Drake Baldwin hit a two-run homer, but the Orioles had a two-run homer and a solo shot, so the Braves lost
The team that wins more homers wins roughly 75 percent of the time. That ratio moves around here and there, maybe from around 70 percent to 85 percent, depending on the run environment, but the general premise is that homers are good, and more homers than the other team is a pretty solid way to win. The Braves came into this game 19th in homers, with a 95 team wRC+. The Orioles came into this game 11th in homers, with a 99 team wRC+. The Orioles hit two homers, the Braves hit one. There were no non-homer-derived runs in this game. The Braves lost 3-2. So it goes.
Recapping the rest of the action seems somewhat superfluous, because, well, the only thing that really mattered was the homers. The Braves got a look at former teammate Charlie Morton, who is on a bit of a roll after a horrific start to his season, and that roll mostly continued. Morton wasn’t dominant, and it shouldn’t be at all surprising to any Braves fan at this point that the damage against him came via a homer from a lefty the third time through, but it was enough. He finished with a 7/1 K/BB ratio but also hit two batters (duh), which was fine enough since the Orioles had already hit two bombs by the time he departed. The Baldwin homer off him was absolutely obliterated on an in-zone fastball towards the outer edge, with the Braves’ rookie catcher showing an impressive ability to hook something running away from him into right field for a no-doubter.
Spencer Strider lasted six frames with a 6/1 K/BB ratio, but again, allowed two homers. The Braves now have the fifth-highest HR/FB as a pitching staff in baseball; their teamwide split between a 98 FIP- and 91 xFIP- is the third-biggest in baseball. Amusingly, the Orioles had a bigger split, but it didn’t matter tonight. Strider’s first homer came on a 1-0 fastball to Jordan Westburg that was basically down the middle; his second homer came on a hanging slider to Cedric Mullins with a man on, and went for a fairly cheap two-run shot metrics-wise but was hit down the line such that it would’ve been a homer anywhere. Strider had hung a few sliders earlier in the game but wasn’t punished for them, but couldn’t escape that particular folly unscathed.
As for the rest of the game, yawn. Both teams failed to score in second-and-third, one out situations — with the next batter striking out. The Braves also wasted a chance where they had two on, none out in the second. At one point, Matt Olson creamed a ball, but it was hit right at a fielder — the only barrel in this game other than the Westburg and Baldwin homers. Strider issued a walk to the final batter he faced; literally no batter reached base after that. Even before that walk, Andrew Kittredge came on to relieve Morton after the latter’s second plunking of the day, and immediately got Michael Harris II to hit into a double play on a smashed grounder that went right to a fielder.
Stay tuned (or don’t?) for the rest of this series/season, where the Braves will maybe try to relearn that outhomering the opposition is a useful way to consistently win games, while the baseball gods laugh at the idea and just push the Braves’ HR/FB higher and higher.