Braves scrape by with another extra innings victory, 3-2 in the 11th

The pitching did a nice job and the offense did just enough to scrape by…eventually

AJ Smith-Shawver came into Saturday off of a statement 8.0 inning, 1-hit outing against the Reds, hoping to keep his momentum, as the Braves were hoping to get back in the win column after losing game 1 of the series in Pittsburgh.

Things started well for Atlanta, as the offense was looking good through two innings, with second inning doubles from Sean Murphy and Michael Harris brought home the first run of the game. On the pitching side, AJ looked great, striking out two in a quick 1-2-3 first and working around two singles to start the second by striking out the next three batters for another scoreless frame. Matt Olson tacked on another Atlanta run with an absolute tank shot of a solo homer in the third.

Smith-Shawver gave a run back in the third, with two walks and a single. He went down 2-0 on Ke’Bryan Hayes, which earned a mound visit from Murphy, but came back with two strikes and then a whiff on a wipeout slider for an inning-ending strikeout. The fourth and fifth went pretty quickly, as both pitchers were finding success, although Smith-Shawver got a huge assist from Nick Allen to end the fifth on a diving catch of a 109.5 MPH line drive.

Heaney worked another scoreless sixth and AJ allowed two singles, one hard hit and one bloop, before exiting the game with two outs in his sixth. He exited with 5.2 innings pitched, 7 strikeouts, 2 walks, and 1 earned run and Pierce Johnson finished the job for him in the sixth, preserving the one run Atlanta lead. That’s another strong outing from AJ, as he kept the walks to a manageable amount and struck out a strong number with good length, as he continues to stack quality major league outings.

Pierce Johnson and Dylan Lee combined to work a scoreless seventh around a double allowed by Johnson. The Braves continued their offensive impotence in the eighth, despite being gifted a baserunner on a dropped strikeout and the Pirates tied the game up in the bottom of the frame, as a single off of Montero turned into a run, with the baserunner scoring from third on an infield single off Daysbel Hernandez. An intentional walk and an unintentional walk later and the bases were loaded for Pittsburgh with two outs, but Daysbel got an infield pop-up to keep the game tied going into the ninth. After another nothingburger of an offensive inning, including Drake Baldwin being burnt as a pinch hitter for Nick Allen with two outs and empty bases, Daysbell completely lost his command to start the ninth, walking two hitters. He then induced two groundouts to Orlando Arcia for a double-play and a groundout, sending the game into extra innings.

The Braves got quite fortunate as a dubious decision to have Verdugo attempt a sacrifice bunt to lead off the tenth turned into a baserunner via hit-by-pitch, but a double play and a fly ball later left the Braves scoreless in the tenth. Of note is that the Braves also pinch-ran for Marcell Ozuna with Stuart Fairchild, after the Pirates intentionally walked Ozuna to face Olson with a man on third and two outs. The Braves got exceedingly fortunate in the bottom of the frame after a sac bunt moved the runner to third and a chopper threatened to score a run, but a nice play from Austin Riley and some really bizarre baserunning to not only neglect to slide, but also to run on the extreme inside of the baseline turned a potential run into an out. A single and a flyout later and Scott Blewett sent the game to the eleventh.

The Braves got lucky again, scoring a run on a wild pitch with two outs in the eleventh with Eli White at the plate, as White eventually walked. Luke Williams unsurprisingly flied out to end the inning. One note is that the Pirates’ reliever in the eleventh threw exactly one (1) pitch inside the strike zone out of his first 17 pitches of the inning. Blewett closed the game out with a sac bunt, a strikeout, and a soft groundout to end the game with another Braves extra-innings victory, making them 5-0 in free baseball this season.

The pitching did a fantastic job in this game to only allow 2 runs in regulation and work two scoreless innings with the zombie-runner, but man the offense was painful after the first three innings. The Braves really have to figure out how to start scoring a reasonable number of runs again, but the pitching has bailed them out recently, as they did much of last season.

Join us again tomorrow for the rubbermatch of the series at 1:35 PM ET.