belt-high cutter, got his hands extended, and yanked it into right field for a three-run blast. That ball, too, was hit at the very drag prone angle of 37 degrees, but had no trouble resulting in a round-tripper on this particular afternoon. A few batters later, it was Matt Olson’s turn to take Mercado yard; this time, it came on a 3-0 pitch that wasn’t even a strike. That was it for Mercado, and it was almost it for the Braves and scoring in this game, but it ended up being more than enough.
A combination of Jose Ruiz and Matt Strahm got the Phillies to the bottom of the fifth without any further damage. In said fifth, Philadelphia called on Tyler Phillips to make his MLB debut, and Phillips struck out the side on 12 pitches in his first-ever big league inning of work. He got another strikeout to start the sixth, but with two outs in that inning, Eli White jumped on a down-and-in sinker and yoinked it for another near-no-doubter into the left-field corner to cap the scoring. Phillips ended up yielding a couple of doubles to the Braves the rest of the way, but finished his day with a 7/0 K/BB ratio in four innings of work, which was mighty impressive.
It didn’t really matter, though, as Reynaldo Lopez and the Atlanta relief corps gave no quarter (or dime, or nickel, or penny) to their division rivals. Lopez was coming off a couple of rough-ish, four-walk starts that were calling into question his endurance, given that he had recently exceeded last year’s innings total with his starter workload. In addition, Lopez was making this start on regular rest, though the Braves had generally given him an extra day or two between outings this season. Still, he came out of the gate throwing as well as he ever has, with three groundouts in a five-pitch first, and then two strikeouts to start the second. The Phillies tried a mini-rally against him after the two punchouts thanks to a randomly errant two-out walk and then a bloop single by Whit Merrifield, but Lopez struck out Garrett Stubbs on a 2-2 slider in the dirt.
After a 1-2-3 third, Lopez erred with back-to-back one-out walks in the fourth, but then got out of it on four pitches with consecutive groundouts. He then had a 1-2-3 fifth, and even kept the third-time-through-the-order bugbears at bay by working around a one-out double in the sixth. His day ended with a 6/3 K/BB ratio in six scoreless frames, but none of this was really a matter of him surviving by the skin of his teeth or anything, as he had a grounder rate of over 60 percent and didn’t allow a single barrel. The Phillies only had one hard-hit ball with a hit probability above 50 percent off him, and that was Bohm’s double the third time through.
The Atlanta bullpen finished off the shutout with relative ease, allowing just three hits and a hit-by-pitch the rest of the way. One of the hits was a measly pop to left off Dylan Lee, and after Pierce Johnson threw a scoreless eighth, Aaron Bummer gave up a single and a double in the ninth before fielding a high bouncer and throwing to first in time to end the game. The pitching was aided by some snazzy defense in this game, too. The first out of the game came on a sliding stop by Ozzie Albies, and the Braves’ second baseman later made an over-the-shoulder catch as well. Olson had a crazy trick scoop in the sixth, where he fielded a grounder down the line behind his back. Basically, with the ball flying, Lopez showing no warning signs, and no stupid baseball stuff to intervene, it was a fun afternoon at the ballpark for everyone but the Phillies.
By scoring 17 runs in a three-game set, the Braves touched up Philadelphia’s best-in-MLB staff to a degree they haven’t really experienced much this season. After the Braves thrashed them to 25 runs across three games to start the season, the Phillies have only given up 17 runs in a three-game set three other times this season before this series (all in June), meaning that of the five times it’s happened overall, twice have come in their two series against the Braves. Further, the Braves hit nine homers in three games, which is A) only the second time this season they’ve done that; and, B) the first time this season the Phillies have allowed more than seven homers in a three-game stretch.
Notably, Adam Duvall went 3-for-4 in this game and finished a triple short of the cycle, after finishing as the WPA laggard in each of the first two games of this series. Every Brave but Travis d’Arnaud reached base at least once.
The Braves will now head out on the Dreaded Trip Out West, where they’ll play four against the Diamondbacks and three in San Diego before the All-Star Break.
