Are the Rays and Tigers contenders? At this point, no.
Does it matter? No.
The Braves, who really have struggled lately, needed this homestand. This was an encouraging six days, regardless of the opponents.
The Braves defeated the Tigers 7-0 on Wednesday at Truist Park. The Braves won five of six games in this homestand – and the sixth, a close loss, was a winnable contest.
Here are five observations from the game:
1. During their offensive struggles, the Braves talked about the great pitching they were facing. They felt they were running into some terrific starting pitchers. They had a difficult time putting together much offense off of many of them.
Well, on Wednesday, Tarik Skubal arrived at Truist Park with a 2.20 ERA. If all goes well, he should compete for the American League Cy Young Award.
The Braves handled him. This was reminiscent of the past two seasons, when they regularly made life difficult for opposing aces.
As they searched for a sweep, the Braves scored five runs off the left-handed Skubal over four innings. (Only four were earned.) They homered twice against him. They collected seven hits and walked twice. They were relentless – a quality they sometimes have lacked to this point in the season.
The Braves always will take an offensive outing like this. But to do it against Skubal? That made it more impressive.
“Yeah. And we knew that was going to be a tough ride today,” manager Brian Snitker said. “That kid was really good last year, and he’s having a Cy Young-type year up to now, and he’s a really good pitcher. He’s got a good mix, too. That was nice to be able to do it against a guy of that caliber.”
In the first inning, Ozzie Albies singled home a run to continue his great series. In the third, Sean Murphy launched a two-run home run. In the fourth, Ramón Laureano, recently brought up, sent another over the wall.
These Braves were the ones we expected to see this season.
They might be back.
“It was good,” Olson said. “Obviously we hadn’t been playing the best. It wasn’t the best road trip for us. It’s the cliché of just staying the course, continuing to grind it out. The offense wasn’t the best for us on the road, and we came back here and just kept trying to put at-bats together. And we saw some results.”
2. Sept. 10, 2019.
Aug. 17, 2022.
May 1, 2023.
And now, June 19, 2024.
On Wednesday, Murphy notched the fourth multi-homer game of his career with a pair of two-run shots – one in the third inning, the other in the fifth. Murphy drove in as many runs in this game (four) as he had in his other 15 games this season.
“It feels really good, with as much as I’ve been really struggling for a little bit,” Murphy said. “Having a day like that, it improves your mood.”
“He kind of looked like his old self here,” Snitker said. “That’s exciting in itself.”
After having seven hits before Wednesday, Murphy notched four on this day alone – the third four-hit game of his career. He last did it in Cleveland last season.
Murphy entered this game with only 52 at-bats this season because he missed two months with an oblique strain. In Washington recently, Murphy was firm about something when asked how difficult it’s been to get up to speed with not many at-bats: There were no excuses, he said. Still, it’s worth noting that a stop-and-start beginning to his season couldn’t have helped.
“When you miss that much early, you come out of spring training, you feel good, and then by the time you miss a significant amount of time, you come back and that league’s starting to hit on all cylinders,” Snitker said. “And it’s hard. It’s hard to come back. Regardless of what they do in rehab (games) and all that, I mean, this is a different animal here, and it’s good to see with the increased amount of at-bats, that he’s kind of getting his timing and feeling good again.”
Asked about whether this could’ve been the case, Murphy said: “I mean, yeah, major-league game speed is tough. It’s just difficult here. Try and do what you can. If you’re not hitting, focus on game-calling and things you can do to help your pitching staff. But good to feel like I accomplished everything on both sides of the ball today.”
This game might be a really encouraging sign. If Murphy gets hot, the Braves’ lineup becomes longer.
In classic Murphy fashion, he also said something that perfectly sums up who he is:
“It’s one of those things (that) we got another game coming up, so it means nothing now. So, just move on and play the next one.”
3. A sign of Reynaldo López’s maturity as a pitcher: None of his five innings were clean, but he still didn’t allow a run. He found ways through it.
“Like I’ve referenced before, I think those three years in the bullpen have just been so helpful as far as the experience and the maturity that I’ve gained from that time,” López said through Braves interpreter Franco García. “It’s kind of just those situations where you come in and you have a runner on first or you have runners in scoring position, and it’s just helped me to understand that you need to focus on the guy at the plate. Usually, I’ve realized that if you tend to focus too much on the runners, the guy with the bat is the one that does the damage. So for me, it’s just about focusing on whoever’s up at that time and just executing pitches.”
López leads all qualified starters with a 1.57 ERA after throwing five scoreless frames against the Tigers. And as much as the Braves’ improved offense in this homestand is a topic, the pitching staff’s effort shouldn’t go unnoticed.
The Braves allowed two runs in three games against the Tigers.
Albies had a terrific series.
On Monday, he smashed a go-ahead homer. On Tuesday, he drove in a run with a triple and worked a 13-pitch at-bat.
On Wednesday, he singled home a run in the second inning. And in the fourth, he caught Skubal and the Tigers napping between pitches, so with the ball in Skubal’s hands, Albies stole third. Skubal made an errant throw to third that allowed Albies to score.
“That’s just heads up on Ozzie,” Snitker said. “I think that’s just the player taking advantage of that situation and being alert, being on go. It was good. And at that point in time, that’s a big run in that game – especially against a guy like that that’s on the mound. You’re trying to get them any way you can, and I think that’s just a very heads-up, alert play that Ozzie made.”
4. Albies was a spark for the Braves this series.
“He always is,” Murphy said. “We look to Ozzie all the time to get us going.”
5. Get your popcorn ready: After Thursday’s off-day, the Braves will play the Yankees in New York in what could be a World Series preview. The Braves largely have struggled to this point, but still are a force because of their talent. The Yankees, fueled by stars Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, entered Wednesday with the best record in baseball.
These should be terrific games.
The Braves will start Chris Sale on Friday, Charlie Morton on Saturday and Max Fried on Sunday. These three will give them a great chance to win the series.
And now, their offense seems to be returning.
“I think we all feel a lot better by it, that we’re seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel in where they’re going,” Snitker said. “I’m still cautiously optimistic. But it felt like it was gonna happen at some point in time, so it’s good to see they’re kind of getting ‘er going.”
Stat to know
10 - The Braves lead MLB with 10 shutout victories this season.
Quotable
“I’ve said before: I’ve got all the confidence in this team. I know we didn’t exactly get the start or that little stretch that we had hoped for, but I always remained confident that once this team woke up and got going, that we would kind of hit our stride a little bit.” – López
Up next
Friday’s game at Yankee Stadium begins at 7:05 p.m. It’ll be livestreamed on Apple TV+.
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