Smith-Shawver struggles again as Braves lose opener to Rays

Starter AJ Smith-Shawver couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning and the Braves offense couldn’t dig out of an early hole in a 7-1 loss to the American League-best Rays on Tuesday at Truist Park.

Smith-Shawver, currently part of the Braves’ six-man rotation, did not strengthen his case to be part of the team’s postseason starting pitching plans.

Smith-Shawver (0-2) was yanked after a one-out double by Yandy Díaz in the fourth inning. The right-hander allowed four earned runs, gave up five hits (including two homers), walked two and hit a batter.

“I’m just not very happy with it,” Smith-Shawver said of his performance. “I got hit early and didn’t really use my pitch counter and navigate the game in a way to kind of clean up some innings. And I kind of made the bullpen wear it tonight. So just not a good night.”

He needed 75 pitches to get through three innings (a number somewhat inflated because of third baseman Austin Riley’s error to start the second) and induced just eight whiffs on 39 swings.

Since rejoining the team Aug. 19, Smith-Shawver has an 8.64 ERA in four starts.

“It’s obviously a few bad results in a row,” Smith-Shaver said. “So it’s time to really just kind of look at myself and just see what adjustments I can make, and just try to slowly but surely kind of inch the gap closer to where I’m making competitive starts every time I go out there.”

The only bit of positive news for the Braves on this night was the Phillies’ 6-5 loss to the Astros, a result which shaved the magic number to clinch the NL East to 13 and kept the division lead at four games.

Smith-Shawver, meanwhile, began his evening by serving up a solo home run to Rays slugger Junior Caminero with two outs in the first inning. Caminero launched a 2-0 fastball 455 feet into the stands in left field for his 39th homer of the season.

The Braves (85-59) countered in their first at-bat, getting consecutive singles by Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson and Drake Baldwin, respectively, the latter of which tied the score at 1-all. But Riley struck out looking on a borderline pitch with two outs and the bases loaded — and that would prove costly.

Liam Hicks blasted a two-run shot to the Chop House seats in right in the third to put the Rays back in front. His 18th home run of the season came on a 2-2 pitch. Victor Mesa Jr.’s RBI single to right later in the inning with two outs and a runner on third made it 4-1.

“You see flashes and glimpses of the talented arm that he is, and it’s just a matter of executing pitches like we talked about before the game,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “You got to be in good counts, you gotta execute pitches. And he had to work hard. That pitch count got up there quickly. He was having to grind through it.”

When asked if Smith-Shawver would still be part of the rotation moving forward, Weiss said, “Yeah, we’ll see. We don’t know what we’re doing after the Phillies series. Those are always ongoing conversations.”

Lefty Brent Suter relieved Smith-Shawver and kept the game at 4-1 into the fifth. But then former Braves’ shortstop Jorge Mateo led off that inning with an infield single, baited Suter into making an errant pickoff throw and scored on Díaz’s groundout.