I write this a lot on Sundays.
I mentioned Aaron Judge and Ronald Acuna were having good seasons, right?
It didn’t take a long time for the New York Yankees to get on the board as the right-handed slugger belted a solo shot to get things started. Giancarlo Stanton singled and the moved to second on a bunt single by new Atlanta Braves villain (?) Jazz Chisholm. Paul Goldschmidt singled in Stanton to put the hometown team in a 2-0 hole.
Grant Holmes pitched pretty well outside of that, but he didn’t put many people away in this one. He got whiffs on 25% of swings, and he leaned heavily on his cutter and slider in this one, only throwing his 4-seamer 19 times. I’ve mentioned in the past that his control of his secondaries are important to his success, and he threw moving pitches for most of the game. It was fine, but it was unspectacular.
On the other side, Marcus Stroman was like the kid who comes in to pitch this Little League game. You watch him warm up, and you get a plate appearance against him. And there’s nothing special. But you never really square him up. And it’s a few innings later, and you haven’t scored really any runs off of him. At least, that’s what it felt like to watch – there wasn’t much in terms of pitch quality to be impressed by, but Atlanta just couldn’t do much with him. Stroman went 6 innings, struck out 4, walked no one, and gave up five hits.
One of those hits, however, was a monster shot by Matthew Kent Olson. The Home Run participant turned on an inside pitch and blasted it out of the stadium to right field on one hop. The official measurement on it was 442 feet, but it was one of those shots that felt like it had to be further. Either way, it was a titanic shot, and Olson clearly knew it was gone off the bat.
Another monster shot came off of Ronnie’s bat in the 9th. Down three, Acuna hit one 113 mph and 456 feet to dead center for his second hit of the day. It was beautiful, but it didn’t seem as far as Olson’s. No matter what else happens, I’ll enjoy watching Ronnie.
Otherwise, there was very little in terms of offense for Atlanta, in what seems like a pretty routine thing for me to write on Sundays this season. Atlanta got exactly one runner into scoring position, and when that happened, Olson (in what really seems like a trend for 2025) hit one as hard as he hit the home run, though it was on the ground and turned into a double play. Ronnie’s home run led off the 9th and got everyone excited, but the remaining 3 hitters didn’t do anything.
The Braves will now welcome the San Francisco Giants to town for a three-game set.