Sunday's Braves Report: Ah, offense and pitching and defense, oh my; Saturday follows; a good trade deadline period; news, notes, observations
Offense and pitching better together in shutout
A streak of 24 innings with only one run run came to an end, and Atlanta finished off a road trip with a 4-0 win at Miami.
Granted, it still took awhile, but four runs is four runs.
Charlie Culberson singled, Tyler Flowers was plunked, Dansby Swanson sacrificed, and Ozzie Albies walked. Two runs came in on an error, another on Ender Inciarte’s sac fly.
Saturday’s gamers
Trade deadline good for the Braves
Next 5
Tuesday, 7:35 p.m., vs. Tampa Bay, FSSE
Wednesday, 7:35 p.m., vs. Tampa Bay, FSSE
Thursday, 7:35 p.m., vs. Chicago Cubs, FSSE/MLB
Friday, 7:35 p.m., vs. Pittsburgh, FSSO
Saturday, 7:10 p.m., vs. Pittsburgh, FSSO
From beat writers Gabe Burns/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mark Bowman/MLB.com, and David O’Brien/The Athletic on Twitter (and others when notable)
Dansby Swanson past 12 games: .310 (13-for-42) w/ 2 doubles, 5 homers, 13 RBIs, .714 slug%, 1.062 OPS./DOB
Braves are 4-6 in past 10 games and have hit .227 (35-for-221) with 28 runs, 27 RBIs, 30 walks, 80 strikeouts and a .301 OBP and .645 OPS. They’ve scored two or fewer runs in half of those games./DOB
Acuña with another leadoff hit in 1st inning, this one a mere single. Probably not enough for Mattingly to have his pitcher throw at him next at-bat, although I didn't observe whether there was a perceptible bat toss to irk the Fish skipper./DOB
Don't agree with removing Gausman. He's been their best pitcher since coming over. Allowed only two baserunners. Gotta let him give you a couple more innings./GB
Gausman and 3 relievers combine for a 2-hit shutout, split series with #Marlins with a 4-0 win in finale. Finished off a 5-2 trip and went 13-9 in their 22-games-in-20-days stretch. Day off Monday. ATL leads NL East by 3 games./DOB
Braves win, 4-0. Gausman is a stud. The pitching allowed two hits. The offense did enough, helped by a trio of unearned runs in the seventh. They won five of seven games on this road trip, and surpassed last year's win total in the process. 73-57./GB
Kevin Gausman was exceptional for five frames, proving he belongs at the top of this club's rotation with a postseason run looming. Braves split four in Miami to go 5-2 on this road trip -- closing out a 22 games in 20 days stretch with a win./Max Goodman, MLB.com
From Saturday
Braves entered tonight with 18-20 record against lefty starts despite having fourth-best average (.271) and fourth-best OPS (.795) in majors against lefty pitching./DOB
#Braves' Sanchez: 5 2/3 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K. (57/98) #Marlins' Chen: 6 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K. (75/109)/DOB
Sanchez walking fine as he left ballpark. Snitker thought it probably dehydration related, Sanchez said that might've been case. He'll be evaluated over next couple days before they know if he'll make next start./DOB
Snitker: "I was looking at getting two more innings out of (Sanchez), not one. And he was just throwing so good, I rolled the dice, just on the rest of our offense getting going. Because I figured Chen would be out of the game and we’d get something going offensively."/DOB