Jarred Kelenic’s first home run in an Atlanta Braves uniform helped spark the offense for tonight’s game. They eventually ended up picking up a 4-2 win over the Boston Red Sox to get back to winning ways once again.
The first inning saw the Red Sox attempt to get off to a quick start as Jarren Duran led off the game with a double and then Wilyer Abreu joined him on base with a two-out walk. That set the stage for Vaughn Grissom to potentially upset the apple cart in his return to Cobb County but Reynaldo López was able to get him to ground out to end the inning quietly. Ronald Acuña Jr. led off the Braves’ half of the first inning with a single of his own and everyone in the ballpark knew that he was going to try to get a second on the first chance he got. That included Kutter Crawford and the Red Sox, who caught him while he was trying to steal second and wiped him off the basepaths. Atlanta went down without a threat for the rest of the inning and things stayed quiet for both teams for the first couple of innings.
Things changed once the bottom of the third inning rolled around. Travis d’Arnaud shrugged off a sweeper that he got hit with, which brought Jarred Kelenic to the plate with a man on base. Kutter Crawford offered an 89 mph cutter and he threw it in a very bad place to throw an 89 mph pitch to any big league hitter. Kelenic made no mistake with the meatball and sent it into the seats in the Chop House for his first dinger in ages and a two-run lead for the Braves. Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley both got on base after the dinger but the Braves were unable to push any more runs across at that point, so the game stayed 2-0 in favor of Atlanta.
Reynaldo López dealt with traffic on the basepaths in every inning from that point forward. Vaughn Grissom led off the fourth with a single but López sat down the Red Sox in order to end that threat. He then gave up a one-out triple to Jarren Duran and found himself in a bit of a jam to get out of that unscathed situation. Two strikeouts in a row did the trick and López was able to carry a shutout into the sixth inning.
Sadly for López, that was when the run of scoreless innings ended and this was also the end of the road for López on the night. Two walks and an error in the sixth landed López in some hot water with the bases loaded. He was given one chance to get out of it and then proceeded to walk Reese McGuire on four pitches to put the Red Sox on the board. That was the end of the line for López and Aaron Bummer came in to replace him.
Bummer entered the game, induced a ground ball out of Ceddanne Rafaela that would’ve been a tailor-made double play ball had it gone a few inches to the left or the right of Bummer. Instead, Bummer ended up making a kick save that wasn’t a beauty. The ball ended up with Austin Riley and the game was tied. Bummer then proceeded to strike out Jarren Duran and Rafael Devers but it was truly a bummer (for lack of a better term) that Bummer couldn’t get out of that one with the scoreless inning that would’ve been golden.
Fortunately, Jesse Chavez and Joe Jiménez came in for the seventh and eighth innings, respectively and locked things down so that their game was still tied heading into the bottom of the eighth inning. This included a huge play in the field from Adam Duvall, who made a sliding catch with two men on and two out to end the inning in scoreless fashion.
Boston was also well into their bullpen at this point and Ozzie Albies welcomed Justin Slaten into the game by working a six-pitch walk to get on base. Austin Riley followed that up with a single and suddenly the Braves had something cooking again.
After a strikeout from Matt Olson put one out on the board, it was up to Marcell Ozuna to hopefully come through with a big hit to put Atlanta in front. Sure enough, Ozuna hit a bouncing ground ball that took a while to get out of the infield but left Truist Park in a state of sheer delight once it did. Ozzie scored to put the Braves in the lead and Riley made it to third on the play. That ended up being crucial as Orlando Arcia proceeded to send a ground ball to first place. Usually this would’ve ended up in a double play but instead the Red Sox somehow managed to only get one out in this situation and Riley scored in order to give the Braves a bit of breathing room for the ninth inning.
That breathing room ended up being more than enough for Raisel Iglesias to work with. It took all night but Iglesias’ shutdown ninth inning was the first 1-2-3 inning of the night for any Braves pitcher. Either way, the Braves got to end the night on a happy note with a 4-2 win that snapped a miserable three-game losing streak.
They’ll now have a chance to leave town on a winning note as they’ll be back in action tomorrow night at 7:20 PMET as Chris Sale will be facing his former team for the first time.
