I thought that yesterday, the Braves had enough barreled outs to last them all season, but clearly, that was wrong: Orlando Arcia added one more today, a well-hit drive to left-center that, predictably, did not make it out of the park. A little bit after that, Zack Gelof hit a no-doubter that did clear the fence, leaving the Braves with no choice: they responded by “rallying” late with singleton runs in the seventh and eighth, using a no-man’s-land flare and a ball that got through the infield to eke out a 3-1 win over the Oakland Athletics.
This game looked like another mismatch on paper, with perfectly cromulent starter Charlie Morton facing off against backend rotation guy Luis Medina, who was making his 2024 debut after missing the first two months of the year with a knee injury. It didn’t play out like that early, though, as the Braves could only nurse a 1-0 lead for much of the game.
Morton was dominant through his first two frames, striking out four batters thanks to a tight curveball. He got into a spot of trouble in the third thanks to a well-placed roller up the middle and a patented Charlie Morton Curveball Foot Clip hit-by-pitch, but escaped by once again leveraging that tight curveball to strike out Abraham Toro, and then getting Miguel Andujar to ground out on a cutter.
In the fourth, whatever mojo Morton was channeling to carve through the Oakland lineup clearly waned. He couldn’t get JJ Bleday to wave at a curveball late in the count and ended up walking him, got a double play ball from Brent Rooker, and then walked Seth Brown on five pitches that missed their target pretty badly. Thankfully, Gelof hit a middle-middle cutter right to shortstop Orlando Arcia for a hard-hit third out. The fifth wasn’t much better, as it featured another five-pitch walk, but Morton was able to escape the threat and the looming specter of the third time through the order by picking off the runner at first after a strikeout.
By the time the sixth rolled around, rain was intermittently showering the field of play, and was affecting Morton perhaps more than anything else. After two outs, Morton issued back-to-back walks to Bleday and Rooker, but was able to finish up a scoreless outing thanks to a weak fly from Seth Brown.
Meanwhile, the Braves could only hang a single run on Medina, and it came early: Marcell Ozuna walked with two outs, moved to second on a passed ball, and then scored on Matt Olson’s hard-hit liner to right. Medina then retired ten in a row, until walking Jarred Kelenic. The Braves’ left fielder already had a painful day as he appeared to minorly hurt his leg on a groundout earlier in the game, and then his hand got stepped on as part of a sequence where an errant pickoff throw let him take second. However, Sean Murphy couldn’t pull the trigger on a 3-2 slider at the knees, and then Orlando Arcia did his part in trying to help the Braves set a record for worst homer-to-barrel rate in history, by smashing a sinker to the track, where it (obviously, at this point) died.
The Braves finally chased Medina in the sixth, as Austin Riley blooped a “double” to right. Brady Basso came out to face Olson after an Ozuna groundout, and elicited another grounder to end the frame.
Then came Gelof’s no-doubter of a dinger to tie the game off Dylan Lee, on the second non-Morton pitch thrown by a Brave in this game. Lee recovered with a two-strikeout inning, but the Braves had to go back to work.
And, by “back to work,” the Braves employed the equivalent of a mouse-jiggling program to pull ahead in the bottom of the seventh. Austin Adams, who had some key outs in yesterday’s game, came on for the inning, and walked Adam Duvall after striking out Ozzie Albies. Kelenic followed with a 78 mph flare that broke his bat close to the handle but nonetheless landed near the foul line in right field for another “double.” That brought up Sean Murphy, who swung at a 1-0 outside edge slider and hit a wounded duck that somehow fell A) in between three converging fielders and B) in fair territory. Duvall scored, but Adams struck out Arcia (on a slider right down the middle). Oakland skipper Mark Kotsay then had Adams walk Michael Harris II to set up a righty-righty matchup with Riley. The Braves could’ve blown the game open there as Riley hit a hard, 102 mph liner to right... but it was right at a fielder. Should’ve flared one again, Austin.
Joe Jimenez had few problems in the top of the eighth, though he did walk Rooker before making Brown look awful on three pitches to end the inning. Then, it was time for the Braves to get another run off Dany Jimenez, who closed out the game for Oakland yesterday despite some truly dreadful stats on the year. This time, though, the Braves did a bit better. Ozuna greeted him with a barrel-but-not-a-homer-duh double to left. After Olson flew out, Albies hit a 95-mph-ish low liner through the infield to score pinch-runner J.P. Martinez and make it a 3-1 game. Duvall followed with another bloop hit, and after Kelenic flied out, Murphy walked to load the bases. Arcia then had a very weird plate appearance where he saw five straight sliders, ended up in a 3-1 count, but weakly grounded out on the fifth one, which was also down the middle. If he’s hunting fastballs, that’s totally cool, but then he’s swinging at things that are obviously not fastballs and somehow hitting them anyway, and that’s not cool.
Raisel Iglesias had a drama-free top of the ninth to end the game, with two routine outs to center field sandwiching a comebacker.
The Braves will now get a day of rest before shipping up to Boston for a two-game set, where I won’t be watching them because I will be laden with a baby.
