There have been too many games like this one, already.
For the third time this season, the Atlanta Braves had a chance to reach .500 and for the third time this season, they failed to do so. This time, their late comeback bid fell short as the Pittsburgh Pirates held on to a 3-2 win over the Braves.
Austin Riley was the second batter in this game for the Braves and he delivered the first hit of the game for Atlanta. I hope y’all enjoyed and cherished that hit, because it was the only hit that the Braves would get off of Bailey Falter until the sixth inning. Atlanta’s lineup once again pulled another early-game disappearing act as the lineup was unable to get any type of rally going while Falter was out there.
In fact, Falter ended up finishing his start with six innigns pitched and just two hits allowed with two walks and three strikeouts. The Braves just couldn’t figure out Falter at all and this became yet another case of Atlanta needing to pull off a late-game comeback if they were going to leave the ballpark as the winners in this one.
Meanwhile, Bryce Elder had a decent start on his own but it was a case where he needed to be “great” rather than “good” since Atlanta’s lineup wasn’t giving him much help out there. The high point for Elder in this one was when he struck out the side in the second inning. However, he went out there in the third inning and left a slider in the zone for Alexander Canario to swing on and go opposite field into the seats above the big wall in right field for a go-ahead solo home run.
The Pirates had the fewest homers in the NL heading into this series, Canario only had three homers to his name for his entire career before this moment and Canario himself was a late addition to the lineup to begin with. None of that mattered, as any time you’re given an 85-mph gift from Bryce Elder, you’ve absolutely got to take it.
Nick Allen delivered Atlanta’s second hit of the game in the fifth inning but that’s all the Braves had going for them in the early-and-middle portion of this game, as they continued to scuffle as a unit. Once the sixth inning rolled around, the Pirates did some more damage after the Braves went down in order in the top of the sixth inning. With one out in the sixth inning, Elder served up what was classified as a “sinker” by MLB Gameday to Jared Triolo. Whatever it was, it was in the upper-middle portion of the zone and Triolo got all of it in order to hit his first homer of the 2025 season.
Shortly after that, Bryan Reynolds hit a two-out single and was brought home by Andrew McCutchen, who came inches away from hitting what would’ve been the third homer of the game for the Pirates off of Elder. Again — this team came into this game having hit 26 home runs all season. So while Elder only gave up three runs over six innings in this one while striking out eight, getting hit this hard by an offense of this caliber isn’t exactly a good sign!
With that being said, giving up three runs in any given game shouldn’t be a cause for serious concern but on this night it was because Atlanta’s offense clearly did not make the trip to Pittsburgh. Once Bailey Falter exited the game ahead of the seventh inning, not much changed. To let you know how bad the Braves offense was in this one, even when Alex Verdugo entered as a pinch-hitter, he did so with a strike already on the board against him because the Braves didn’t get him in the batter’s box in time so there was an auto-strike on the board before the Pirates eventually made a pitching change. Verdugo eventually struck out as the Braves remained scoreless after seven innings.
The eighth inning saw what was equal to an offensive explosion on any other night, as Atlanta actually picked up multiple hits in one inning! Nick Allen’s hit in this inning meant that he had two of Atlanta’s three hits to that point (which is a collection of words I never thought I’d type when it came to talking about the Braves) and then Austin Riley joined him on the basepaths with a single of his own. However, this ended up amounting to nothing as Marcell Ozuna struck out on three pitches before Matt Olson also struck out against David Bednar to end the inning without any damage being done to the scoreboard for Atlanta.
Once again, we didn’t see Atlanta’s lineup show some serious life until the very late stages of this one. Eli White led off the ninth inning against Dennis Santana with a triple and Michael Harris II was able to bring him in with a sacrifice fly in order to ensure that Atlanta didn’t get shutout in this one. Alex Verdugo hit a two-out single which led to Drake Baldwin bringing him home with an RBI single to make it 3-2.
That brought Ozzie Albies to the plate with Baldwin being the potential tying run. Unfortunately, Albies completed an 0-for-5 night as the leadoff hitter with a harmless fly ball to center to end the game.
You can talk about the “new manager bounce” all you want but this was still an ugly loss for the Braves. Bryce Elder wasn’t horrible but giving up two homers (and it was very nearly three homers) against this crew in a single game is not great at all. Still, you can’t blame Elder too much for this one as the offense just was not anywhere near good enough to get the job done in this one. Hopefully they’ll be able to bounce back with a win tomorrow afternoon starting at 3:15 p.m. ET.