Behind Acuna, Braves overcome Scherzer, Nationals

By the time the Braves had chased Scherzer (17-7) in just the fourth inning, Acuna was already three-fourths of the way to hitting for the cycle. And by the end of game, the Braves had shaved one more game off their magic number to win the NL East – it’s nine now – and pushed the third-place Nationals one game closer to despair.

Hitting their stride at a most advantageous time, the Braves have now won six straight and seven of their last eight.

Braves starter Kevin Gausman was hardly in shut-down mode, giving up seven hits, four runs (three earned) in 5 2/3 innings. But he had more support behind him than public television. He’s now 10-10, 5-2 as a Brave.

There were many elements to the Braves’ 83rd win of the season. Touching up Scherzer for seven hits – four of them of the extra-base variety – in the ace’s shortest outing since his final start of 2017. Ender Inciarte’s pair of doubles off Scherzer, part of his three-hit night. The Braves’ 13 hits representing their most in a month. A cadre of five Braves relievers who repeatedly bent but didn’t completely break.

But, more than any of that, it was a night for Acuna to make a difficult game against an impossible pitcher look ridiculously simple. And to shine against his main competition for rookie of the year honors, the Nationals 19-year-old leftfielder Juan Soto. Soto’s one hit Friday was a home run, as he became the second youngest ever to hit 20 home runs in a season (behind Boston’s Tony Conigliaro).

“I’m having fun sharing the field with (Soto),” Acuna said through an interpreter. “At the same time I’m always going out there to have a good time on the field every game, every time.”

Acuna went double-single-triple off Scherzer in three at-bats, but had no more opportunities off him to try for the home run and the cycle. He had to settle for a four-hit night, temporarily a career high.

“To be honest I wasn’t thinking about (hitting for the cycle),” Acuna said, “because every home run I’ve ever hit, I’ve never been thinking home run. I’m just trying to have a good at-bat and hit the ball well. It didn’t really cross my mind.”

Acuna also showed off perhaps the most unappreciated tool in his work belt – the arm – when in the second inning, with Juan Soto on first, he chased down a Ryan Zimmerman double to left and threw a straight-line strike to third that got Soto. Well, that’s how it was initially called. Only the tyranny of a review and extreme slow motion revealed that Soto had just beaten the tag.

“Obviously, his talent kind of jumps off the page. He seems to do incredible things every night, day in and day out, it has been fun to watch,” said Acuna’s main beneficiary, Gausman.

And while the Braves flexed their resilience once more – trailing early, building a two-run lead through three innings, losing that the next inning, regaining it immediately and just burying the Nats from there – there was a lone sequence that said it all.

For in one inning, this barely believable Braves season played out in miniature. A single inning – the second – contained the combination of the unforeseeable, the unthinkable and the unbridled insolence of youth that has defined the Braves’ place high above the NL East.

Scoring multiple runs off Scherzer in an inning anytime is something usually worth a small parade. Doing it to tie a game early while taking the vinegar out of an alpha competitor is even more noteworthy. But wait until you hear how the Braves scored their first two runs.

To lead off the Braves’ half of the second, Scherzer, whose control is normally that of a Buddhist monk (only one walk in his last 21 innings), hit Charlie Culberson with a pitch.

Inciarte followed with a double over right-fielder Adam Eaton’s head.

Men on second and third, no outs – that’s the kind of situation that normally just provokes Sherzer. And indeed, when he got consecutive strikeouts of Tyler Flowers and Dansby Swanson – pounding his glove with a tight-jawed glee after getting Swanson – it appeared Scherzer had escaped.

For up next was Braves starter Gausman, he of nine plate appearances in five seasons in the American League before coming to Atlanta this year. Yet Gausman worked the count full, three times fouling off Scherzer’s out pitch, and then drew a walk, the fourth of his career.

Back to the top of the Braves order, where the 20-year-old Acuna Jr. lives. As the count went to 2-2, Sherzer took a moment to knock out some of the sweat that had saturated the bill of his cap. The great pitcher was laboring.

The count went to full, bases loaded, old master on the mound versus the next big thing at the plate. Sherzer came inside. Jammed, Acuna still managed to flair the ball to unguarded ground in shallow left, scoring both Culberson and Inciarte.

Scherzer had been put through the wringer early. By the time he left the second inning, he had already thrown 48 pitches. And the Braves continued to press him. By the fourth, he had 102 pitches and was trailing 6-4. He would not come out for the fifth.

“A pitcher of his stature, the only way you’re going to get to him is tire him out,” Gausman said.

On the Braves return to SunTrust Park after a boffo, 6-1 road trip, manager Brian Snitker was asked earlier Friday to address one of the more obvious warts on this otherwise charming season.

How can one team be as ordinary as grits at home, and be all prime rib on the road?

The manager didn’t even pretend to have an answer.

“I got no clue,” Snitker said.

“You think it would be really, really good, it being such a great place,” he said, looking at his surroundings from the dugout. And yet, the Braves came into the night with a 37-34 record at home (.521), and 45-30 (.600) on the road. Their last home memory had been a nightmarish three-game sweep by Boston.

Forget all that and just relax, Acuna declared later that same night.