Braves rally falls short in 9-6 loss to Yankees

Touki Toussaint had a really rough day on the mound and the Braves missed the presence of Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies in the lineup as Atlanta fell to the Yankees by the score of 9-6.

Box Score

The game did not start well for Touki as he allowed the first two batters of the game to reach base before Luke Voit took a hung slider deep to left center to give the Yankees a quick 3-0 lead. The second inning went by largely without incident, but the third inning saw Touki get into trouble again.

The first three batters reached base thanks to a healthy combination of Toussaint not commanding...well....much of anything and some bad BABIP luck on dribbler from Aaron Hicks. Touki did get a line from Voit this go around, but a throwing error on the play by Austin Riley allowed a run to score and it was 4-0 Yankees. Touki would then strike out Gleyber Torres before Mike Ford connected for a two run double thanks to some ‘defense’ from Marcell Ozuna to make this game feel entirely too much like yesterday’s game.

Touki would be relieved by Bryse Wilson in the fifth. Bryse had just rejoined the team and he was great with Aaron Judge as his first batter who proceeded to park an inside fastball in the seats at a rate of 113 MPH for a solo homer. Bryse would then the next three batters reach in the following fashion

Walk

HBP

Walk

and at this point we began to wonder if some sort of curse had been recently placed upon the Braves. A double play did stop some of the bleeding, but a run scored on the play to make it an 8-0 Yankee lead.

The Braves would eventually get on the board in the sixth inning thanks to a three run homer from Marcell Ozuna after Freddie Freeman and Travis d’Arnaud reached base to start the inning. Progress.

That progress would continue after the Braves were gifted a run in the top of the seventh thanks to some suspect defense from DJ LeMahieu. The inning still felt like a lost opportunity because the Braves had a ton of base runners in the inning only to have strike outs from Ender Inciarte and Travis d’Arnaud kill chances for some easy-ish runs.

Luke Jackson would try to stop the bleeding, but a walk and then a double got the Yankees a run back to make the score 9-4, although Luke would end up getting out of the seventh without any more damage being done.

The Braves would immediately make things interesting in the eighth inning thanks to RBI doubles from Johan Camargo and Tyler Flowers to bring the score to 9-6. Sadly, that is where the fun ended in the eighth as pinch hitter Nick Markakis struck out and Dansby Swanson, who has cratered after his hot start, grounded out to end the inning.

After another clean inning of relief from Josh Tomlin...seriously the Braves should start giving him some starts, the Braves had their 2-3-4 hitters coming up in the top of the ninth. Six pitches later, the game was over.